Page:Tales from the Gulistan (1928).pdf/253

Story CLXXII hungry bowels have but little strength, an empty hand can afford no liberality, shackled feet cannot walk, and no good can come from an hungry belly. He sleeps troubled in the night who has no support for the morrow. The ant collects in summer a subsistence for spending the winter in ease.

"Freedom from care and destitution are not joined together, and comfort in poverty is an impossibility. A man [who is rich] is engaged in his evening devotions, whilst another [who is poor] is looking for his evening meal. How can they resemble each other? He who possesses means is engaged in worship; whose means are scattered, his heart is distracted.

"The worship of those who are comfortable is more likely to meet with acceptance; their minds being more attentive and not distracted or scattered. Having a secure income, they may attend to devotion. The Arab says: I take refuge with Allah against base poverty, and neighbours whom I do not love. There is also a tradition: Poverty is blackness of face in both worlds."

He retorted by asking me whether I had heard the Prophet's saying: Poverty is my glory.

I replied: "Hush! The Prince of the World alluded to the poverty of warriors in the battlefield of acquiescence, and of submission to the arrow of destiny; not to those who don the patched garb of righteousness, but sell the doles of food given them as alms. O drum of high sound and nothing within, what wilt thou do without means when the struggle comes? Turn away the face of greed from people if thou art a man, trust not the rosary of one thousand beads in thy hand.

"A Dervish without Ma'rifet rests not until his poverty culminates in unbelief; for poverty is almost infidelity, because a nude person cannot be clothed without money, nor a prisoner