Forty Gems of Beauty — Page 147
147 Explanatory Notes Of all the possible ills arising out of poverty, destitution, mendicancy, low-spiritedness, and the habit of depending for livelihood on others are the worst which generally take hold of the poor. When a destitute person sees the rich living in affluence, he falls prey, on the one hand, to low-spiritedness and to an inferiority complex and, on the other, he falls into the habit of begging doles of the rich to improve his own circumstances. Our chief (May peace and blessings of Allah be on him), through his far-sightedness, apprehended this possible danger and his soul would not feel at rest until he had found a solution to this threat. His commands, accordingly, are replete with observations that show his abhorrence of begging, they bid the poor to work for their living and forbid them to beg. The Hadith under review is one of the many on the subject. In this Hadith, the Holy Prophet (May peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) says that while it is the duty of the rich to help their poor brethren, the poor should, however, refrain from begging and behave with dignity. In order to create among them a feeling of self-respect, he observes ‘the upper hand [i. e. , the hand of the donor] is better than the lower hand [the hand of the receiver]. ’ In this brief sentence, he has in fact infused such a strong spirit of self-respect and dignity, which would take quite a few volumes to explain in detail. The holy body of his companions accorded this observation of the Holy Prophet (May peace and blessings of Allah be on him) the utmost respect. In this connection, Hadrat H ak i m bin H iz a m (May Allah be pleased with him) says that after this command of the Holy Prophet (May peace and blessings of Allah be on him), he never accepted help from anybody. He was assigned a fixed stipend by the Khalifah , but he always turned it down on the grounds that he would not let down his hand that the Holy Prophet (May peace and