Mirza Yawar Baig – Investment not Charity – 1
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the confusion surrounding the concept of charity and investment, citing the example of a man named Jesus who initially provided only one amount for charity, but later added another amount for investment. The speaker emphasizes the importance of leaving one's current effort and pursuing the right path for profit to achieve retirement and profitability. The speaker also discusses the importance of trusting and giving in charity, citing the success of people who use the current day standards.
AI: Summary ©
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.