Love Without Accounting

Rabia's poverty was legendary; she gave away everything and relied on divine provision rather than social reciprocity. This wasn't asceticism for its own sake but a spiritual technology for breaking the mental habit of accounting. Favoritism thrives in accounting: we mentally track who helped us, who belongs to our inner circle, who owes us something, and distribute favor accordingly. This framework corrupts even virtuous acts—we help friends more eagerly than strangers, show patience to family while judging outsiders harshly, forgive insiders while condemning others. Rabia's radical generosity without expectation was a deliberate practice in un-learning this scorekeeping. In the Periagoge context, this means examining our accounting mechanisms: Where do we mentally tally debts and credits? Which relationships feel transactional? How does this accounting justify our preferences? By consciously practicing gifting without reciprocal expectation, we can loosen favoritism's grip and restore love to its proper purpose: expression rather than investment.