Servants of the Most Merciful
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Episode 6: Neither Extravagant Nor Stingy
Dr. Omar Suleiman dives into the fifth quality of the servants of the Most Merciful.
Graphic Notes
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. So I'm going to start over again inshallah. Audhu billahi min ash-shaytani r-rajim, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, wa salatu wa salamu ala Rasulihi al-Kareem, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam wa taslim al-kathira. We get now to the ayah, we're in, we're on verse 67. Where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, wal-ladheena iza anfaqoo lam yusrifoo wa lam yaquturoo, wakana bayna dhalika qawama. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala still continuing in the description of the servants of the most merciful says, those who are neither extravagant nor are they stingy in their spending, but they find that perfect balance between the two. wakana bayna dhalika qawama. And the scholars say that it's interesting that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not define the middle except by defining the two extremes. And there's a lot of room for interpretation there in regards to what are the two extremes, and what is the middle, and that's part of what we're going to be digging into insha'Allah ta'ala here. But essentially Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is saying, ibadah ar-Rahman have good spending habits. They have healthy spending habits. And this is a really beautiful halaqa insha'Allah ta'ala because it goes into a beautiful element of taskiyah. And I always enjoy when there are elements of taskiyah that typically do not get spoken about when speaking about the science of spiritual growth, like food and consumption and how to spend and things of that sort. Because this is not talking about charity. This is talking about your spending habits. So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam commented on wakana bayna dhalika qawama that this is a person that is situated between the two in regards to extravagance and stinginess. And he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, dhalika al-hikmah, that's wisdom. That is wisdom. So a person who is able to find that balance between being extravagant and being stingy,
having healthy spending habits, that is a person with hikmah. That's the description of the Messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam. Now why would the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam call it hikmah? Hikmah, wisdom, in the Arabic language when you use the word wisdom, it means that it governs something. So hikmah, the horse's reins. If you have ilm, which is the horse, knowledge which is the horse, you need hikmah to balance and to guard that knowledge and to use it properly. Hikmah also carries a level of authority. And so when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam says it's hikmah, that means that a person has a good understanding of balance, and they know how to keep things in order, and they know how to not let things get out of hand. And of course when it comes to the areas of spending, that's where you start to see that people really can get out of hand with their spending. And subhanAllah, I spent a good amount of time reading articles on good spending habits because I was just curious subhanAllah how much of those articles that talk about good spending habits could be integrated into the science of tazkiyah. And one of the reasons why I did that is because a person's spending habits are usually indicative of other things regarding their personality. So people with bad spending habits usually have implications of that far beyond their wealth. So a person's spending habits are usually indicative of other things regarding their personality. So let's compare like the top five. These are my top five good spending habits extracted not from me, but from articles about spending habits and things of that sort, and connect them to an element of tazkiyah, connect them to an element of our spirituality. So number one, they always tell you living on a budget, that a person with healthy spending habits lives on a budget. And from a tazkiyah perspective, what does this translate into?
Restricting your desires. وَلَا تَنْسَىٰ مَلْسِنِكَ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا That you approach things of this world as not being negligent. So when it comes to matters of dunya, you are not extravagant, you don't have high hopes in this dunya. You restrict both your expectations of this dunya as well as your consumption of material things. And so living on a budget, i.e. restricting your desires and restricting your consumption of this dunya. The second thing which always comes up, and sometimes this is the first thing when you talk about healthy spending habits, is avoiding impulsive shopping. Which subhanAllah nowadays you've got Prime Now and Prime, and who knows what that's going to look like in the next year or so. But the point is, you press a button now. And it's very quick, you don't even go to a store and look at products usually. Most people are getting into the habit of online shopping, especially with COVID-19. Everyone's getting into online shopping to some degree. So if you've got the money for it, if you're not worried about your income, and even if you are, we have this habit of impulsive buying, impulsive shopping. And what does that connect to with our taskiya? Patience. The Prophet ﷺ said, الْعَجَلَةُ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ Haste is from the devil. The impatience that we have, our impulsiveness with everything from our arguments to our shopping, our consumerism to our conversations, everything. Being impulsive is one of the worst qualities that you can have. It is what the shaitan tries to push us to. Because remember, what the shaitan tries to get us to do is to rush us into a mistake, and then tell us that we're not going to be able to escape the consequences of that mistake. So push, push, push, gets you to be reckless with your behavior.
