 Allah SWT has given Muslims guidance through the Qur'an and through the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad SAW. So, Muslim is guided in his religious affairs through revelation. And if there is guidance in revelation, in the Qur'an, in the Sunnah, or in the understanding that the Sahaba brought to the surface, then we are honored to be guided. So, wealth is a very huge subject in Islam. Allah SWT has mentioned wealth in so many different ways. There are many words that are used for wealth in the Qur'an. What is man? Amwal, which is the plural. We find that the Prophet Muhammad SAW is addressed in the Qur'an to inform people with certain phraseologies like tijara. To believe, shall I not inform you and direct you towards a tijara, a business transaction, a commercial transaction that is going to save you and deliver you from the punishment. So, the word tijara is a very mundane word. It's almost a secular word. It means commerce and business. The Quraysh, as you know, were masters of commerce in the Peninsula, the Arabian Peninsula during that time. They governed because of their ability to do trade amongst themselves and amongst the other neighboring tribes and indeed in neighboring countries. The Quraysh was by the ability of the Quraysh to travel freely for the sake of tijara in winter and in summer, which is an arduous task that traveling in the desert any time of the year is very difficult. Allah addresses the Quraysh and says that Allah has made this easy for you to do business, so they'll go to Yemen and then do business there. And have a lot of trade agreements with the people of Yemen and the neighboring country across the sea, which would be now modern to Ethiopia. And they would be able to trade towards the north, go further up the sea, towards Egypt and into what's now known today as the Shah, the Levant, Palestine, and Syria, and also in Iraq. And they would be able to travel to the other side of the Peninsula towards Oman and other places where they would have trade agreements with people. So we find that in the Seerah of the early Sahaba, they were very savvy with business. And the Prophet, SAW, went on an expedition once for Khadija Rabi'Allah and that's how she found out about his business integrity, his business ethics, and the rest you'll know. So we see that the Qur'an uses this phraseology through words like tijara, business and commerce, so that it would appeal to the immediate psyche of the Muslims of that time. And then the Qur'an would use that to show that there is another way you may understand business and trade. From what Rabi'ah tijaratuhum, the Qur'an says about those who sell their hierafter in exchange for iman in this world, that you want a trade-off and you are trading your hierafter. What's going to happen to you and your salvation in the hierafter? Mainly because you want money and a good life here. So the Qur'an then destroys the idea that the people of the Quraysh were good businessmen. So the Qur'an says, Rabi'ah tijaratuhum, the tijara was not profitable, Rabi'ah. So we see that it was already in the psyche and the social milieu of the Arabs at that time, and the Qur'an came as a revelation to these people and they immediately understood what the Prophet ﷺ was saying. So you can see that the Qur'an does not immediately denounce the idea that they had tijara in the first place, or they made tijara, or they did business and commerce. The Qur'an uses what the Quraysh was used to make a point, and the point being that Allah ﷺ wants you to bear with it, but not just in this world, but also in the world hereafter. So what I'm saying is that the Qur'an uses several words in order to depict the idea of earnings, of wealth, of accumulation, and all of that. So it's a huge discussion, and the Qur'an is filled with ayat and surahs that speak about the human action, interaction with their money, with their wealth, and so on. At the highest level, we find that the Qur'an encourages the Muslim to go out and seek Allah's pleasure by spending fi sabilillah. So that they sacrifice in the path of Allah, what is mentioned first? Bi amwaleen with their wealth. Now, the point I want to make today is that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ showed the fledgling Muslim community in Medina in the early days of Islam. He showed the fledgling Muslim community in Medina in the early days of Medina and developing the Muslim community and the Muslim ethos and the Muslim psyche so that they would be able to represent the final word of God to everybody else that they would be in contact with. So the first thing was that the Prophet ﷺ said to the Sahaba that when you wake up in the morning, you are obligated to give charity for every limb and organ that wakes up with you and it's safe and sound. So the Sahaba said, Ya Rasulullah, how are you going to give Sadaqah every morning for every limb and organ? There's about 300 plus, at least. So the Prophet ﷺ said that if you don't have money, then you must smile. Smile is a charity. You must say, SubhanAllah, do the dhikr of Allah. Mention God's name. That's also a charity. Understand. This is how the Prophet ﷺ trained the Sahaba to think. That we think and believe that if you have money, you can be charitable. The Prophet ﷺ said, No. You are charitable when you have in your heart the desire to give whatever it is you have, not just money or wealth or capital, but whatever you have. You are feeling good about yourself and you say, Alhamdulillah, you smile at your brother in the Prophet ﷺ. This is Sadaqah, this is charity. If you don't have that either and you sit down in the Masjid and you say, SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, Allahu Akbar. La ilaha illa Allah. This is also Sadaqah and this is also charity. So the Prophet ﷺ told the Sahaba that you must not restrict the idea of being wealthy or then charitable to monetary issues and values. And he mentioned this in Hadith later on. La is al-Qina bi kathirat al-arab. Inna al-Qina al-Qina al-Qalb. That Qina and wealth is not measured by the amount of material wealth that you have. Arad. That you have a good house, you have good furniture, or you have a good mountain, a steed, a horse, a camel, or you have good clothing. So the Prophet ﷺ said that Qina, being rich, is not measured by what you own outside of your being, outside of yourself. Inna ma al-Qina al-Qalb. The true richness of a person is measured according to how rich that person's heart is. Now take this. If somebody, masha'Allah, has a million dollars and he gives a hundred dollars, masha'Allah. How is he