Faqr (literally, ‘poverty’) is a term denoting different modalities and stages of material, psychological and spiritual want and neediness which a wayfarer on the Sufi path may adopt as a means to progress in earning God’s love and compassion and of acquiring purity and mystical knowledge.

The term faqr is derived from the Arabic root f-q-r, literally meaning ‘to hollow out’, ‘to perforate’, ‘to make/become poor’, ‘to be in need’ or ‘to be/become needy’. Hence faqr carries a general sense of being in a state of penury or destitution. This and other derivatives of …