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His saying, peace be upon him: 'The generous man is near to God, near to Paradise, far from the Fire; and the miser is far from God, far from Paradise, near to the Fire.' According to the scholars, generosity (jud) and liberality (sakha) both have one and the same meaning among the attributes of created beings; but they call God Most High 'jawad' (the Generous) and do not call Him 'sakhi', because there is no textual sanction (tawqif) for it, for He has not named Himself by this name. Nor has any report come from the Messenger (peace be upon him), and by the consensus of the People of the Sunna it is not permissible for anyone to give God Most High a name on the basis of reason and language unless the Book and the Sunna have declared it. Just so, God Most High is 'Knowing' ('alim) by the consensus of the community, and He may be called 'Knowing', but He may not be called 'intelligent' ('aqil) or 'jurist' (faqih). So, although these three have one meaning, they applied to Him the name 'Knowing' because it is soundly sanctioned, and they refrained from these two names for lack of sanction. In the same way they applied to Him the name 'jawad' because it is soundly sanctioned, and refrained from 'sakhi' for lack of sanction. People have made a distinction between jud and sakha and said: the 'sakhi' (liberal man) is he who discriminates in his giving, and his giving is joined to some aim or motive, and this is the first station of generosity; while the 'jawad' (truly generous man) is he who does not discriminate, whose act is without aim and whose deed is without cause, and this was the condition of two Prophets, the blessings of God be upon them both: one the Friend (Khalil, Abraham) and the other the Beloved (Habib, Muhammad). And it is in the sound reports that Abraham the Friend (blessings of God be upon him) would eat nothing until a guest came. Once three days had passed and no one had come. A Zoroastrian (gabr) came to the door of his house; he said to him: 'What kind of man are you?' He said: 'A Zoroastrian.' He said: 'Go, for you are not fit for my hospitality and honoring.' Then a rebuke came to him from God Most High: 'One whom I have nourished for seventy years — would it have harmed you to give him a loaf of bread?' And when the son of Hatim came to the Prophet (peace be upon him), the Prophet took off his own cloak and spread it beneath him, and said: 'When the noble one of a people comes to you, honor him.' He who discriminated withheld two loaves, and he who did not discriminate made the mantle of prophethood a carpet for an unbeliever; because Abraham's station was liberality (sakhawat) and that Prophet's was generosity (jud), peace be upon them both. And the best doctrine in this matter is what they have said: 'Generosity is following the first thought (khatir), and if the second thought overcomes the first, it is a sign of miserliness.' The people of realization have held this in great esteem, for the first thought is inevitably from God. And I found that in Nishapur there was a merchant who was constantly in the assembly of Shaykh Bu Sa'id. One day the Shaykh asked for something on behalf of a dervish. This man said: I had a dinar and some small coin (qurada). My first thought told me: give the dinar. And my second thought said: give the small coin. I gave the small coin. When the Shaykh finished his discourse, I asked him: 'Is it permissible for someone to contend with the Truth?' He said: 'You contended, for He said: give the dinar, and you gave the small coin.' And I also found that Shaykh Abu Abdullah al-Rudbari (God's mercy on him) entered the house of a disciple who was not present. He ordered that the household goods be carried off to the bazaar. When the man came in, he rejoiced at it, out of the intimacy of the Shaykh; but he said nothing. And when the wife came in and saw this, she went into the house and took off her own garment and threw it in and said: 'This too is among the household goods and has the same ruling.' The man shouted at her: 'You have made an affectation and a choice of this.' The wife said: 'O man, what the Shaykh did, he did rightly. It behooves us to make an effort so that our generosity too may appear.' The man said: 'Yes, but since we submitted to the Shaykh, that was pure generosity on our part.' Generosity, in the attribute of proper conduct (adab), is affectation and metaphor; and the disciple must continually offer up his possessions and his own self in conformity with the command of God. That is why Sahl ibn Abdullah (God be pleased with him) used to say: 'The Sufi's blood may be shed and his property is free for the taking.' And I heard from Shaykh Bu Muslim al-Farisi (God's mercy on him) that he said: Once I set out with a company toward the Hijaz, and in the region of Hulwan Kurdish brigands blocked our road and stripped from us the patched cloaks (khirqa) that we had. We did not resist them and sought their peace of mind; but one among us grew agitated. A Kurd drew his sword and set out to kill him. We all interceded with that Kurd for him. He said: 'It is not permissible to let this liar go; we must inevitably kill him.' We asked him the reason for the killing. He said: 'Because he is not a Sufi, and he acts treacherously in the company of the saints; such a person is better not existing.' We said: 'Why so?' He said: 'Because the lowest degree of Sufism is generosity, and he is so attached to this patched rag — how can he be a Sufi and quarrel so much with his companions? We have been doing your work for so many years, walking your path and cutting off attachments for your sake.' And they say: Abdullah ibn Ja'far passed by a watering place of a group. He saw an Abyssinian slave-boy tending sheep, and a dog had come and sat before him. He brought out a loaf and gave it to the dog, and another, and a third. Abdullah went forward and said: 'O boy, how much is your food each day?' He said: 'What I gave.' He said: 'Then why did you give it all to the dog?' He said: 'Because it has come from a distant road in some hope, and this is no place of dogs; I do not consent for myself that its effort should be wasted.' Abdullah was pleased by this, and bought that boy together with the sheep and that watering place, and set him free, and said: 'These sheep and this enclosure I have given to you.' The boy prayed for him, and gave the sheep as alms, made the property a public charity, and departed from there. A man came to the door of the house of al-Hasan ibn Ali (God be pleased with them both) and said: 'O son of the Prophet, I have a debt of four hundred dirhams.' Hasan ordered that four hundred dinars be given to him, and went weeping into the house. They said: 'Why do you weep, O son of the Prophet?' He said: 'Because I fell short in inquiring into this man's condition until I brought him to the humiliation of asking.' And Abu Sahl al-Su'luki never placed alms in the hand of a dervish, and whatever he gave he never handed to anyone, but set it on the ground for them to pick up. When he was asked, he said: 'The world has not the worth that it should be placed in the hand of a Muslim, so that my hand should be the upper and his the lower.' And it is related of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that the king of Abyssinia sent him two maunds of musk. He put it in water all at once and rubbed it on himself. And it is related from Anas that a man came to the Prophet (peace be upon him), and the Prophet gave him a whole valley between two mountains full of sheep. When he returned to his people he said: 'O my people, become Muslims, for Muhammad gives the gift of one who does not fear poverty.' And Anas also relates that eighty thousand dirhams were brought to the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace). He poured them onto a blanket and gave them all away without rising from his place. Ali (God be pleased with him) says: 'I looked, and in that state he had bound a stone upon his belly from hunger.' A dervish of the later ones was sent six hundred dirhams' weight of pure Sawa gold by the sultan, with the message: 'Give this at the bathhouse.' He went to the bathhouse and gave the whole of it to the bath-keeper. And we have already spoken words on this meaning earlier, in the chapter on preferring others (ithar), in the doctrine of the Nuris, so we have kept this brief here. And God knows best.