compared to the person who has a hundred dollars and gives ten dollars? You measure the truth? So you see that in this case the person who has ten dollars is more charitable than the person who gave a thousand dollars because he has richness in his heart or more richness in his heart. So we see the Prophet ﷺ trained the Sahaba to think outside of the box of what we call the dunya, the world. So outside of this world, outside of this mundane understanding how human beings should be evaluated, there's another system of evaluation which might be moral, it might be psychological, it might be spiritual, or simply might just be Islamic to cut through the chase. So on one occasion the Prophet ﷺ said that you must save yourself from the fire even though you will be given half a date. Itaqunna lolo bishaqitamur. Save yourself from the fire by giving your brother half a date. So how does one now give half a date and save oneself from the fires? Because when somebody doesn't have even half a date, giving that person half a date, it is the whole world to that person. And the Sahaba in the early days didn't have very much to eat. They were poor, most of the Ansar they were farmers. And the muhajir who came, the arrogance who came, they left all their wealth and property in butter. So the Prophet ﷺ said look, when we are going to develop this community, this ummah, then it must be developed on some fundamental principles of kindness and charity. And that starts with you. How charitable are you? So if you make the dhikr of Allah, you are charitable because you are giving to the environment around you that the Allah's name and God's name and Allah's dhikr and Allah's Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la's Asma'a and the Sifat and the Qur'an and all of this, they have an impact on everything around you. And that's how you give to the environment around you. And that's how the Prophet ﷺ trained all of their people. So what I'm saying is that in Islam, when we want to build and develop a community that is charitable, we don't always and necessarily only concentrate on amassing wealth. Which the Qur'an condemns by the way. And this showmanship of showing off to each other, I have more and more and more, hoarding money has distracted you to the degree that now you will only be aware of who you are, what you are, when you visit your graves. So amassing wealth, hoarding wealth in such a way that there's no one else in the world but you are in your back at hand. That has been severely recommended by the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Because that is not the way for any human being to behave and to live where there's no one on the planet except him and him and him. So we see that the Prophet ﷺ and the Qur'an, they did not want a Muslim to become niggerly and to become stingy where there's very little room for helping the other. In one of the surahs of the Qur'an, as all of you, as most of you would know, the Qur'an speaks about the woe unto be those people who pray because they are showing off and as they show up and they're vain, in their vanity they will deprive the neighbor from even the smallest of favors, ma'un. Ma'un is a small favor. Some of them will forcibly say like, if you have an egg and your neighbor needs an egg and you say, I don't want to give you an egg, then that is not depriving people of the ma'un. That's the terseer. So this is Makkah. So very early, Allah swt shows human beings through the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ that being stingy with what you have is not the way forward for any human being as an individual and especially not as a community, a society, as an ummah who is going to represent the last Nabi, the last Prophet of all times so that you do not damage the value of the Muslim civilization. So, what then is the role of wealth as we know it today? As we know wealth today, we believe that Allah swt's ni'ma and fadl is there in the form of wealth and I said the words that are used by the Qur'an for this are many one of which is fadl. After we perform Salat Juma'a, which is Allah's fadl, His Grace, His Mercy, His Mercy when Salat, now this Allah is Rahma. Allah swt then says to believers, Faidah khudrat is Salatun, Faan tashiru fil ardu, Wabdahu min fadlillah. The when Salat has finished and expired on Friday, you completed your duty to Allah and that is Allah's Rahma. Then you must disperse in the earth and then seek from Allah's fadl. Wabdahu min fadlillah. Now seek from Allah's fadl, His Grace and His Rahma, His Mercy. Which one? You've already done something in the form of your spiritual service to Allah and your worship, now go and find Allah's fadl in the form of Mande ni'ma and Mande goods. So go about your business and go about your tijara and see what you can do through Allah's fadl. The Quran says when you go out to earn, you are earning Allah's fadl. It is very huge. What you earn is also from God's grace. That's why it's called fadl. So that the human being does not assume that what he earns is his and God has no portion or participation in what he earns and what he owns. The Quran gives an example of one of the most richest men in human history. That is in the form of Qarun. Qarun was Musa al-Islam's cousin in the Bani Israel. Allah gave him so much wealth and money, we can't even imagine how much money he would have had without that Qarun. So Allah SWT says that we gave him so much of the treasures of the earth meaning gold and silver and everything else that the keys, not his wealth, his treasure, the keys to these treasures had to be lifted by several people who were very, very strong. People of immense strength would be required to just lift the keys to the treasures of Qarun. Do you know anybody who has done much wealth today? In the world? I don't think so. So the Quran depicts this person, Qarun, who is a cousin of Musa al-Islam and says that we gave him. Again, the Quran says we gave him. What enough? We gave him. So then the Quran says, see what happened to him because of his arrogance, his pride, his vanity and his claim that it was his. Qarun says that this is my name. I have been given this as a result of my earnings and my knowledge and my ability to train and commerce and to be a good businessman, etc. And he refused comply with the laws of the Torah, with the laws of Musa al-Islam and then Allah SWT punished him in this world. So we see that when Allah wants us to go out into the world then he wants us to realize that he is giving you the ability to do so and whatever you are earning is his father and his risk. He is the one who has