Islam and poverty

Peaking whilst in the Middle Ages, the religion of Islam has a tenuous relationship with the idea of voluntary poverty. While Sufism has encouraged the renunciation of material wealth, Sunni and Shi'ite scholars have traditionally held that self-denial is inconsistent with the Quran's admonition against those who would forbid the good that God has put in this world for his people to enjoy.

Some scholars have suggested that Islam began with the message of "sharing with the poor and...the necessity of sacrificing worldly possessions", but following the Hijra flight from Mecca, morphed into a political character extolling conquest.

As scholars began to venerate those who abandoned material wealth in order to pursue full-time worship of God, the idealization of poverty grew to such a point that it began to colour Islamic ideas about the nature of poverty.

Muhammad's wife Aisha was noted to have adopted voluntary poverty, Some traditions relate her actions to a hadith which claims Muhammad ordered her "A'isha, if you want to be joined with me, take of this world as little as a rider's provisions, beware of associating with the rich, and do not deem a garment worn out until you have patched it". Likewise, his wife Zaynab bint Jahsh was said to have viewed wealth as , a temptation, and gave away all her possessions and took Umar's 12,000Dirham annual monies given to her, and distributed it among the poor.

The first two successors to Muhammad, Abu Bakr and Umar, were noted for their voluntary poverty. Abu Bakr was a rich merchant but after he became the companion of Muhammed he became poor because of Quraish tribe's opposition. At the time of Abu Bakr's daughter Ayisha marriage Ayisha have only threadbare clothing which she mended herself Umar was noted for wearing a frequently patched cloak, rather than a new one. When 'Umar arranged for to be sent 1,000 dinars, the latter is said to have wept because he had heard Muhammad say that the poor would enter Jannah 500 years before the rest of the Muslims.

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Wikipedia