The Despicable Trait of Stinginess

Beware of Stinginess

for it destroyed the people who came before you.

It (stinginess) commanded them to be miserly, so they were miserly;

and it commanded them to cut the ties of kinship, so they cut them;

and it commanded them to commit immoral actions, so they did so.

[Excerpt from Tafseer Ibn Kathir (rahimahullah), Surah Israa’, 17:29]

The Faqeeh (jurist) Habish ibn Mubasher (rahimahullah) narrates:

I sat with (two prominent Scholars of Islam) Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Yahya ibn Ma’een (rahimahumullah)

and the other people were gathered (as well in their presence),

and they all agreed that they did not know a righteous man who was stingy/miserly (i.e., none of them could think of even one man in whom righteousness and stinginess were combined, meaning miserliness is the characteristic of the ignoble; being tightfisted and righteous are two things that cannot co-exist).

[Tabaqat al-Hanabilah, 1/147]