Our Test with Money

Money is an indispensable means of exchange in our lives. Every undertaking, good or bad, depends on it. Without it, our work in service of others would also collapse. In many passages of our Book of Life, Almighty Allah commands us to “Strive with your wealth and your lives,” emphasizing how important money is to exalting the word of Allah and that giving wealth takes precedence over risking our lives in that struggle. For those who will not give their wealth cannot put their lives on the line. Our possessions are a part of ourselves.

The Messenger of Allah also said: “When the end times come, people will have a greater need for dirhams and dinars (money). For people will then be able to sustain their religious and worldly lives through them” (Taberanî, Ahmed b. Hanbel, Müsned, 6/17, 201; Kenzu’l Ummal, vol.3. /238, Hadith No:6333 and 6347). That is how important money is to our religious and worldly lives.  

Almighty Allah describes our attitude towards wealth and money as follows: “Human beings have an excessive love of wealth.” (100/Adiyât:8); “Indeed, human beings were created exceedingly greedy.” (70/Meâric:19).

Human beings are inclined towards both the unlawful and the lawful: “Then He inspired the human being with wickedness and piety.” (91/Şems:8). In this verse, wickedness refers to every kind of evil, sin, rebellion and going astray, while piety means guarding against disobedience to Allah, righteousness, goodness and good character. This is how Allah tells us in the Qur’an what we are like. We must understand our negative and positive qualities well and control our feelings accordingly. We must use our will to put our reason, nourished by the Prophet and revelation, to work, restraining our negative qualities and bringing out our positive ones.

Human beings, then, are created as neither devils nor angels. If they unite their reason, nourished by revelation/the Qur’an, with their will, they rise to Âlâ-i İlliyyine/the highest of the high; if they place their reason at the mercy of their whims and desires, they tumble down to Esfel-i Sâfilîne/the lowest of the low.

To restrain our urge to do evil, we must also establish a guard post of conscience. We must consciously instil our belief in the hereafter—that is, the conviction that “One day, in the hereafter, we will certainly have to account for what we have done in this world”—in this guard post of conscience. Only this guard post can ensure our self-control.

Having understood human nature in this way, we can now turn to our test with money. A Muslim’s test with money is a fundamental religious and moral responsibility governing how wealth is acquired, the purposes for which it is spent and its place in the heart. The Messenger of Allah says on this subject: “On the Day of Resurrection, no human being can move from the presence of their Lord until they have been called to account for these five things: where and how they spent their life, what they spent their youth on, where they earned their wealth and where they spent it, and whether they acted on what they knew.” (Tirmizî, Sıfatü’l-Kıyâme, 1).

As for its place in the heart, Abdülkadir Geylanî says: “Cast worldly things out of your heart; after that, whether you put them in your safe, your purse or your pocket, wherever you put them, they will not harm you.”

One day, while İmam Azam was teaching his students, his shop assistant came in and said, “Sir! We have received word that the ship carrying our cloth has sunk”. The great Imam reflected for a moment and said, “Praise be to Allah”. He continued his lesson. After a while, the assistant returned and said, “The report was wrong, sir. The ship that sank was not the one carrying our cloth”. İmam Âzam again paused briefly and again said, “Praise be to Allah”. This time, his students grew curious and asked: Teacher, when you were told the ship had sunk, you said, “Praise be to Allah”, and when word came that the sunken ship was not the one carrying your cloth, you again said, “Praise be to Allah”. What is the wisdom behind this? He explained: When I was told the ship had sunk, I paused and looked into my heart. I saw that I felt no sorrow, and I said, “Praise be to Allah”. When I was told that the ship that sank was not the one carrying our cloth, I again looked into my heart. It felt no joy, so I said, “Praise be to Allah”.

This is called detachment from worldly things. A person who practises such detachment, whose feelings change neither with loss nor with gain, has removed worldly possessions from the heart and placed them in the hand, the safe, the purse and the pocket. Money and possessions can no longer harm such a person.

All these examples demonstrate the need to uproot from the heart the craving to acquire what we call worldly things: money, possessions, property and status.

Then we will be the ones who rule our wealth and property. Otherwise, they rule us, and we become prisoners of material things. Instead of our leading them, they drive us before them, directing and controlling us. Instead of our having them in the palm of our hand, they have us in theirs. That is when we have become worldly. A worldly person is someone who becomes a slave to money instead of making it serve them. They consider any kind of manoeuvring permissible in order to obtain it.

Respect for the boundaries between the lawful and unlawful, the rights of others, compassion, responsibility, honesty and trustworthiness—
these are qualities whose absence or deficiency in a Muslim’s character is unthinkable. Only through them can a Muslim truly be a Muslim.

Islam has three principles concerning wealth: Earnings must be lawful, there must be no wastefulness, and there must be no miserliness. Allah has not commanded us to “Become very rich in material terms.” His command is simply to “Earn lawfully, live within lawful bounds, and give to others.”

Muslims who have the means should strive to earn lawfully and give generously. The Holy Qur’an reminds us to give in 200 places.

“Do good (to people), just as Allah has done good to you.” (28/Kasas:77).

“Allah’s pious servants give both in prosperity and in hardship.” (3/Âl-i İmran:134)

The greatest fruit of faith is compassion. The finest expression of compassion is to offer what you have to someone who lacks it—in other words, to share. Towards the end of the 19th century, a terrible famine struck Eastern Anatolia. The British then sent a spy there to determine whether they could use the famine to provoke an uprising against the Ottoman state in the region. The conclusion the spy reached through his investigation was deeply instructive. His report stated: “There is famine here, but no hunger! For everyone looks out for one another and offers help. That is why the famine does not turn into hunger. In conclusion, within such a strong social structure, it is impossible to use famine to provoke an uprising.” (The Muslim’s Test with Money, O. Nuri Topbaş, p.41).

We see no spiritual crisis in that society, where material resources were at their most limited. Yet today, when material blessings abound, spiritual crises and psychological and psychiatric illnesses have, sadly, reached extreme levels. For the drive to earn ever more has turned savage. Greed has turned people into monsters, the ethic of sharing has weakened, and charitable giving and generosity have been forgotten.

The Messenger of Allah says: “The harm that two hungry wolves let loose among a flock do to that flock is no greater than the harm a person’s greed for wealth and status does to their religion.” (Tirmizi, Zühd, 43).

Greed blinds people; it leads them to focus solely on their own gains, without regard for justice or the rights of others. It brings them to the attitude: “Lawful or unlawful, give it to me, O Allah; Your servant will consume it, O Allah.”

Human greed and avarice are never satisfied. As Mevlana says: “Worldly wealth is like seawater: the more you drink, the thirstier you become.”

This insatiability drives people to keep wanting more and to commit greater wrongs in pursuit of it. They end up disgraced and humiliated over their dealings with funds.

This hadith is a universal warning that an unchecked hunger for wealth, property and status that oversteps moral boundaries is more destructive and dangerous than even the greatest external physical threats.

Let us conclude with these meaningful words of the venerable Ebu Bekir: “If faith remains only in mosques (without being reflected in life), wealth is in the hands of misers, weapons in the hands of cowards, and authority in the hands of the weak, things go wrong.” Let us reflect on this.

Musab Seyithan

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