Sadullah Khan – Developing a Qur’anic Personality To be and What not be. #23

Developing a Quranic personality

to be and what not to be.

Generosity

can be manifested

by anybody.

And charity

is a duty of everyone,

rich or

poor,

wherever they may be and whoever they may

be.

Though the most common form of charity is

the giving of material wealth or money

or physical goods,

but in actual fact,

charity or

is far wider

and far more inclusive

than merely the giving of money or the

giving of goods.

Our beloved Prophet Muhammad said,

He said, every act of goodness is charity.

And beyond that, he explained in the hadith

found both in Sahih al Bukhari and Sahih

al Imam Muslim,

There is charity due on every part of

the body.

Charity due on every part of the body,

every day on which the sun rises.

And he went on to say,

And he went on to say as well,

A whole long hadith in which he says

to bring justice between people. That's sadaka. To

make reconciliation

between people who are fighting. That's sadaqa. To

remove a harmful thing from the road, that's

sadaqa. To help someone load something for them

or to help them with a ride, that

is sadaqa.

To give someone water is sadaqa, and so

on.

So,

it's not only the giving of things.

It's the giving of the self

which is the best kind of giving. And

this is an advice of Rasulullah

salallahu alayhi wasallam to one of his sahaba,

Abdullah ibn Rasrood

Rasoolullah said

to him,

When you console those who are in distress,

when you console no money involved. When you

console the poor or the one in distress,

and you are also able to give of

yourself,

then you are a true believer.

So

giving of yourself in this hadith implies kindness,

compassion. It can also mean giving money. But

out of what are you giving the money?

It came here for show. It can be

to humiliate, it can be to That's not

sodah. That's giving. So the point is, there's

an element of gold beyond the idea of

merely handing over something physical. It can be

physical,

but death in itself is not the charity,

it's the giving of the self. So when

you say give up yourself, it implies kindness,

empathy, compassion,

love, and so on.

So I want to reflect on 1 or

2 incidences or sayings of Sayyidina

of saying, Isa, Jesus peace be upon

him, Alaihi Salam. Where he said in a

hadith, documented by

it's come down to us through the Rasul

and to us. Where it's documented, he

said,

is not in doing something good to someone

who has done good to you. That is

merely reciprocation. That is merely returning a favor.

You do good to me, I do good

to you. And what if you don't do

good to me? So

that is mukafa. I just exchange. You do

me a favor, I do you a favor.

Virtuous action is when you do good

even if other people did not do any

good to you.

Further on, there's an incident

where

also

He passed by a group of disciples with

his with his disciples, with his

companions.

And as he passed by them, they insulted

him. You know they accused him he was

a son of an illegitimate woman and all

that stuff. And of course he was very

independent in his approach.

He was very,

he opposed the people who were doing money

and business in the mosque in in the

synagogues. And they were charging people interest and

so on in the mosque. He says why

are you doing this? So you're not a

violent man but you oppose this thing very

openly. So he was very ostracized.

So people had that, but even the rabbis

spoke against him. The religious people spoke against

him. The political authorities wanted to crucify him.

So he had no real support. And as

we know from his history, even from Christian

sources, he only had 12 or 13 disciples.

And then 2, one of them sold him

out. So So what I'm trying to say

is, he passed by this group of people

and obviously not a very popular man in

the community because of the

negativity towards him, unwarranted.

They insulted him and he said something good.

Then they said, You passed by another group.

And they insulted him even more. And then

he said something more good to them. So

the companions said to him,

Every time they say something bad to you,

you say something good.

And this is important about charity and generosity.

He said,

Each person give what they have. You see,

they say in Arabic,

You cannot give what you don't have. So

basically

were not.

They give what they have and I give

what I have. If they have hatred, that's

what they can give. I have love, that's

what I can give.

So this is the essence of it. So,

from all of this we deduce that charity

is not dependent so much on income or

money. Otherwise, the poor people can never give

charity. But there are people who are absolutely

poor but who are more charitable because of

the smile, of the kindness, of the healthfulness

than all of us with our millions.

So we deduce from this that charity is

not so dependent on money or income or

material possessions.

Rather,

real charity, real charity is manifested in the

capacity of the goodness of your heart and

the compassion

reflected

in your noble and beneficial actions.