Sufism

Renunciation (zuhd) is not owning nothing, but nothing owning the heart

Al-Qushayri corrects a common misreading by locating renunciation in the heart's relationship to what it owns, not in the size of one's possessions, so a wealthy person can be more genuinely renounced than a poor person consumed by longing.

Al-Qushayri's chapter on zuhd works against a popular misunderstanding of renunciation as simply owning few possessions, arguing instead that its real location is the heart's relationship to what it owns or lacks, not the balance sheet itself. On this account a wealthy person whose heart holds nothing of that wealth as indispensable can be genuinely zahid, while a poor person whose whole attention is consumed by longing for what he lacks has renounced nothing at all, he is simply poor and still attached. Al-Qushayri quotes several classical masters distinguishing degrees of renunciation, from giving up what is forbidden, to giving up the merely permissible when it distracts, to the most advanced form: renouncing renunciation itself, no longer taking pride in one's own detachment. The chapter's underlying claim is that possessions are neutral; what matters is whether the heart is owned by them.

Al-Risala al-Qushayriyya