and are unable to travel through the land. Those unaware of their circumstances think them wealthy because they refrain from asking. You will recognize them by their appearance; they do not beg people persistently.”

In the second passage, He says:

“Whatever Allah restored to His Messenger from the people of the towns…”

—and so on, down to His words:

“For the poor emigrants who were driven from their homes and their wealth, seeking Allah’s bounty and pleasure and supporting Allah and His Messenger. They are the truthful.”

Among these “poor people,” some may be better than many wealthy people, while among the wealthy, some may be better than many of the poor.

People have disputed which is better: a poor person who is patient or a wealthy person who is grateful. The correct view is that the better of the two is the one who has greater fear of Allah. If they are equal in their fear of Allah, they are equal in rank, as we have explained elsewhere. The poor enter Paradise before the wealthy because they are not called to account. The wealthy are then called to account, and anyone whose good deeds outweigh those of a poor person will have a higher rank in Paradise, even though he enters it later. Anyone whose good deeds fall short of that poor person’s will have a lower rank.

However, because renunciation of worldly things is more prevalent among the poor, “poverty,” in the terminology of many people, came to denote the path of renunciation, which is a form of Sufism. Thus, when it is said, “This man possesses ‘poverty,’” or “He has no ‘poverty,’” what is meant is not a lack of wealth