facilitated for you to travel on the flanks of the earth, so go forth and walk and then eat from what Allah has given you. Eat from the risk of Allah. Allah's provisions will come to you if you travel and you earn and you do this. So the tawheed is necessary for the Muslim to bring down to their earnings and to their wealth and to their properties and to everything else that they have. Once a Muslim realizes that it is God's will that he is trying to earn and then he is owning because ownership belongs to Allah first. To Allah alone belongs the heavens and the earth. Allah gave us permission to own, only as one of his agents. Spend from what Allah has made you a Khalifa. Meaning whatever you have earned and whatever you have owned or you own now is the result of God's deputizing you on earth so that you may use and benefit from whatever God has given you. So now when we look at all of these ayat that speak about earning and seeking God's rahman fadal and Allah's risk and benefiting from whatever Allah has given us we see a very positive picture about a Muslim and his earnings and his wealth and his property and everything else. And what is that? That you see this as Allah's fadal and you take care of it Allah's ni'ama and then you go about in the world and you take care of who you need to take care of. Now who do you need to take care of? The Prophet said that when you want to be charitable to the people that you are raising your own family first know that you want to be spendent and you want to be extravagant in your homes or in the way you spend at home and you take care that you should not be niggily and stingy in the way you take care of your own family and your own children. This is something that we all know the Prophet s.a.w. expressed in so many different ways and the Sahabas understood this that Muslims they want to be part of Allah's fadal very well to do community and so on. One of the principle reasons why Zakat has been mandated or the benefits we should say is that Allah doesn't want the Muslim community to be poor. One of the most principle and foundational issues with Zakat is that Zakat is there to eventually eradicate poverty. The Prophet s.a.w. did not want the Muslim to remain poor at the level of the civilization so that they were always being want. He didn't want that. He wanted people to be able to earn themselves as the older of the Sahabi who came to the Prophet s.a.w. asked for charity and the Prophet s.a.w. saw him to be young man, strong and energetic and he said that you have an axe. So he asked one of the companions if he could lend this Sahabi some money to buy an axe so he gave him some money. He went and he came back with this axe and then the Prophet s.a.w. told him then now go and earn living by cutting down wood. Now where are you going to find wood in Madina? Madina was a forest. The wood would be outside of Madina. He said go outside of Madina, chop some firewood, come back to the market and then sell the firewood and earn your living. Then he said this is much better than you asking people. So the Prophet s.a.w. did not like the idea that the Muslim state would be a charity state that gives free handouts to everybody. He didn't want that. He wanted every Muslim to be independent and have self-prime and esteem so that he would say I'm not going to ask anybody, I'm going to ask Allah and I will seek from Allah as Fadal to do what I need to do now. This is how the Sahabah went. Some of them made a lot of money like Uthman radiallahu and Abdulrahman ibn A'uf. So much money Allah. Some of them not so much but they were wealthy enough to feed themselves and others like Abu Bakr radiallahu and Umar radiallahu and some others had to work harder like Ali radiallahu but you do not find a single instance where you see the Sahabah would come to the Prophet s.a.w. and say Ya Rasulullah, please give me some money unless it was a traveler. It was somebody from outside of Madina. Abu Huraira radiallahu says, Abu Huraira, the one who narrated the most hadith from the Prophet s.a.w. says that when I came into Islam, I would sit with the people of the Sufa who would be in the Masjid because they couldn't find any work and they would dedicate their lives to learning listening from the Prophet s.a.w. He says that I would roll around in the dust of Madina where young children would think that I had gone mad out of hunger. Out of what? Out of hunger. This is the Sahabi who narrates the most hadith from the Prophet s.a.w. on one occasion he asked the Prophet s.a.w. if there is anything to eat and the Prophet s.a.w. said I don't have anything in my house to eat but we can go and ask somebody else. What was I saying? I am not talking about the psyche. The attitude of every Muslim was to be independent unless it was very, very overwhelming and burning. The Prophet s.a.w. did not call people into Islam promising them an immediate opening in a job if you become Muslim I will give you a job. So this leads to the idea of Zakat. The idea of Zakat was that when Allah s.w. opened the doors for Muslims there was not a single Muslim from Yemen to Madina during the time of Umar who was eligible to receive Zakat. Think about it. And Mu'adim, notably Allah who was the governor of Yemen he said a lot of wealth to Madina and he told Umar this is all the Zakat from the people of Yemen and we have no one to distribute this wealth to it's your responsibility as Amir al-Mu'mini and the Khalifa of Muslims you take care of it, I don't want it. Can you imagine? The state of New York is giving handouts to the state of California and we have so much surplus wealth, take care of it. I don't think so. Umar sent it back and said I have no one in Madina who can receive Zakat. So Mu'adim said okay fine. The next year Mu'ad said please don't send it back. Here is another load of wealth that's coming your way. The Prophet s.w. and Islam has gathered up this whole thing is there so that Muslims are well to do and they don't need to look over their shoulders but what was the reason why they were well to do it they were all spent and they were shared and they were generous. Why? Because the Prophet s.w. told them that you don't have to own a million dollars in order to be charitable, in order to be generous. You give what you can at that moment and that is your responsibility in front of God in front of Allah s.w. and this is what makes you rich. What makes you rich is not the number in your bank account what makes you rich is you, inside of you. What's in your heart? And when you have a civilization that is based on generosity not only in terms