The Nineteenth Flash

Indeed, experience repeatedly shows that frugality and the payment of zakātOne of the Five Pillars of Islam; the obligatory almsgiving for the benefit of the poor and the needy. bring blessing and increase to one’s possessions, whereas extravagance and the neglect of zakātOne of the Five Pillars of Islam; the obligatory almsgiving for the benefit of the poor and the needy. become causes for the disappearance of blessing, as countless examples attest.

Alī ibn SīnāAvicenna; the celebrated Persian physician and philosopher whose works profoundly influenced Islamic and European scholarship. (Avicenna), the celebrated genius whom the scholars of philosophy regarded as their Plato and who was acknowledged as a master of both medicine and philosophy, interpreted the verse

كُلُوا وَ اشْرَبُوا وَ لَا تُسْرِفُواEat and drink, but do not be wasteful. — The Quran 7:31

from a medical perspective as follows:

“I have condensed the science of medicine into two lines. The beauty of speech lies in its brevity. Eat only when you have an appetite, and stop eating before you are completely full. Health lies in digestion. That is, eat only an amount that can be digested with ease. The most burdensome and exhausting thing for both the stomach and the body is to eat before the previous meal has been properly digested.”

An Astonishing and Instructive TawāfuqThe providential harmony of events occurring by the will and power of Allah.

This treatise on frugality was copied by five or six different scribes, three of whom were inexperienced. Although they worked in separate locations, copied from different manuscripts, wrote in different hands, and paid no attention whatsoever to counting the alifs (ا) in the text, every copy contained 51 alifs when the concluding supplication was excluded and 53 alifs when it was included.

Remarkably, these numbers corresponded exactly to the year in which the treatise was originally written: 51 (1351) according to the Rumi calendar and 53 (1353) according to the Hijri calendar. Such a precise correspondence can scarcely be attributed to chance. Rather, it may be understood as a subtle indication that the blessing concealed within frugality had reached the level of a karāmahA miraculous event granted by Allah through a righteous believer who is not a prophet.. It is therefore fitting that this year be described as “the Year of Frugality.”

Indeed, two years later, this karāmahA miraculous event granted by Allah through a righteous believer who is not a prophet. associated with frugality was further confirmed by the events of the Second World War, when widespread famine, devastation, and waste compelled much of humanity to adopt a life of frugality.