[6] Distribute
the tithe of your wealth in alms, for when the husbandman lops off the
exuberant branches from the vine, it produces an increase of grapes."
[6] Hatim was chief of the Arabian tribe of Tai, shortly
before Muhammed began to promulgate Islam, renowned for
his extraordinary liberality.
Prodigality, however, is as much to be condemned as judicious liberality
is to be lauded. Saadi gives the following account of a Persian prodigal
son, who was not so fortunate in the end as his biblical prototype: The
son of a religious man, who succeeded to an immense fortune by the will
of his uncle, became a dissipated and debauched profligate, in so much
that he left no heinous crime unpractised, nor was there any
intoxicating drug which he had not tasted. Once I admonished him,
saying: "O my son, wealth is a running stream, and pleasure revolves
like a millstone; or, in other words, profuse expense suits him only who
has a certain income. When you have no certain income, be frugal in your
expenses, because the sailors have a song, that if the rain does not
fall in the mountains, the Tigris will become a dry bed of sand in the
course of a year. Practise wisdom and virtue, and relinquish sensuality,
for when your money is spent you will suffer distress and expose
yourself to shame.
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