Your supposition is false, your surmise, wrong. Their greed has increased; that is the  reason  they  are  impoverished.  Because  for  Muslims,  greed  causes  loss  and indigence.  The  saying:  “The  greedy is  subject  to  loss  and  disappointment”13   has become proverbial.

Yes, there are many things calling and driving man to the world, like his soul and its appetites, and need, and his senses and emotions, and the Devil, and the superficial enticement  of  the world, and false friends like  you. While those who  call to  the hereafter, which lasts  for ever, and to long-lasting eternal life, are few. If you are patriotic even to the tiniest  degree towards this nation and the high aspirations you brag about are not lies, you should help the few who call to eternal life. For if you silence them and help the many, you will be befriending Satan!

Do you suppose this nation’s poverty is the result of a sort of religious asceticism or of laziness arising from abandoning the world? You are wrong to suppose that. Do you not see that the nations dominated by Europe, such as China and the Brahmins and Zoroastrians of India, and the blacks of Africa are poorer than we are? And do you not see that nothing apart from the most basic subsistence is left in the hands of Muslims? The rest is either  stolen  or seized by the European infidel tyrants or the dissemblers of Asia.

You should be certain that if your intention in forcibly driving the people of belief to degenerate civilization in this way is the country’s law and order and easy administration, you are mistaken and you are driving them down the wrong path. For it is more difficult to govern a hundred degenerates whose belief is shaken and morals corrupted, and to maintain public security among them, than to govern thousands of the righteous.

Thus, according to these principles, the people of Islam are not in need of being encouraged and driven to the world and to greed. Progress and public order cannot be secured in that way. They are rather in need of having their working conditions set in order, of security being established among them, and of having the principle of co- operation encouraged.  And  these  needs can be  brought  about through the  sacred commands of religion, and fear of God, and firm adherence to religion.

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13 See, Ibn Qays, Qura al-Dayf, iv,, 301; al-Maydani, Majma’ al-Amthal, i, 24.