of charity to others but also in terms of accommodating others the Prophet s.w. said man kairu yutmin billahi wa liyum bil aakhir when you couldn't play football whoever believes in Allah on the last day then he should honor his guest. Now what does this mean? What does this mean? In those days the guest didn't turn book his ticket three months in advance in three months I'm coming to see you my dear brother and the dear brother says maybe not three months give me another month I only read in three months my wife says no not in three months four months. In those days guest came unannounced in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and you were never prepared masha'Allah Allah have mercy on our ladies masha'Allah that they want the house to be speak and span when any guest comes into the house which is fine wonderful there's no doubt in that it should be that way but when the guest comes unannounced then what do you do? The Prophet s.w. said take care of them honor them respect them that this ikram that you give and you show to the guest is part of your generosity is part of your charity so Muslims have always been known as very very generous hosts in our civilization we've always been known as very generous hosts why? because this is the sunnah of the Prophet s.w. the sunnah of the sahaba that whenever somebody comes to you to your house you present to them what you can at that moment because now you're generous but if you tie your generosity and your accommodation to the idea that unless you have three dishes and five dishes and this done and this done then that ikram goes away there's a bit of sophistication there there's a bit of vanity there so the Prophet s.w. instructed the sahaba that if you believe in Allah and the last day then honor your guest why? this is part of your civilization this is who you are and everybody comes unannounced even until about 34 years ago that if you didn't have a phone or if you didn't have a means to send a telegram, a telegraph of a fax to somebody you would have to show unannounced and then it becomes difficult because now no one in the house is happy this guest is here nice and impediment to my life why is he here, why is he here and usually if the guests come they come with the whole family Muslims never freaked out when they had guests why? because they believed in Allah last day when Muslims stopped believing in God and in the last day then they started freaking out it's magical so let's put this together all of them that Allah s.w.t. uses very positive words to describe wealth the most positive word is in Surah Al-Adiyah وَإِنَّهُ لِحُبِّ الْخَيْرِ لَشَدِيلِ that with regards to khair mad is very very strict and severe intense, shadeel the word khair is used there the only meaning of the word khair in that ayah is wealth the only meaning why? because the surah talks about the best commodity in the eyes of the Arab which was horses more than camels they value in horses the Arabian horses the pedigree and all of that so Allah s.w.t. discusses this in Surah Al-Adiyah it's all about horses after the discussion of horses Allah s.w.t. says وَإِنَّهُ لِحُبِّ الْخَيْرِ لَشَدِيلِ that mad with regards to khair is very intense he is so submerged in wealth and khair that you could not plan and you could not separate the two even if you were to kill the man shadeel what I'm saying is that the word khair is used khair in Arabic is just you suppose against? shah evil so Allah s.w.t. in the Quran has shown Muslims that there is nothing wrong with wealth in of itself where does the problem occur? it occurs with the person who assumes that it is his wealth that's where the problem is now for the Muslim because he believes in Allah and on the last day he doesn't assume that it is his wealth he assumes that Allah s.w.t. deputized him made him a mustachlaf a khalifa over his fallah and his rizq so that he may benefit from it himself and his family, his neighbors the community and the rest of the world and all the relatives then there is no problem and detachment the Quran mentions in a very unique way when we read the Quran we see not only insights into the human psyche but we actually find guidance hidaya there is hidaya with those who want taqwa and to be close to Allah s.w.t. that the Quran depicts a community that is so much in love with Allah more than their own commerce and business and wealth that their money and their values do not distract them from the dhikr of Allah rijalu la tulhihim tijarratu wa la bay'un al dhikr of Allah that they are men rijal upright forward thinking la tulhihim tijarratu that neither their commerce wa la bay'un know that buying in 70 distracts them from the dhikr of Allah that as they are engaged in the dunya of the world in the bazaar, in the market their only concern is Allah's dhikr that some of you will say well this means Salat the Quran says no why? because next sentence is about Salat I'm dhikr of Allah wa ikhari Salat that they are not distracted neither from the dhikr of Allah nor from Salat wa ita is the God nor from giving is the God so Salat and the God are separate from the dhikr of Allah what is the dhikr of Allah that you are consciously aware that Allah is looking Allah is watching and your time is now speaking the names of Allah mention Allah's words and names this is the community that is the ideal community in the eyes of God fi buyudin adin Allahu anturfa wa idhkara fi hasmoo the whole ayat after ayat al-noor speaks about who lives in these homes and houses that are raised and they are seen as very noble homes in these homes and in these houses there are men and there are people who are committed to the dhikr of Allah even though they have wealth and even though they have commerce and business even though they trade and even though they are busy with their business and their whatever it is the mundane world or not only the secular world whatever you like to call now these people Allah SWT commands that nothing disturbs them nor distracts them from the love of God from the management of God's name from being conscious and aware of the fact that I have to do this the right way not only ethically and morally but also legally and spiritually I have to do it the way the umbiya alayhi wassalaam do this the prophets they do this in a different way when you look at the prophets alayhi wassalaam you see that some of them were not wealthy and some of them were very wealthy some of them were not wealthy and some of them were very wealthy Dawud and Suniman alayhi wassalaam very very wealthy and we have prophets of God they own kingdoms they are