ungrateful.” [al-Isrā: 26–27]. So much so that, according to the majority, Islamic law placed under legal interdiction the spendthrift who spends his wealth on what does not benefit him.

He also censured (1) those who forgo the pleasures they need. Allah Most High said, “(86) O you who believe, do not forbid the good things Allah has made lawful for you” [al-Māida: 87].

It is reported in the two Sahīh collections (2) that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) learned that some of his Companions had said—one of them, “As for me, I will fast and never break my fast”; another, “As for me, I will pray through the night and never sleep”; another, “As for me, I will never marry women”; and another, “As for me, I will never eat meat”—the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “But I fast and break my fast, pray at night and sleep, marry women, and eat meat. Whoever turns away from my sunnah is not of me.”

He forbade his nation from fasting continuously without breaking the fast and said, “Whoever fasts perpetually has neither fasted nor broken his fast.” (3) He also said, “The best fasting is the fasting of David: he would fast one day and break his fast the next, and he would not flee when he encountered the enemy.” (4)

He censured the monasticism of abstaining from women and meat, as the ignorant say when praising someone, “He neither married nor slaughtered.” (5) For praising such a person is part of the monasticism that