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0 Rabi'! I accumulate wealth. People call me tight-fisted, although
God has kept me safe from this evil habit. But I saw people subservient to the dinar and the dirhatn; I made them obedient to myself through them. In the result, dinars and dirhams accumulate with me, and I distribute them among the people whenever they need them. Let the fact be told, I never hoard them nor do I ever collect treasures, since they flow out faster than the water that cascades and eddies down the slope; there are gaping maws to receive them, many palms open to grasp them as recompense and gifts, many an eye casts its gaze upward upon the first moon of the month awaiting the shower of stipends and gifts, and many a finger is waiting for entering credits in the ledgers. It is because of this that monarchs and rulers are afraid of seeing their
wealth whittled away lest this chain comes to an end. Each collective object is liable to be scattered, and what is liable to be dispersed into its ingredients is marked for annihilation. 1 remember a constant habit of the late Amir Y a mill al-Dawlah
Mahmud 28 God's mercy on him, who no sooner spotted a quarry and made a hunting of it, was in quest of another, and he took his hunting retinue in that direction. He searched for the quarry as it would move from one valley to another. Once on returning from Khwarizm, he became rather uneasy, and said: "Astrologers tell me I have a little over ten years left to me of life." And then he averred: "I have my fortresses stuffed with all kinds of wealth, which, if spent upon the people according to the time left to me, should suffice, however efficient and loosefisted (I) may prove to be.'' I was thrown into a state akin to intoxication when I heard this, and about which he was always suspicious and felt that he was wronged by me. I said: "Render thanks to God, pray to Him and beg Him to keep your treasury safe. That is to say, let your fame and your government be far from harm as these treasures accumulate only through them, and let not a day pass spelling harm to them." His uneasiness was alleviated when he heard my rejoinder. This admonition from me has a moral for those who perceive. Look
at the fate of Amir Mas'ud the Martyr (may God favour him with high station). When he was martyred, his government was dispersed, and whatever wealth he had collected, whether inherited or earned, was scattered to the winds, as on the Day of the Smoke, 29 everything that the tribe of 'Ad had was wafted like dust. This was the writ by Destiny. Pause
Treasures interred in the earth lie uselessly. These treasures generally belong to two opposite groups. They are as distinct from each other
as two things can be, that is, the ruler group and the humble group. The |
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