Four. The sentence that ends the conversation

Ask Allah, not people.

It gets said kindly and it lands as a door closing. And it is not what the tradition does. The man who came to Ali asking for help was given a supplication and was not turned away. Qabisah came asking and the answer was a set of cases in which asking is permitted, the first of which is debt.

There is one more that deserves naming. The saying that poverty is close to disbelief. Its authenticity is contested and it is commonly classed as weak, and it is not used in this course. What it does when it circulates is add a religious insult to a financial difficulty, which is the last thing anybody in this needs.

If you take one thing from this lesson, take this. The shame is not a byproduct of the money problem. It is a separate thing sitting on top of it, and it is the part that makes people stop opening the post, stop telling anyone, and stop asking for help that they are entitled to.