rulers they are almost like kings but they were not distracted from the dhikr of Allah SWT from worshipping Allah SWT to show mankind that is not what you have in your possession is where your heart is if your heart is with Allah and God then your money will not destroy you your wealth will not destroy you why? because the time you have to pray you pray and the time you have to give zakat and salafah you give the time you have for your own regiment of reading the Quran and Ibadah you will do that you will be organized in your mind in such a way that you will say that Madi is just a means to an end it is not the end and that is a modern night as Maulana Rumi al-Rahman Allah has very aptly given this this metaphor there is like a ship on an ocean if you allow the ship to sail on top of the water then the water is beneficial because it takes you from one shore to another shore so the water is beneficial but if you allow the water to come into the ship then the water is harmful it will sink you it will drown you and all your passengers likewise Maulana Rumi says if you allow your vessel in this life to sail above wealth and the world and the dunya then it will get you from A to B from one shore to another be smooth sailing but if you allow the world and the dunya and your wealth and everything else that comes along with it to penetrate your heart then the same wealth and the world will sink you it will drown you and you will not reach your destination and that is the beauty of the Quran so I started with saying the Quran uses many words for wealth as tijara, acquiring wealth rizq, Allah's provisions fadl, Allah's grace and mercy in this ayah khayr which means all goodness why are these words so positive so Maulana Rumi sums up this question by saying it is positive in the sense that you need water in order to travel on a ship that's why it's positive and then the hadith comes and sunnah comes to tell you and warn you that if you allow it to enter your heart or enter the ship then it is no longer beneficial it becomes detrimental and that is how the Prophet especially our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam saw the world now, big question in tzira we all love tzira alhamdulillah we all love tzira may Allah send blessings upon the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam we always say the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam did business and it was the reason why Khadija alayhi wa sallam married after Nabua Prophethood he did not do any business after Nabua the only business he had was Nabua the work of Nabua the work of Prophethood he didn't go back there he allowed the ummah to do it but he didn't go back at the time of Nabua he was a very wealthy person because of Khadija very wealthy extremely some scholars say historians that one third of Makkah's wealth was al-Nakh Khadija's disposal her authority one third and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was always with her he was also privy to all that wealth and he was well to do very well to do so he wasn't averse to owning anything he already owned everything Allah SWT says wa wa jadaka a'a ilan fa a'uduna we find you to be in need and want so we made you rich through your marriage with Khadija that's the time of Nabua so nobody could say that he was a pauper nobody could say that he has now claimed to be a Nabi of Allah of God because he wants money from people he didn't need to Allah already gave him enough more than enough so now after Nabua as he practiced his prophethood as the only work he ever did after then by the time he died sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he passed away what did he have left nothing Aisha R.A. says that the week in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam left this world they had to borrow oil from one of their neighbors they had to borrow the oil now you see the question on one side we are saying that the purpose one of the many objectives of Zakat is to eradicate poverty and we see our Nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself as being someone who did not own anything when he died when he passed away how do you reconcile then there is a du'a on the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Allahumma ahyani miskinah wa amitni miskinah wa khshumni bi zawrat al masakeen Allah make me live with the masakeen with the poor Allah give me death as I am poor Allah resurrect me with the poor on the day of judgment so what is this so you have the seerah on one side this is what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was at the time that he left this world and on this side you see the Quran and other hadith saying that there should be no poverty in the muslim ummah which is the reason why we flourished we cannot have become the civilization we became because we were poor is that correct how do you think we rule and govern half of the known world in that time was it because we are begging on the streets or was it because we are administrating the resources of the world that makes sense? but then our leader the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam when he left this world he had nothing reconciled and that is why sometimes unfortunately some people they become confused they want to follow the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam meaning the seerah and then they somehow don't read the other parts of the Quran and sunnah where we are asked to become a civilization that gives and doesn't take as I said we were hospital all the time when you read ibn-e-Botuta yola ibn-e-Botuta in his rahnah where he traveled the world on miles for free he was the most frequent traveler for free ever in human history he hardly paid a dime wherever he went all the way from North Africa all the way to India and China and then back he didn't have American Express he had free miles who gave him the free miles to travel so many thousands of miles for so many years his Muslim hosts wherever he went he was hosted by whom by us the most generous civilization ever you are guest welcome you stay here one day a night two nights three nights five wonderful sometimes some of the village rulers will accommodate him for weeks and months and when he would decide to leave finally I had enough of this village they would send him off with gifts and money now who can afford that lifestyle today it is because of the infrastructure of this very very rich civilization that we found ibn-e-Botuta who become ibn-e-Botuta very rich he writes in one of his logs I went to Dimash Allah save and protect Dimash today in Damascus in Syria I went