Chapter Four: Money — Where He Earned It and What He Spent It On
The bag at the door
At the entrance to the hall there is a long shelf with bags lined up on it, most of them much alike. Everyone going in leaves his bag there and walks in with a pen and a card. The bag stuffed with books and the bag with one notebook in it are equal on that shelf: neither goes into the hall, and neither is marked.
And money belongs to that shelf: it is left at the door, and then its owner is asked about it while he walks in with no bag at all. He is not asked, how much was in it? He is asked, where did what was in it come from, and where did it go?
Its form in the hall you see: an instruction read out before you go in: leave your belongings at the door, and keep nothing on the desk but what you write with. Belongings are a means and not a subject, and nobody is given a mark for the weight of his bag.
And its form in the greater hall: two questions bound together, not one: where did you earn this money? And what did you spend it on? It alone of the four has two parts, because the door it came in by is not the door it went out by, and it is laid out at both doors together. Did it come in by a clean way, or from earnings with cheating in them, or from eating what belonged to a man with a right to it? And what did it go out on: on a due put where it belonged, or on showing off that leaves nothing behind?
And its evidence: the third item of the hadith already quoted, in both its parts. And on what falls behind its owner at the door and what goes on with him: “Three things follow the dead person: his family, his wealth and his deeds. Two of them come back, and one stays with him: his family and his wealth return, and his deeds remain.” (meaning; Sahih al-Bukhari 6514 — Anas ibn Malik, sound (sahih) — al-Bukhari)