that the beggar will come on the Day of Resurrection with not even a shred of flesh on his face—may Allah protect us—his bare bone showing before everyone in that momentous, public gathering.

The Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, pledged allegiance to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that they would never ask people for anything. If the whip of any one of them fell from his mount, he would not say to another, “Hand me the whip”; rather, he would dismount and pick it up himself.

A person whom Allah has honored with wealth and self-restraint does not fully grasp the humiliation of begging until he is made to grovel before a fellow creature. How can you extend your hand to someone who is your equal and say, “Give me”? “If you ask, then ask Allah; and if you seek help, seek it from Allah.”

As for the fifth trait, it is his statement: “maintaining ties.”

Maintaining ties means upholding the bonds that Allah has ordered to be upheld, starting with the closest relatives and moving outward. Foremost are the parents, for keeping ties with them is both dutifulness and kinship. Each relative’s right to your attention is proportionate to his closeness: your brother’s claim is stronger than your uncle’s, your uncle’s stronger than that of your great-uncle, and so on, each degree taking precedence over the next.

In the Qur’an and Sunnah the command to maintain family ties is left unqualified. Any term that the revealed texts leave unqualified is judged according to common practice: whatever people customarily regard as fulfilling kinship is legally considered so. This naturally varies with persons, circumstances, times, and places. For example, if your relative is affluent, healthy, and known not to need anything, then visiting him once every month or six weeks—something of that order—counts in our society as keeping family ties, because, praise be to Allah, people today are largely self-sufficient and not dependent upon one another. But if that