For the poor, in other words, target the poor with your charity, those who are, constrained by the struggle, in the way of God; and they are unable to journey in the land, in order to engage in commerce or earn [livelihood] because of their preoccupation with God and their being absorbed in their states, spending their moments in devotions: the ignorant man supposes them, rich because of their abstinence, from begging and having no need of people; but you shall know them by their mark, by the paleness of their faces, the light of their foreheads and the configurations of their facial expressions, that they are gnostics, indigent, the folk of God: only God knows them and who belongs with them. They do not beg of men importunately, that is, by persisting, meaning that they do not beg people at all, as when they say, '[One] upon an open road but cannot be guided even by a light', where both the light and the ability to be guided are being precluded. Or [what is meant by the verse] is the preclusion of [their begging with] importunity but the affirmation of their provoking sympathy when begging. And whatever good you expend, that is, regardless of whom you expend on, whether a rich person or a poor one, surely God has knowledge of it, that is, [knowledge] of whether that expenditure is for that person or another and rewards [you] accordingly.
