2:264 O You who have faith, do not void your charity by counting it a favor and causing discomfort.
Ibn ʿAbbās said, "Do not void your charity by counting it a favor toward God." God is saying, "O you have faith, who have placed your hands in the chains of Our servanthood and have clung to the rope of Our protection! The path of servanthood is not that of gazing on yourself and counting your obedience a favor to Us, for everything you do comes from Our success-giving and Our desire. When your heart was opened up, We opened it. When you found success, We gave it. When you gave comfort to the poor, We willed that. We made all of that happen, so all should be counted as Our favor. All acting is Ours, and all attending to things is Ours."
BarrāÌ ibn ʿĀzib said, "On the Day of the Moat I saw God's Messenger when he was saying these words of Ibn Rawāḥa:
"O God, if not for You, we would not have been guided,
we would not have given charity, we would not have prayed.
So send down tranquility upon us,
and firm up our feet for the encounter."
He is saying, "O God, were it not for Your solicitude, how could we have found the way to the lane of tawḥīd? Were it not for Your success-giving, how could we have had the ability to do good works?" When a poor wretch places a favor on God by obeying Him, this is because he has lost the path of servanthood. He gives weight to his own obedience and sees it as large, so he does not turn the eyes of his heart and head away from it. In the path of chivalry, seeing one's own obedience is idol-worship, and looking back at it is duality itself.
If you are martyred a hundred times a day in God's path
you'll still be an idol-worshiper if you see yourself in the midst.
[DS 708]
It has also been said that do not void your charity by counting it a favor and causing discomfort means by laying favors on those who ask. He is saying, "Do not ruin your charity by counting it a favor to the poor. When a rich man counts it as a favor to the poor that he has given him something, it is because he does not recognize the eminence and level of the poor and does not know that today they are the kings of the world, as has come in the report, 'Kings in tatters.' And tomorrow, they will enter paradise five hundred years before the rich. Which eminence is greater than this? Which blessing is more complete?"
Abu'l-DardāÌ said, "I love poverty in humility before my Lord, I love death in yearning for my Lord, I love illness as expiation for my missteps."
It has been narrated that the Prophet said to ʿAlī, "O ʿAlī, you are a poor man of God, so do not shun the poor. Rather seek proximity to them in order to find proximity to God."
Thus it is not appropriate for a rich man to place a favor on a poor man. Rather, he is receiving a favor from him. He should consider him God's gift to him, for the report has come, "God's gift to the faithful person is the asker at his gate." And why should he count it a favor toward the poor man, for he is not giving it to the poor man, nor is the poor man taking it from him. Rather, he is giving it to God, and God is entrusting it to the poor man. This is what the Prophet said: "Surely alms falls into the hand of God before it falls into the hand of the asker."