“Whoever is content becomes honored; whoever is greedy falls into humiliation.”¹⁾

“… frugality and contentment are acts in harmony with Divine wisdom.”²⁾

“… contentment is a treasure of good livelihood and a source of peace in life. Greed, on the other hand, is a mine of loss and misery.

Extravagance leads to discontent; discontent breaks the zeal to work and drives one toward laziness. It opens the door to constant complaint and ingratitude. It also weakens sincerity and opens the door to hypocrisy; it damages dignity and paves the way for dependence and begging.

Frugality, however, leads to contentment, and in accordance with the secret of the Prophetic saying, ‘Honor belongs to the content, disgrace to the covetous,’ contentment brings dignity. It encourages effort and work, increasing zeal and motivation. For example, one who works for a day and is content with the modest wage he receives will willingly work again the next day. But the spendthrift, not being content, loses his drive; even if he works, he works without enthusiasm.

Frugality-born contentment opens the door of gratitude and closes the door of complaint, making one constantly thankful in life.

Through contentment, a person also ceases to seek the approval of others, as he no longer depends on them. Thus, the door of sincerity opens, and the door of ostentation closes.”³⁾

“Fruit-bearing trees and plants, which are living beings dependent on provision, remain in their places with a trustful and contented posture; they show no greed—yet their sustenance runs to them. They nourish far more offspring than animals do. Animals, by contrast, run greedily after their provision and obtain it only through much toil and deficiency. Among animals too, the weak and helpless—those who, by their state, express reliance on God—receive their pure and pleasant sustenance directly from the treasury of mercy; while the predatory beasts, attacking their prey with greed, gain their nourishment unlawfully and with great hardship. Thus, greed is a cause of deprivation, whereas trust and contentment are means to Divine mercy.”⁴⁾

“The measure of gratitude is contentment, frugality, satisfaction, and joy with what one has. The measure of ingratitude is greed, wastefulness, and disrespect—consuming whatever comes one’s way, lawful or unlawful. Yes, greed is both a form of ingratitude and a cause of deprivation and humiliation.”⁵⁾

“Greed and covetousness, arising from weakness and poverty, drive a person to assume hypocritical attitudes aimed at attracting people’s attention. The students of the Risale-i Nur, by virtue of their lessons in frugality, contentment, trust in God, and satisfaction with their lot, gain such a dignity of faith that, God willing, it protects them from hypocrisy and from self-promotion for worldly gain.”⁶⁾

“Contentment—being pleased with what one has and not yearning for more, viewing satisfaction with what is possessed as an inexhaustible treasure, accepting with joy what is given without uttering ‘more, more,’ and striving to remain free from greed and envy, especially toward the blessings others have received—is a moral principle strongly emphasized by hadith scholars, jurists, ethicists, and mystics alike. Though these disciplines may approach it from different angles, their conclusions converge on a shared understanding: To avoid what is futile; to keep distant from anything that may hinder one’s bond with God; to remain cautious in worldly dealings, maintaining a spiritual distance from material attachments; to accept the Divine decree with satisfaction and greet every circumstance with grateful serenity; to accustom oneself to eating, drinking, and sleeping little so as to sustain a life anchored in devotion; to remain closed to indulgence, ambition, and the pursuit of rank or fame; to act always with altruism, putting the life of others before one’s own; to treat worldly success only as an occasion to proclaim Divine favor, not as something inherently valuable; to remain humble in fortune and untroubled in loss; to use one’s means with balance, ever pursuing inner fulfillment rather than external accumulation; to suppress all selfish impulses with the inward refrain, ‘As if I had eaten,’ ‘As if I had worn,’ ‘As if I had lived’—these are among the key principles emphasized by nearly all schools of spiritual and ethical thought under the heading of contentment.”⁷⁾

“Before tasawwuf became institutionalized as tariqah (Sufi orders), it first appeared in the form of zuhd (asceticism), rikaq (refinement of the soul), tawakkul (trust in God), qana’ah (contentment), and uzlah (seclusion). Later it entered the stages of divine love (mahabbah), passion (ʿishq), and full acceptance of God’s will (rida).”⁸⁾

“True poverty and need—understood as humility before God—can never mean begging or asking from others. For one who has devoted himself to God is, at the same time, a person of contentment and spiritual independence. Even in hunger or thirst, he confides his pain only to God and never seeks help from people. The term dervish, meaning ‘the threshold of a door,’ does not denote humiliation before others, but rather symbolizes humility and self-effacement before God, a continual self-nullification that reminds one of the relativity of all worldly and spiritual possessions. His gentleness toward people stems not from servility but from seeing in them reflections of the Divine artistry with which he himself has been adorned.”⁹⁾

Türkçe