to the markets and then one day I saw with the corner of my eye somebody carrying a broken plate in his hand so I am looking at this person he is well dressed he is well dressed and he is running with this broken plate so I follow him into the alleyways and when he reaches a certain place he goes into what is called something like an office as he is going into the office I follow him and see this office is for some people I don't know who they are then he comes back out with a plate which is not broken so somehow he replaced it ibn-e-Botuta is standing there scratching his head what is going on here so he says I went into the office and I asked him what are you guys doing here he said this is an office for slaves that if they break anything in their master's homes they may come here and claim damages and they may replace anything they damage because we have a stock of everything that they need so this person who broke this plate we had several plates similar to that we gave him that one now does this sound to you like a poor civilization or does this tell you this is a very rich organized sophisticated civilization snow brain all the way from the Atlantic to China you know about the Czech the word Czech is Arabic which suck saad ka this meant that if I gave you a note in Morocco that I will pay you this much if you give me this amount of goods in China then the Chinese businessman would honor you and he would send the goods because he knew that a process land bridge nowadays you have other ways you can do it with the click of a button transaction but the Muslims devalute this ability to do commerce and tijara and business because the Quran gave them the impetus through the very unique wordings and phraseology that the Quran uses Khair, Fadal Allah's Rahma business, tijara all of this that's on one side on the other side we see the Seerah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam where he left this world without owning any so people who say they want to follow the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam they look at this side and people who want to rule and govern they look at this side so this attention hence the question that is posed by many Muslims which is not really a question it's a commentary is wealth evil is there evil in wealth anyway the original question that I had proposed was that does wealth preclude us from being good Muslims so the Quran says no that if you divide the ability to make the dhikr of Allah in any situation whether you're doing business transactions or whether you're working in the fields and you're constantly engaged in the dhikr of Allah then the Quran commands you as the true man nijara the true man that you're the true human being because you know your time and earth is limited and this business is a means to an end it is not the end and only God gives no one gives human beings are instruments and agents for God to give and if for some reason this instrument and this agent and this company and this corporation or this ruler decides that he's not going to give you and you see that Allah's father now is where Allah is everywhere as we see and as we know so this is how the Muslims were the ability of the Muslim to travel freely and frequently was one of the reasons why we developed into the civilization that we developed into anyway so to answer the question first number one that we don't always use every incident from the seerah to make that story in the seerah very credible as one scholar say the difference between hadith and sunnah like the difference between seerah and sunnah so what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam did for himself is specific to him and there are many reasons why he chose to be beskin the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that the poor person will enter jannah 500 years before the rich person does because the rich person will be held accountable for the money and wealth that God gave you and he will be audited so when you have a billion dollars and you audited how long did it take you to find the tax returns a few decades I have to see even then you will find them or you will show them why? because if you audited all this money and wealth that you have accumulated and audited now it tells you that you have a lot of accountability so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said that I want every person in my ummah to be able to follow me if I acquire all the wealth in the world which if he may draw he would have been answered by Allah s.p.d the Allah s.p.d wouldn't have given him the gold as much as man or had it even more what would that do to the ummah the ummah will say we have to follow our Nabi who is extra extra wealthy and is that possible for every human being? no it is not possible for every human being to be a billion dollar, a billion dollar is it possible for every human being to worship Allah without owning too much? yes so he did this for the ummah sallallahu alayhi wasallam I don't want my ummah to feel the burden of following me if I had a lot of money because then the ummah will say we must follow the Sunnah so now if 90% of the world today they live in poverty can they make this excuse that we can't follow your Rasool or your Nabi because your Rasool or your Nabi and we are poor so Allah SWT made this club of Islam universal and accessible to every human being on the planet whether you are rich or poor whether you are educated or not educated the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was kept a Nabi ummah for this reason also that he was not able to read or write so those who don't know how to read or write are still able to follow the last Nabi the last Nabi if he had been a person who read and wrote then the ummah would have said what we need to be able to read and write because our Nabi was able to read and write and then the majority of human beings even today they don't know how to read and write now you can say that's not good that's part of your civilization that's a different story that's a whole different seminar it's a whole weeks workshop we're not going there what I'm saying is that how Allah swt chose the last Nabi is where we find our inspiration that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said he wanted to be with the poor people so that whoever is not rich is able to follow him just as the person who is rich is able to follow the lowest common denominator is what makes the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam said the last Nabi is the ingenious ability of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam said I