all to nurture lofty aspirations and a spirit of dignity, for he ﷺ declared, “The upper hand is better than the lower hand; the upper hand is the one that gives, whereas the lower hand is the one that asks.” (1)

On this occasion I recall something I once read about certain Sufi ascetics—though I shall not prolong the discussion, for their stories are many and strange. They allege that one of them set out roaming the earth without carrying any provisions. Matters deteriorated until he was on the brink of death from hunger, when he saw a village in the distance and headed toward it. It happened to be Friday, and—so he claimed—he had departed trusting in Allah alone. Lest he undermine what he fancied to be reliance on Allah, he refused to show himself to the worshippers in the mosque. Instead, he crouched beneath the pulpit so that no one would notice him, yet he kept hoping that someone might somehow sense his presence. The preacher delivered the sermon while this man did not join the congregation in prayer! When the imam concluded the sermon and the prayer, the people began streaming out of the mosque in groups and singly through its doors. The man then realized the mosque was about to be emptied; the doors would be locked, leaving him alone inside with neither food nor drink. He therefore had no option but to