Faqr
Definition
Faqr — spiritual poverty — is the conscious, chosen recognition that the servant owns nothing, is nothing, and can do nothing without God. It is the experiential counterpart to the theological statement 'there is no power nor might except with God.' The faqir does not lack things; they hold what they have without possessiveness, understanding themselves to be a custodian rather than an owner. Al-Ghazali draws on the famous hadith: 'O God, I am poor before You' — not a request for material wealth but a declaration of existential dependence. Faqr at its deepest is the dissolution of the illusion of self-sufficiency, and it produces a paradoxical freedom: when you own nothing, nothing owns you.
As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.
Appears in
1 book in the library
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