was very rich one time through Khadija at the start of my Prophethood that when I finish I want to make sure that I'm not part of the elitist group where as a members only club I want my membership for my ummah to be based on nothing except true conviction and declaration of the facts la ilaha illa Allah Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam so when you bring that into the whole construct of wealth in the Quran and Sunnah then you say SubhanAllah only Allah can do this and only Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam can be a Nabi because he actually thought through it that's why we say Allah wasallallahu alayhi wasallam the conclusion is wealth in Islam by default is seen in a positive light it is not seen in a negative light what brings the negativity into wealth is human behavior human action, interaction and a lack of action and reaction so we say it is up to the human being as an individual and as a community to make sure that they are charitable and in Islam as I said the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam said in so many words you do not need to own so much important to be generous and charitable even a smile is charity as the saying goes even say SubhanAllah is a charity as we know even helping a Muslim brother do something is a charity as we know so now in this country we are searching for funds we inevitably gravitate towards money assuming that money is the only resource and capital with which we will succeed and we say that's very far from the truth because with your money you need to spend your own self you jahidun fi sabi and for saying you need to spend your time fi sabi mashallah with both hands and then give me some to I'm not saying that I'm saying that until the human capital is valued and the human being who gives is part of the community the community will not succeed period all Muslims must participate in the events of the community where is needed how ever is needed and there are ranks to that and that is where richness comes from the richness comes from us being the wealth a masjid is rich when alhamdulillah give every masjid plenty of money in barakah so that they are able to create this kind of infrastructure and this masjid also but when do we say that the masjid is now successful what does the Quran say does the Quran say if you have a billion dollar endowment then your masjid is accepted did you say that anyway the Quran says that the masjid is going to be successful and frequented by those who believe in Allah and they establish salat and they fear no one except Allah etc when the masjid is occupied by people who pray five times a day as much as they can in jamal that's when we say the masjid is successful with the masjid events and programs for the community that's when we say the masjid is successful so it's not just the money you have material wealth in the form of financial wealth and you have human wealth what is human capital and wealth people who come and do salat people who come and participate in the affairs of the masjid that is human capital that's your wealth also and this is how we see that the masjid and the Prophet was the most successful even though they had no carpets and they were just praying on the mud and rocks and stones and he's only later on and he brought some candles from somewhere and he put candles in the masjid and then Uthman R.R extended the masjid and then the extensions began but what I'm saying is that during the time of the Prophet the Sahaba saw the masjid as being successful because they were there the masjid was going to be successful insha'Allah make this masjid successful in every sense of the word insha'Allah so my understanding is that wealth in itself is good because the Qur'an uses the word khair it does become polluted by human action human figures so it is a ni'mah from Allah if you use it you're okay if you abuse it you lose it this is what we must take home from this insha'Allah presentation and if you have questions I think we have some time for questions so we'll start with questions on the mic and then we'll take written questions as well we have a card so I'm going to pass this along to the sister section first if you want to just raise your hand shy okay yeah, thank you very much you went through quite a list of ways of doing charity there was a list of about six I wrote down there's one that you did one type of charity it's like a charity people call it social justice and social justice is knowing that our neighbor needs our help so during the black and so forth or I mean like right now a lot of the Muslim thing and the immigrants and so forth and the poor so it's changing the system social justice trying to work for a better system is that how does that fit in with the other types of charity because it seems like in both cases the incentive or a big incentive is to help our needy neighbor and you can help either by giving him a check or you can organize and get people together and get the government or whatever to make for a better system sure that's a good point and definitely it has my intention to enumerate the various types of charity was not to be exhaustive that these are the only forms there are so many others as you pointed out what has been kind to your neighbors one of the statements of the prophet in so many different words says the same thing that if you know your neighbor is hungry and you sleep then you don't have faith so security for the neighbors and the neighborhood is part of your community building and if you look at the demographics of Madinah during the time of the prophet you will see invariably that most of the neighbors of the Muslims were Jews they weren't all Muslims there are a lot of Jews in every neighborhood and the prophet always encouraged the companions to be kind to their neighbors so community building works and starts with being careful and cautious and caring for your neighbors and the neighborhood because that promotes peace and security whereby you are going to be able to pray in peace you don't want your neighbors to be acting funny when you pray you expand it to the level of what you call social justice but that's a term that we say that justice is everywhere whether it's social or political economic or education doesn't matter justice is justice but yeah you're right that could be seen as one form of charity we should do zikr while we work how does one work with zikr I think when the work is mental in nature to be aware of who you are your consciousness and the surroundings around you that's a form of zikr obviously you don't want to be preoccupied