his wealth or its preservation, by taking what he is not entitled to or favoring someone who flatters him in certain appointments. He thereby betrays Allah and His Messenger and betrays his trust. But whoever fulfills his trust despite his own desires, Allah makes him steadfast and safeguards his family and wealth after his death. Whoever follows his desires, Allah punishes him with the opposite of what he intended, bringing humiliation upon his family and causing his wealth to vanish. There is a well-known account illustrating this:

One of the Abbasid caliphs asked a scholar to tell him about what he had witnessed. He replied:

“I lived in the time of ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz. During his final illness, he was told, ‘Commander of the Faithful, you have deprived your sons of this wealth and left them poor, with nothing.’

“He said, ‘Bring them to me.’ They brought them in—ten-odd sons, none of whom had reached puberty. When he saw them, his eyes filled with tears. Then he said to them:

“‘My sons, by Allah, I have not withheld anything that was rightfully yours, nor would I take other people’s wealth and give it to you. Each of you can only be one of two kinds of men: either righteous—and Allah takes care of the righteous—or unrighteous, in which case I will not leave him anything that would help him disobey Allah. Now leave me.’”

The scholar said, “I later saw one of his sons provide a hundred horses for the cause of Allah”—meaning that he gave them to men who would ride them into battle.

I say: This was despite his having been caliph of the Muslims from the farthest east, the lands of the Turks, to the farthest west, al-Andalus and beyond; and from the islands of Cyprus, the Syrian frontier districts, and fortified regions such as Tarsus and its surroundings, to the farthest reaches of Yemen. Yet each of his children received only a small amount from his estate—reportedly less than