Mirza Yawar Baig – Investment not Charity – 1

My brothers and sisters, there is a

confusion that

is in the minds of a lot of

people when we talk about sadaqah, when we

talk about charity.

There's a lot of confusion

that I

want to clarify. I want to simplify the,

the principle

for you and myself, Insha'Allah.

And that is the difference between charity and

investment. Charity versus investment.

Now charity

is really a zero sum game because we

see charity as giving.

All giving

is to lose something.

When you give, you are saying that you

didn't receive anything in return. That is why

if you give see the word we use?

Give.

If you give $1,000

in charity,

you say I gave $1,000.

But when you buy,

say, Tesla shares

for the same 1,000,

you don't say I gave Elon Musk or

Wall Street or Nasdaq or where or whatever,

$1,000.

You don't say who gave the $1,000. You

say I invested $1,000

in in Tesla.

You do this because you expect a return

on your investment.

You didn't give. You invested

because anything you expect a return on is

an investment,

not charity.

Therefore,

what do we say about spending in the

path of Allah?

Ask because this,

in my view, is real

retirement planning.

Allah

created us for a purpose

and told us

what that what that purpose is.

He

I did not create jinn and humans except

to worship me.

I seek no provision

from them

nor do I need them to feed me.

Indeed, Allah alone

is the supreme provider,

the owner of all power,

and ever mighty.

Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is saying that he

feeds

us with his power and glory and majesty.

Allah

told us

to leave our effort

to earn a living and to rush

to obey the command to pray.

And then

when we have completed the prayer,

to search for our sustenance,

not before,

not instead of,

not before the salah, not instead of the

salah, but after

fulfilling the command to pray.

Then we have the permission

to search.

The permission to search implies that what we

have been permitted

to search

for is already there.

We can't be told to search for something

that doesn't exist. For example, if I tell

you, find the diamonds in this room. There

are no diamonds in the room. How can

you find them? So that command would be

a foolish command.

So when Allah is saying, search for my

my my bounty, search for the for for

what I have given you, it means it

is there already.

So when Allah

permitted us to search for our sustenance,

it is there. Allah

then proceed

was

first with

effort.

Make effort, race.

And I didn't say saunter along, mashi, just

walk along. No. 1st

to the remembrance of Allah

was ruled by and leave your business

leave your business that is best for you

that is best for you if only you

knew.

Once the prayer is over,

for either who did the salatu,

Once the prayer is over, then disperse throughout

the land and seek the bounty of Allah.

And remember Allah often

so that you may be successful.

The command is to leave al bayah,

selling,

where you see profit.

This is not restricted to the Friday prayer

but to all prayers. Allah did not use

the word shara'a, which is buying,

which is also part of business, but

and ordered us,

to leave that for prayer.

Right? Allah said, leave

because buying is something where you,

where there is a risk and you are

spending something, whereas,

selling

is

profit.

So the implication is to leave something which

is profitable

for something else

in which there is much more profit.

Allah told us

to search for sustenance,

not to create Allah did not say make

sustenance. Allah said search for sustenance.

If you are alive, your sustenance has already

been created,

but you have the choice of getting it

from this source or that source,

which is an open book test because you

have also been told the consequences

of getting it from either of the sources.

That is the test.

If we pick the right source,

not only will our investment be protected,

but we will be rewarded

for making that choice.

But if we fall into the trap of

shaitan

and choose from the wrong place,

then not only will we lose everything,

but we may also be punished for choosing

the wrong way when the correct way had

already been shown to us.

We are not told to create the food.

We were told to choose the food from

the right place. And by food, I mean,

sustenance. It is everything that we need. And

that is why the example of the bird

in the nest,

which sir searches for its sustenance, as Rama

said,

that our deh and our rizr,

he said, is like a bird in the

nest. It flies out in the morning

searching for food, and it returns in the

evening with its belly full.

Allah does not provide the bird food in

its nest.

The food is there. The bird goes and

searches for it.

It doesn't make the food. It searches for

what Allah has already provided.

Also, it doesn't just sit there and wait

for the food to come to it.

It goes to find the food because that

is what our effort is. Because people ask,

if I simply said, will I get? If

Allah wills, you will get. But Allah did

not ask us to do that. Allah

told us to go look for it.

Ask Allah

to help us to

understand this and to,

learn from this

and to benefit from this

by having tawukulullah.

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala ordered us to spend

in charity more than 66 times in the

Quran,

but did not ask us to accumulate

wealth

or to sir or to save for so

called rainy day, evil ones.

And that is because

he is the provider,

and we trust him

and rely on him.

We are supposed to trust him and rely

on him and not on our effort or

our smarts or our accumulated wealth.

This is not a prohibition on saving or

earning. It is

when we have a chance to give it

to Allah.

Because when we give in charity,

we are really investing our wealth with Allah.

That is the secret of charity.

It is really investment

with Allah.

The Saabah understood this, and so we have

these amazing stories of people who seem very

strange in if we use our current day

standards,

in the way they spent

in the path of Allah.

They spent like there was no tomorrow.

The truth is that they spend that way

because they understood

the real meaning of tomorrow.

I ask Allah

to help us

to really understand the meaning of tomorrow because

tomorrow is in the context of the.

It's not tomorrow as in a date change

or the next date from from today, but

in terms of the.

We ask Allah's to make our tomorrow better

than our today. Our better than our dunya.

And our dunya, we ask Allah

to give us

from him, through him sufficient

as a gift without the interference and without

the dependence of anyone

in creation.