with your zikr when you're working on a patient hospital, theater, slab you don't give me five minutes I'm going to go into my mood of a lot of zikr by that time the patient is dead so yeah feel the grain of salt be practical about it but the idea is to be aware that you are doing God's work as you are engaging the whole cosmos when you're doing this work it has very ballistic appeal to the work I don't suggest that you don't focus on the work at hand otherwise as you know nowadays everything's case sensitive you could destroy the whole world if you miss a beat you don't want to do that but zikr means that you're aware of who you are and you're surrounding and you're aware that this is God's name and there's a lot of trouble on you question from the right side I have a question in terms of nowadays there are so many problems in the Muslim community in Syria in everywhere people that need help and assistance even here locally there are people that are still homeless and things so let's say there's a Muslim that is doing chariots doing it does so that come from time to time so but do we have can we sincerely I mean can we have a clean mind and a clear mind to go and buy like an expensive car a very expensive car and be driving it around so knowing that this problem is still not solved and there's still people around who are still needy so it's not as if one is not spending at all one is spending doing charity but one is still living affluent in an affluent way is that would that be okay? if it's not okay we're all being trouble yeah the sharia says that when you earn something wealth then it's yours the owner is on you how you spend it the sharia says that this much of zakat is mandatory and whatever you do in excess is nothing is Sadukhari's charity you can give as much charity as you want there's no limit to that at the same time the Prophet ﷺ also said that you must not forsake and neglect your family because that is also seen as another form of charity that you're taking care of your family if that means that someone wants to buy a nice car then so be it there's nothing technically wrong with that there were voices during the time of the Sahaba when the Sahaba were given riches from the world during time of Umar al-Uthman many forms of wealth came to the Sahaba in marina there are some voices who are saying what you're saying that they didn't want the Sahaba as a community to start living a lifestyle that shows that they need some forms of luxury so the other Sahaba would tame them calm them down and say okay do they have the legal prerogative to spend or not that's the first question if you say that they have the legal prerogative to buy a car which costs $50,000 $60,000 then you can't blame them if what they do is halal that's the first rule secondly if there's a diet here in any community and the trend is that if you don't support the community now then you might be guilty of a certain form of nifaq or hypocrisy but your question will be well taken at that time but for someone to say that I'm going to give 80% of my earnings to charity that's a voluntary act it's nothing he may do that obviously at the risk of some comments from his families I guess be careful what you do there are repercussions to that also but there is no legal harm is there a moral obligation maybe maybe not only Allah knows whether that is moral or immoral we're not going to necessarily comment on that because it may lead to certain strands and strains of communism and socialism which you don't want to do that everybody has to be equal so the rule in Islam is that every community should take care of its community first the local community then you expand that side if you have relatives in other communities and the parts of the world then they have a right to your support and help and your wealth also give the relative his Jew in your wealth so that you must give so that you remain charitable at the same time as I mentioned Allah SWT and the Prophet SAW they want Muslims to become independent in and of themselves that they're not always looking for other forms of charity all the time then you have to waive which one is more important now or the crisis in the Muslim Ummah may Allah help the Ummah in every way we should help definitely there is no doubt in that feel the pinch also charity doesn't mean that Allah SWT has given me so much money I'm going to give five dollars to the Syrian orphans and that doesn't cut it brother feel the pinch they feel the sacrifice from your pocket stop spending so much on futile activities don't be that vain that you can't afford maybe a hundred dollars more maybe a thousand dollars more maybe five thousand dollars more in the year because hoarding is not liked in Islam hoarding is condemned so yes, from that point of view your case is solved so we'll make this the last question and then we'll learn about the Qadr Qasim and then we'll have Isha for 10 minutes so we'll give you an opportunity to go through if need be in this time there are many needy people massaged in schools, educational institutions refugees, rats, etc which one takes priority it is difficult to give you a list of priority number one, two, three, four this is how the Quran informs us one is that if we have relatives who are in need we must help them first why is this managing so many times in the Quran because it's the most difficult community to help we all hate our cousins and brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws and in-laws alright try giving your mother-in-law who needs to help some money it doesn't work brother it's about the nafs take away the nafs you're not giving for your nafs and your pleasure you're giving for the sake of Allah they are related to you I'd love to honor that because Allah has made that relationship for you you didn't choose that you decided for you that's why the inheritance rules are very strict who inherits and who doesn't it's based on blood relationships so if there's a relative who needs your help then help them first this is the order of the Quran then your neighborhood your local community needs you should help them and then other needs depending on your priorities and so on your local masjid first your local school first other schools later etc if they are local if they are national then you must give some weight to the national causes because they influence everybody alright and if they are international then you spend some time thinking about the way you want to give but obviously nowadays because of this this new administration be careful follow the law of the land that will be my advice see you