Verily the best things which ye eat are those which ye earn yourselves or which your children earn. * * * * * Verily it is better for one of you to take a rope and bring a bundle of wood upon his back and sell it, in which case God guardeth his honour, than to beg of people, whether they give him or not; if they do not give him, his reputation suffereth and he returneth disappointed; and if they give him, it is worse than that, for it layeth him under obligations. * * * * * A man came to the Prophet, begging of him something, and the Prophet said, “Have you nothing at home?” He said, “Yes, there is a large carpet, with one part of which I cover myself, and spread the other, and there is a wooden cup in which I drink water.” Then the Prophet said, “Bring me the carpet and the cup.” And the man brought them, and the Prophet took them in his hand and said, “Who will buy them?” A man said, “I will take them at one silver piece.” He said, “Who will give more?” This he repeated twice or thrice. Another man said, “I will take them for two pieces of silver.” Then the Prophet gave the carpet and cup to that man, and took the two pieces of silver, and gave them to the helper, and said, “Buy food with one of these pieces, and give it to your family, that they may make it their sustenance for a few days; and buy a hatchet with the other piece and bring it to me.” And the man brought it; and the Prophet put a handle to it with his own hands, and then said, “Go, cut wood, and sell it, and let me not see you for fifteen days.” Then the man went cutting wood, and selling it; and he came to the Prophet, when verily he had got ten pieces of silver, and he bought a garment with part of it, and food with part. Then the Prophet said, “This cutting and selling of wood, and making your livelihood by it, is better for you than coming on the day of resurrection with black marks on your face.” * * * * * Acts of begging are scratches and wounds by which a man woundeth his own face; then he who wisheth to guard his face from scratches and wounds must not beg, unless that a man asketh from his prince, or in an affair in which there is no remedy. * * * * * The Prophet hath cursed ten persons on account of wine: one, the first extractor of the juice of the grape for others; the second for himself; the third the drinker of it; the fourth the bearer of it; the fifth the person to whom it is brought; the sixth the waiter; the seventh the seller of it; the eighth the eater of its price; the ninth the buyer of it; the tenth that person who hath purchased it for another. * * * * * Merchants shall be raised up liars on the Day of Resurrection, except he who abstaineth from that which is unlawful, and doth not swear falsely, but speaketh true in the price of his goods. * * * * *