Sadullah Khan – Developing a Qur’anic Personality To be and What not be. #28

Developing a Quranic Personality,

How to be and What Not to Be.

Islam has given consideration to wealth

from various angles.

Wealth in fact has been mentioned more than

70 times

in 70 of the verses of the holy

Quran

and is often referred to

or parallel with khair, which is goodness.

At times, it's been from

the bounties of Allah.

And like many things in life,

wealth can be positive.

It can be a blessing, what you call

a niyama, which is beneficial,

but could also be negative or detrimental or

a nakma.

It depends on how we acquire

it depending

how you acquire it and on what you

spend it.

That is perhaps why Allah also refers to

wealth in the Quran as

surely

your progeny

and your wealth, immaterial wealth are a test,

a trial, a tribulation sometimes for you.

There is a quranic verse that captures

the essence of a believer's attitude

towards wealth and towards the ownership of property

and puts it in proper context.

Allah says,

Seek

the hereafter.

Seek the other world

by means of what Allah has provided for

you in this world

and do not forget your portion of this

world.

You

won the best in this world but also

the best in the hereafter.

But do good.

Do good as Allah has been good to

you. But in the whole process,

don't engage

in corruption.

Allah does not love those who are corrupt

nor those who transgress.

So wealth could be of use for one

for one's own self, for the good of

oneself

and it can be used for the promotion

of good of others.

It could be used to alleviate

the economic needs of those who are in

distress.

And we realize

the best of wealth

is that which is in the hands of

the generous. The best of wealth in the

hands of the generous.

You see, some people are so generous,

they offer all they

can with all they have with anyone that

needs it.

And others are so stingy, they can't even

offer a smile.

Some people are so rich they offer all

their love with all their heart

and some people are so poor

all that they have is a lot of

money.

So

we need to realize

money is not the true measure of real

wealth.

Money is not the true measure of real

wealth

because you see, we live in a world

of excessive materialism.

We must be careful not to measure everything.

We must not measure everything

by cost at the expense of value.

Don't measure everything by cost at the expense

of value

for we may lose what is intrinsically valuable

by focusing

is This is a story of a poor

man who came to the Sheikh and said,

Sheikh, I feel I'm worthless. I'm hopeless. I'm

worthless. I want to kill myself.

So Sheikh said, You are worthless but before

you kill yourself, do me a favor. Can

I buy your arm for, $10,000?

Okay.

He said, Okay, give me your 2 eyes.

I'll give you a quarter million. Just, Oh,

you know, how can you give me my

eyes? You see?

He's he felt himself worthless because he felt

there's no value to himself. But even if

he looked at himself,

these are things that money cannot truly buy.

So wealth is not always measured by material

possessions.

True

wealth is not measured by price but by

value.

If I were to ask someone who lost

their son

and someone who lost a car, if you

lost your Merc, you'll pay up to a

$1,000,000 to get it back. If you lost

a son, you'll give your entire life to

get it back.

So material things as valuable as they are,

you see, real wealth is measured

by what you have

that money can't buy.

Real wealth is measured by what you have

that money can't buy.

So it's not how much you make, but

how much you do with what you have.

Wealth is not so much in having,

but in how contented we are with what

we have. And therefore, the Rasulullah wala ahi

wa sallam in a hadith documented in Sahih

al Bukhari and Sahih al Muslim.

Real wealth is not measured by how much

you possess

but rather by the contentment of your soul,

by the contentment of yourself.

Among the best wealth that we can, however,

accumulate,

and I want us to be wealthy,

the best wealth we can accumulate

is good deeds

despite people's focus

on material position. As a result in hadith,

in

When a person dies, people say, how much

did he leave behind? And the angels say,

what has he sent forth of good deeds

that will benefit him in the year after?

I leave you with the reminder of the

holy

Material wealth, material things, and your children, these

are adornments of the life of this world.

But the consequence of good deeds

endure forever. When you die, your children will

bury you and your murk will come to

the grave. They'll bring you in the best,

there'll be 5 murks and they'll bury you

and they'll sell it after that. It'll go

to someone else. The only thing that goes

with you is your good deeds. So, the

consequence of good deeds

versus material things and children and all of

these are adornment of this world.

Things that you brag about in this world.

But

the consequence of good deeds endures forever.

Good deeds are far better in value

And to place your hope in good deeds

is far better

than placing your hope in material wealth.