Such is not the one you are accustomed to...

Such is not the one you are accustomed to, the one friendship with whom you initiate, if the purpose of your friendship is to be of benefit to him rather than to benefit from him. You have set your mind at ease when you lost your hope from people, putting an end to coveting what they have. This, indeed, is the greatest wealth, the wealth of one’s nafs. Moreover, the first charity which you bestow upon people is that you spare them your own harm.

The first is that you do not hurt them; you do not cause them any harm, then you set your mind on tolerating theirs. Furthermore, let your concern be how to get goodness to reach them. So, if your soul is determined to do that, and if you receive a reward on account of a good deed which you did, this is a blessing which is not expected, something which you enjoy, something that will deeply impress you. And if you see that they have disregarded it, hoping you would accept it from them, accept it.

Accepting it is doing them a good deed even when you have no need for it, for returning it to them will make them unhappy and is a bad deed while you yourself have decided to do no bad deed to them, and thus you are ordered[^3]. And if their goodness was a token of appreciation of getting to know you, and if they expect you to return it to them, accept it from them then return it to them as a new present according to their own wish.

But if their intention is that you accept it from them then you reward them with something else even better, accept it from them and reward them with something more. Such is goodness to them. Do not make them aware of you knowing their intention that they gave it to you in order to get something else in its place; rather, let it look natural, for such is goodness on your part to them.

The outcome, my Brother, is that Allah orders you to be fair, to be benevolent, and just as you treat others, so shall you, too, be treated. And be informed that the cornerstone of being good to people is not giving them money, for we have seen many people spending a lot of money, while such spending is not benevolence at all; rather, it is followed by harm, by causing people grief.

It fits the category of an act of charity followed by the doer with an act of harm as an outcome, even if the goal is benevolence. They simply do not know how to do it properly. All of this is the result of neglecting the principles laid down by (‘a) and not paying attention to their methodology.