I was revisiting Ashfaq Ahmed's Zaviya recently and came across one of my favourite stories involving Ibn-e-Insha. 

Ashfaq Sahib had once told Ibn-e-Insha about something his Baba Ji used to say:

"Dattay se dena hai, tu ne kaunsa pallay se dena hai."

Roughly: Give from what has already been given to you—it's not as though you created it yourself.

Apparently, the idea stuck with Insha.

A few months later, Ashfaq Ahmed visited Ibn-e-Insha at his office in Karachi. While they were talking, a desperately poor schoolteacher came to see him. She had written him a letter explaining that she earned Rs.130 a month, while the rent for the small room she shared with her father had risen to Rs.160. Her landlord was threatening to throw their belongings out.

She asked Ibn-e-Insha for Rs.160 and promised to repay him slowly.

Insha read the letter, became emotional, opened his drawer, and gave her Rs.300—the only money he had with him at the time.

Ashfaq Sahib was stunned.

"You don't even know her. She asked for Rs.160 and you gave her Rs.300?"

And Insha replied with Baba Ji's philosophy:

"Maine bhi to dattay mein se diya hai. Maine kaunsa pallay se diya hai."

"I gave from what had already been given to me. It's not like I gave it from my own pocket."

Then comes the part that made me laugh.

About eight months later, Ibn-e-Insha met Ashfaq Ahmed in Lahore and told him that his Baba Ji's philosophy was "dangerous."

Ashfaq asked why.

According to Ashfaq Sahib's narration, after giving that money away, Insha unexpectedly received a message from UNESCO saying that $1,000 belonging to him was waiting to be collected from a previous meeting in Tokyo. Over the following months, money supposedly began arriving from places Insha hadn't expected.

Eventually, Insha apparently became so overwhelmed by this strange cycle of giving and receiving that he showed up at Ashfaq Ahmed's house carrying a stick, jokingly ready to fight him for introducing him to such a "dangerous" philosophy:

"So much money keeps coming that I can't even finish giving it away. I've stopped giving now!"😂

Whether you interpret the story spiritually, philosophically, or simply as one of Ashfaq Ahmed's memorable anecdotes, I absolutely love what it teaches about the philosophy of giving—and the humour between two giants of Urdu literature.

Has anyone else read this story? Or Zaviya in general? What are your favourite Ashfaq Ahmed anecdotes?

Ashfaq Ahmed, Ibn-e-Insha, and the "dangerous" philosophy of giving