Sufism

There is no true wealth but contentment, and no true poverty but greed

Ghazali relocates wealth and poverty from the size of a person's possessions to the disposition of their wanting, making both states available to rich and poor alike.

In the section of the Kimiya-yi Sa'adat dealing with zuhd, renunciation, al-Ghazali argues that contentment with what one has constitutes the only real wealth, while its opposite, an insatiable craving for more, constitutes the only real poverty, regardless of what either person's bank balance actually shows. This reframing has a practical edge: a materially poor person who wants nothing beyond what they have is, on Ghazali's account, genuinely wealthy, while a materially rich person consumed by wanting more is genuinely impoverished, since their inner state is one of perpetual lack. Zuhd in Ghazali's usage does not require literal destitution or the rejection of all possessions — it is defined by the heart's relationship to what it owns, not by the absence of ownership itself. This connects to the broader Sufi critique of worldly attachment throughout the Kimiya, where the target is always the internal grip of desire rather than material objects as such.

Kimiya-yi Sa'adat (The Alchemy of Happiness)