457 – Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd related to me; Shababa ibn Sawwār related to us; Abu Bakr al-Hudhalī related to us. He said: “I heard al-Hasan say—this was after Ibn al-Ahtam had died, and al-Hasan had visited him secretly during his illness. When the man passed away al-Hasan declared:
‘By Allah, this palace of yours! From it the doors of princes have been repaired, yet by it the houses of the All-Merciful have been allowed to crumble. Now that the decree of Allah has descended upon it, tell me, O Abu So-and-so, what do you think of one hundred thousand dirhams in this chest?’ He pointed to a chest in the courtyard of the house. ‘No family tie has ever been strengthened through it, nor has any zakah been paid from it.’
The visitor asked, ‘For whom, then, were you accumulating it?’
He answered, ‘By Allah, I was keeping it for the shocks of time, the harshness of the ruler, and to vie with my kinsfolk.’
Al-Hasan thereupon struck one hand against the other and exclaimed, ‘We belong to Allah! Look at him—his devil came and frightened him with the perils of his age and the harshness of his ruler, diverting him from the purpose for which Allah had entrusted him with that wealth. He left this world mournful and despoiled: no kinship was fostered by it and no zakah was paid from it.’
He then said ⦗642⦘: ‘Now it has reached you, O heir. Do not grieve as your companion grieved before you. This money has come to you lawfully; beware lest it become a burden upon you. Your brow never sweated for it, nor did your right hand toil to earn it. Beware lest you become one who hoards and withholds: gathering it through falsehood and denying it its rightful due, piling it up, increasing it, multiplying it, yet never paying zakah on it.’
Al-Hasan continued: ‘Beware the Day of Resurrection, for it is a day of bitter regrets. Do you know how that is? A man to whom Allah grants wealth, but he is too stingy to spend it where Allah has rights; Allah then bequeaths it to an heir who spends it in ways that do not please Allah. Thus the wealth of the first ends up in the scale of the second. Alas for a stumble that can never be set right and a calamity that can never be undone!’