Al-Ghazali: On Poverty and Abstinence

Book 34;

The Book of Poverty and Abstinence is the thirty-fourth chapter of The Revival of the Religions Sciences. It falls in the section dealing with the virtues. Ghazali gives definitions of what real poverty and abstinence should be and how the poor should conduct themselves. He goes on to describe poverty that has no virtue and which is based on greed and love of the world. For Ghazali, the virtues of real poverty and abstinence are closely linked with patience, contentment, lack of worldliness, asceticism, trust and surrender to God.