His disdain for the riches of this world reached to the highest pitch. According to Ayishah, this is what he said on this head:
"Allah offered to change all the pebbles round Makkah, into pure gold for me and I answered: 'O Allah! all I ask is to be hungry one day and satisfied the next. The day I am hungry, I will implore Thee and the day I am satisfied, I will thank Thee.' What have I to do with worldly wealth? I am like the traveller who lieth down in the shade of a tree; the sun, as it turneth, beateth down upon him and he goeth away from that tree never to return. O Allah! let me die poor and resuscitate me in the ranks of the poor!"
The Prophet's sobriety was extreme; he never would have several kinds of food served at the same repast. If he ate meat, he went without dates; and if he ate dates, he deprived himself of meat. He showed a predilection for milk which appeases thirst and hunger at one and the same time.
Many months often passed without a fire being kindled in any of the Prophet's houses for baking bread or preparing other kinds of food. All this time, he and his family lived on dried dates only and his sole beverage was plain water. When hunger-pains gnawed his entrails too cruelly, he placed a stone on his belly and bound it there with a girdle. He departed this life without having a surfeit of any sort of victuals, not even of barley cake.
He never troubled about his body, so far as comfort went, although he kept it in a state of perfect purity by dint of continual ablutions. He frequently slept on a rugged mat, the rough bristles deeply marking his flesh. His pillow was made of palm-fibre and his bed was a mantle folded in two. One night, when Ayishah had folded it in four, the Prophet lost his temper, found his couch too soft and ordered it to be restored to its usual state.
Before dying, he freed all his slaves and distributed the small amount of property he still possessed. He deemed it unseemly to appear before the Lord with gold in his possession. In his dwelling, but thirty measures of barley were found; and to buy them, he had been forced to leave his breastplate at a usurer's as security for a loan.
There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is the Prophet of Allah.