And so when you're impulsive, then you don't think before you do. And then after you do, the shaitan tells you there's no point of trying to return back to Allah ﷻ now. You've already messed up, you might as well continue down that route. And so impulsive shopping is directly related to patience, a lack of patience. And particularly, because there are different categories of sabr, different categories of patience, particularly al-'ajalah, which is hastiness, which the Prophet ﷺ said is from the shaitan. The third thing that they always talk about in these articles is to research before you buy things. To be very careful, not to just buy something because it looks pretty, but to do your proper research when you consume something, when you purchase something. And what did the Prophet ﷺ teach us to avoid? Ash-shubuhat, doubtful matters. SubhanAllah, you know, Ibn Zaymiyya ﷺ said there are two things that sink every person. The two things that sink a person's spirituality are their indulgence in shahawat and their indulgence in shubuhat. Their indulgence in desires and their indulgence in shubuhat, which are the doubtful matters. Okay, so those are the two things that sink every person spiritually. And here you have an example of the Prophet ﷺ telling us, warning us to be careful when it comes to the doubtful matters, to be careful when it comes to the shubuhat because of the impact that they can have on our spirituality. And that's what any one of those articles will tell you is in order to become a better spender, someone with better spending habits, learn to research products before you buy. Give them some time on the market. See how people interact with them. See how the reviews are. But now it's like you pre-order things. You don't do your research, you pre-order things. So you know that the next whatever is coming out, right, the next version of this is coming out. You want to get your name in there quickly.
So research before you buy directly relates to the spiritual habit of avoiding doubtful matters. And some of the scholars, they said that, you know, when you look at someone like Imam Abu Hanifa ﷺ, Abu Hanifa ﷺ is brilliant for so many reasons. But you know, his fiqh, his understanding was really pioneering. He was the father of fiqh, right? Everyone was dependent upon Abu Hanifa ﷺ in some capacity when it came to his fiqh. And what was Imam Abu Hanifa ﷺ before he became a fiqh? Imam Abu Hanifa ﷺ was a brilliant merchant, but he wasn't just a brilliant merchant, you know, because he inherited a fortune and he just took that tijara and he started, you know, that cloth or those garments and he started to make money off of them. He had a particular eye for defects in garments. So he could tell when something was quality where others could not. So others could be deceived with the quality of a cloth. Imam Abu Hanifa ﷺ could not be deceived. He was very careful. And they said that, ﷺ, he would look to the edges when other people would ignore the edges. Most people, when they would grab the garment, they'd hold it up and they'd look at it and they'd, you know, they'd squeeze it a few times, they'd see if it wrinkles, whatever it is. Imam Abu Hanifa ﷺ would study the edges before he committed to buying a garment. And so he was a very detailed shopper and merchant. And so a lot of what made him good in his trade made him good in his scholarship as well, ﷺ. So that's the third thing, researching before you buy and the connection that has to avoiding the shubuhaat, avoiding doubtful matters. The fourth thing, avoid spending triggers. There are certain things that trigger your spending, right? And what did the Prophet ﷺ teach us? He taught us not just to avoid our triggers of spending, but to avoid our triggers of sin, right? And this is something that we find in the Qur'an,
وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ Don't follow the footsteps of shaitan. The prophetic guidance to avoid environments that are likely to invite you to sin. The prophetic guidance to avoid khalwah, seclusion, you know, in a way that could lead you to sin. To avoid all sorts of exposure to environments or things that would trigger your sin. To study ourselves deeply from a taskiyah perspective. To see what is it that leads me to a place of sin. And you know, obviously you read, if you read through Imam al-Ghazali, ﷺ, or you read the summary of al-Ihyaa ibn al-Jawzi's Minhaj al-Qasidin, or ibn al-Qaddam al-Muqfasid's Minhaj al-Qasidin, that when they talk about repenting from sin, there is a lot of emphasis on going back and trying to identify what triggered your sin in the first place, so that you can avoid those triggers. So for example, when Imam ibn al-Jawzi, ﷺ, he said that if you are walking and your garment gets stuck on something, then you need to go back to where it got hooked, and take it off from there, otherwise you're just going to rip it. So going back to the origin of what caused you to sin, as a means of understanding what triggers your sin. And so all of those articles that talk about learning good spending habits, they emphasize learning what your spending triggers are. And then the fifth one, which is last but not least, practicing gratitude so that you don't always feel left out. A lot of times people buy things because they feel left out. Everybody else has this. And so suddenly what they do own loses its flavor, it loses its shine. I need the next one, I need the next one, I need the next one. And what did Allah ﷻ say? وَلَا إِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدًا لِّكُمْ If you are grateful, I will increase you. Your perspective changes when you practice gratitude.
