Miserliness

• Miserliness


  The refusal to give what is obliged according to sacred law or to virtuous merit
• Obligations of sacred law

  • Zakat
  • Supporting one's dependents
  • Rights due to others
  • Relieving the distressed
• Virtuous merit


  • Not nitpicking over trivialities
• Avoiding miserliness is more important


  • With respect to a neighbor, a relative, or a wealthy person
  • When hosting guests
  • Concerning something in which such behavior is inappropriate, such as purchasing a burial shroud or a sacrificial animal, or purchasing something you intend to donate to the needy
• One who makes matters difficult for one whose rights clearly render this inappropriate to do so, such as a neighbor, has indeed torn away the veils of dignity
• This is comparable to one who fulfills his obligations without good cheer or who spends from the least of what he possesses
• Root of miserliness


  Love of this world for its own sake, or so that the self can acquire some of its fleeting pleasures
• Miser


  Unable to let go of something that otherwise poisons them
• The worst person is the miser. In this world, he is deprived of his own wealth, and in the Hereafter, he is punished
• Treatment for miserliness


  1. Realizing that those who achieve wealth usually do so only after exhausting themselves over long periods of time

  2. Recognizing that just as people climb the heights of affluence, death assails them

  3. Realizing the disdain and hatred shown to misers
• The treatment for miserliness also applies to the person whose heart's ailment is love of wealth