3.4.1 - Meeting with Abu Muhammad Abdullah Ibn Ibrahim al-Qalfat (Algeciras 590/1193)

On the Green Island, Algeciras, which lies on the Andalusian side of the Strait, Shaykh Muhyiddin met with Shaykh Abu Abdullah al-Qalfat, with whom he had a debate on the preference between the thankful rich and the patient poor, as some of the knowing preferred the poverty to Allah over being rich by Him.

On this matter Al-Qalfat said to him that Abu al-Abbas Ibn al-Arif al-Sanhaji (481/1088-526/1141) was asked once by his companions about two men, each having ten Dinars, but the first gave one Dinar as charity and the other gave nine Dinars out of ten, so who is better? The audience then said that the latter is better, but the Shaykh asked: What make you prefer him? They said to him: because he offered more than the first. Then he said: Well, but since you suppose them equal with money, the latter is better not because he gave more but because he entered poverty first, and the people of Allah do not look at the rewards, but they look at the realities, and that’s how they are better than the formal scholars [Futuhat: I.577].

Shaykh Abu Abdullah Ibn Ibrahim al-Malaqi (of Malaga) al-Fakhkhar, who was also known as al-Qalfat: the ship-caulker, was a companion of Abu al-Rabii al-Kafif and a friend of Ibrahim Ibn Tarif, whom we mentioned in section

ef(ibn-tarif at the beginning of this chapter above.

We shall speak more about Shaykh al-Qalfat further below where we shall see in section

ef(al-qalfat2 that Shaykh Muhyiddin will also meet him again in Ceuta on his way back from Fez in 595/1198.