Alms is really thanksgiving for a benefit received, the thanks being similar in kind to the benefit. Thus health is a great blessing, for which every limb owes alms. Therefore healthy persons ought to occupy all their limbs with devotion and not yield them to pleasure and pastime, in order that the alms due for the blessing of health may be fully paid. Moreover, there is an alms for every spiritual blessing, namely, outward and inward acknowledgment of that blessing in proportion to its worth. Thus, when a man knows that the blessings bestowed upon him by God are infinite, he should render infinite thanks by way of alms. The Ṣúfís do not consider it praiseworthy to give alms on account of worldly blessings, because they disapprove of avarice, and a man must needs be extremely avaricious to keep two hundred dirhems in his possession for a whole year and then give away five dirhems in alms. Since it is the custom of the generous to lavish their wealth, and since they are disposed to be liberal, how should almsgiving be incumbent upon them? I have read in the Anecdotes that a certain formal theologian, wishing to make trial of Shiblí, asked him what sum ought to be given in alms. Shiblí replied: “Where avarice is present and property exists, five dirhems out of every two hundred dirhems, and half a dínár out of every twenty dínárs. That is according to thy doctrine; but according to mine, a man ought not to possess anything, in which case he will be saved from the trouble of giving alms.” The divine asked: “Whose authority do you follow in this matter?” Shiblí said: “The authority of Abú Bakr the Veracious, who gave away all that he possessed, and on being asked by the Apostle what he had left behind for his family, answered, ‘God and His Apostle.’” And it is related that `Alí said in an ode— “_Almsgiving is not incumbent on me, For how can a generous man be required to give alms?_”