“This is no part of your attire, nor the attire of your forefathers.”
He replied, “In their day resources were scarce, and they lived according to the hardship and poverty of their time. But today is an age in which the world has let down its buckets in abundance (1).”
He then pulled back the sleeve of his outer cloak, and underneath it was a white woolen tunic whose hem ended well above the outer one. He said, “We wear this for Allah, and this for you. Whatever is for Allah we keep hidden, and whatever is for you we show openly.”
It was also reported that Jaʿfar used to say, “How can I offer an excuse when the proof is already against me, and how can I demand proof when I already know?”
Yahya ibn Abī Bukayr—through Hayyāj ibn Bisṭām—said: “Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad would feed others until nothing remained for his own household.”
One of Jaʿfar’s companions reported from him that he was asked, “Why has Allah forbidden usury?” He answered, “So that people would not withhold acts of kindness from one another.”
Hishām ibn ʿAbbād said: I heard Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad declare, “The jurists are the trustees of the Messengers. When you see the jurists leaning toward the rulers, suspect them.”
With this same chain al-Ṭabarānī narrated to us; Ahmad ibn Zayd ibn al-Juraysh, al-Riyāshī, and al-Aṣmaʿī transmitted in succession, who said:
Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad stated:
“Prayer is the offering of every God-fearing person;
Pilgrimage is the jihad of every weak one;
The alms of the body is fasting;
Whoever prays without acting is like an archer shooting without a bow-string;
Bring down provision by giving charity;
Fortify your wealth with zakat;
No one who practices moderation will ever be poor;
Prudent measure is half of livelihood;
Having few dependents is one of the two kinds of ease;
Whoever saddens his parents has been undutiful to them;
Whoever strikes his thigh in distress nullifies his reward;
A good deed is only truly a favor when done for someone of noble lineage or of piety;
And Allah sends down patience in proportion to the calamity.”
(1) The idiom “let down its buckets” alludes to a well whose buckets are lowered to draw copious water; here it means that abundant provision has become readily available.