What you give me is His too and is my allotted portion.” The rules of begging are as follows: If you beg unsuccessfully you should be more cheerful than when you succeed, and you should not regard any human creature as coming between God and yourself. You should not beg of women or market-folk (_aṣḥáb-i aswáq_), and you should not tell your secret to anyone unless you are sure that his money is lawful. As far as possible you should beg unselfishly, and should not use the proceeds for worldly show and for housekeeping, or convert them into property. You should live in the present, and let no thought of the morrow enter your mind, else you will incur everlasting perdition. You should not make God a springe to catch alms, and you should not display piety in order that more alms may be given to you on account of your piety. I once met an old and venerable Ṣúfí, who had lost his way in the desert and came, hunger-stricken, into the market-place at Kúfa with a sparrow perched on his hand, crying: “Give me something for the sake of this sparrow!” The people asked him why he said this. He replied: “It is impossible that I should say ‘Give me something for God’s sake!’ One must employ the intercession of an insignificant creature to obtain worldly goods.“ This is but a small part of the obligations involved in begging. I have abridged the topic for fear of being tedious. _Chapter concerning their Rules in Marriage and Celibacy and matters connected therewith._ God hath said: ”_They_ (women) _are a garment unto you and ye are a garment unto them_” (Kor. ii, 183). And the Apostle said: “Marry, that ye may multiply; for I will vaunt you against all other nations on the Day of Resurrection, even in respect of the still-born.” And he said also: “The women who bring the greatest blessing are they who cost least to maintain, whose faces are comeliest, and whose dowries are cheapest.” Marriage is permitted to all men and women, and is obligatory on those who cannot abstain from what is unlawful, and is a _sunna_ (i.e. sanctioned by the custom of the Apostle) for those who are able to support a family. Some of the Ṣúfí Shaykhs hold marriage to be desirable as a means of quelling lust, and acquisition (of sustenance) to be desirable as a means of freeing the mind from anxiety. Others hold that the object of marriage is procreation; for, if the child dies before its father, it will intercede for him (before God), and if the father dies first, the child will remain to pray for him.[176] The Apostle said: “Women are married for four things: wealth, nobility, beauty, and religion. Do ye take one that is religious, for, after Islam, there is nothing that profits a man so much as a believing and obedient wife who gladdens him whenever he looks on her.” And the Apostle said: “Satan is with the solitary,” because Satan decks out lust and presents it to their minds. No companionship is equal in reverence and security to