two attributes of the learned heir who brings others to completion and governs a community. He considers what brings them welfare, as He said of His Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, praising him, “Deeply concerned for you” [al-Tawba 9:128]. He praised his avidity for what brings his community felicity, and his greed and avidity for his uncle Abu Talib’s accepting Islam, until he said to him, “Say it in my ear, so that I may testify for you through it,” knowing that his testimony is accepted and his speech heard. The complete one, God’s deputy among His servants, knows the coming afflictions of time and prepares for them according to the command through which he was given insight into their arrival. Someone without knowledge imagines that he strives for himself. This is not so, and it is so, for he boasts before the communities through his community’s followers and therefore seeks a great number of believers.
Yet this greed requires both conditions: insight and the divine command, the greater condition. Insight, although stipulated, is a weaker condition, for it is required only of someone claiming to store for others while taking from that store for himself. He is asked, “Has God disclosed to you for whom this store is with you? Have you seen that it will reach them only through your hands?” If he says yes, his storing is conceded to him. If he says no, he is told, “Your avidity does not rest upon a foundation whose soundness is certain, so defect has entered it.”
(Storing, Trust, and Divestment)
If it is said, “A group says that one whose trust is sound concerning himself has sound trust concerning others,” we say: this is true and does not contradict
Notes
Translator’s note TN4107-1: The perfecting heir’s storing is qualified by divine command and, where he claims to store for others while using some himself, by disclosure of the intended recipients and his necessary role in delivering it. The apparently opposed claims about acting for himself are both retained.
