2. SELF-RESTRAINT (QANA’A) FROM WANTING WORLDLY WEALTH IS IN FACT PROTECTION OF KNOWLEDGE AND ITS SCHOLARS
I found many from the wealthy people use the scholars and try to humiliate them by giving them pittance from their charitable wealth. If someone has khatamah (an event when recitation of the Qur’an is completed), he says: ‘so and so scholar did not turn up.’ If someone among the wealthy becomes ill, he says: ‘so and so scholar did not pay a visit.’ Every favour upon him is a small thing which entails giving him back the same. The scholars have become satisfied here because of the necessity.
I saw this ignorance on part of the scholars because it is compulsory for them to protect the status of knowledge (siyana al-‘ilm). The remedy for this is of two kinds.
The first kind requires one to be satisfied with the little (qanaa bi’l-yasir), as it is said that one who is content with vinegar and vegetables, then no one can enslave him.
The second kind is to divert some of the time engaged in the service of knowledge (khidma al-‘ilm) to earning wealth instead. This will be a means of honouring the sacred knowledge (izaz al-ilni). This is better than spending the whole time in acquiring knowledge, accompanied with forbearing this humiliation.
One who has given the same thoughts as I have, and he has self-esteem, then he has considered his sustenance and treasured what is with him— or he has worked hard in earning what suffices him. One, who has not held his self-esteem high, by falling into these things, has not been privileged with knowledge except its outward appearance, devoid of its meaning.
(Source: al-Hafiz Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-jawzl [d. 597AH] “CAPTURED THOUGHTS being” a translation of his masterpiece ‘Sayd al-K hatir)
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