- A multitude of scriptural evidences condemn miserliness and avarice. Allah, Exalted is He, says: “Whoever is protected from the greed of his own soul—it is they who will prosper” (al-Hashr 59:9).
He likewise says: “And let not those who are stingy with what Allah has bestowed upon them out of His bounty suppose that it is good for them. Rather, it is bad for them; they shall have slung around their necks on the Day of Resurrection that with which they were stingy” (Āl ʿImrān 3:180).
And He says: “Whoever withholds, withholds only from himself” (Muḥammad 47:38).
Imām Aḥmad relates in his Musnad (14) and al-Tirmidhī (1963), on the authority of Abū Bakr, that the Prophet ﷺ said: “A miser shall not enter Paradise.”
Al-Tirmidhī (2567) and al-Nasāʾī in al-Kubrā (2/44) transmit from Abū Dharr that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Allah hates three: an elderly adulterer, a stingy boaster, and one who lets his garment trail out of arrogance.”
Al-Mukhtaṣar al-Iḥyāʾ states: “The miser is the one who withholds what ought to be given—whether the Sacred Law requires it or honourable conduct dictates it. Whoever fulfils the legal obligations and the demands of upright character is absolved of miserliness.”
- Miserliness is a malady whose causes are twofold:
a) The love of sensual desires that can be reached only through wealth;
b) The love of wealth itself, whereby those desires are satisfied until the desires and needs are forgotten and the wealth becomes beloved for its own sake.
The cure for these desires is contentment with little, patience, and the certain knowledge that Allah alone is the Provider. One should then reflect on the worldly outcomes of miserliness, for the hoarder of wealth is inevitably struck by calamities against his will.
- People fall into three categories: extravagance, parsimony, and moderation. The first two are blameworthy, while the third is praiseworthy.
Extravagance is to exceed the proper bounds in permissible expenditures or in