So you learn to appreciate what you already have, and so you're not so stressed out about what you don't have. And so there's a direct connection between israf, people that purchase, purchase, purchase. They keep trying to fill the void, the emptiness with the next product, the next product. The fear of missing out, the fear of being left behind where everybody else has gotten this. They're able to get over that because they're practicing gratitude with what they already have. So subhanAllah, these are five things that, again, if you look at good spending habits, they tie directly into good taskiyah, good spirituality, and what would count as being from ibadur-rahman or what would make us from ibadur-rahman. Now, what is extravagance in Islam? Remember Allah ﷻ did not define israf here or stinginess here. So He didn't define extravagance and He didn't define stinginess because a lot of this is left to good judgment. It's just like if someone was to say, you know, what are good spending habits? What's a good amount of money that you should spend on leisure? That's going to differ from person to person. That's going to differ from circumstance to circumstance. To give a number, while it might be satisfying, it might happen to work for some people, is not going to be healthy and productive, right, because it's not going to fit everyone's circumstances and their situations. So in Islam, what counts as israf and then what counts as tabdir, which is another level of extravagance? So according to Islam, in Islam there are the clear elements of israf, clear elements of extravagance. So the ulema divide them in the following ways. Number one, they say that to spend any amount in haram, walaw dirham, even if it's one dollar, to spend any amount in unlawful ways is israf, is a means of extravagance, okay? And that is the extravagance of the self.
وَالْيَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ Right, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, O those, say, O My servants who have been extravagant, أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ Okay, so to spend anything on haram, anything, even if it's the smallest amount, counts as extravagance. Number two, the ulema say to live beyond your means, even with things that are halal. To live beyond your means, even with things that are halal. And this is where, you know, unfortunately a lot of people fall, right? They live beyond their means. The greatest practice from the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ is to live within your means. Okay, so people buy what they should not be buying. It would not be israf for the other person because the other person would not put themselves in debt. They wouldn't compromise their hajj. They wouldn't compromise their salatah. They wouldn't compromise what they owe their family for buying that car. But you would, okay? So live within your means, even when it comes to halal things, even when it comes to the things that are permissible. Number three, the scholars say to spend money in righteous ways. So the first one was haram. The second one was halal, but overdoing it. The third one is to spend in sadaqah, but not for the sake of Allah ﷻ, but for the sake of the people's sight. So that would also be a form of israf because you're spending there. You know, when people buy clothes to show off, or people buy cars to show off, or people put on weddings to show off, I think israf, if we were to categorize israf these days, weddings would fall somewhere in the top five. If you're trying to save money on your wedding, and you want to hurry up and rush the nikah, say it's COVID-19 and we can't book a banquet hall, la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah, we're just going to have to do this the easy way. We're going to have to go the sunnah way, and save everybody a lot of money, and save everybody the headache of the wedding.
But in seriousness, israf has a lot to do with how you want to be perceived by other people. So the person that spends, that overdoes it in halal, does it to project something. So the scholars say, then what then of a person that spends in sadaqah using something that is noble, but for the sake of an evil intention, using something that should be for the sake of Allah, to achieve the same goal as the person that puts on the fancy wedding, and has the fancy car, and has whatever it is, just to be able to project something. So it would even be worse then if a person were to use sadaqah, which is a noble cause of spending, but spending not for the sake of Allah, but spending instead so that you can be perceived in a certain way. May Allah protect us from all three of those things. Now let's talk about this balance a little bit further. Allah says in surah al-isra, and I'm going to read it slowly inshaAllah, so that you can visualize with me. وَلَا تَجْعَلْ يَدَكَ مَغْلُولَةً إِلَى عُنْقِكَ Do not cause your hand to be fastened to your neck. Allah is describing a person whose hand is fastened to the neck. Obviously, an analogy for stinginess. And then Allah says, وَلَا تَبْصُطْهَا كُلَّ الْبَصِ And do not be a person who overstretches, because if you stretch your arm further than you're supposed to, you're going to tear your muscles, you're going to tear your shoulder, whatever it is, right? But Allah says don't be like this, and don't be like this. Okay? To where you hurt yourself. And that is the example, it's a very powerful example that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us about how we should think about our spending. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says though, in Surah al-Isra, Allah azza wa jalla says, verses 26-27,
وَآتِذَا الْقُرْبَ حَقَّهُ وَالْمِسْكِينَ وَابِنَ السَّبِيلَ وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينَ وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ لِرَبِّهِ كَفُورًا Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, and give the right, give the right of your family. Okay? Starting off, وَآتِذَا الْقُرْبَ حَقَّهُ Start with your family, make sure that you're fulfilling the rights of the family upon you. وَالْمِسْكِينَ وَابِنَ السَّبِيلَ And the miskin, the person who is destitute, and ibn al-sabil, technically means the son of the street, that would mean someone who's homeless and specifically a wayfarer. Now the scholars say when miskin and ibn al-sabil come together, because sometimes in the Arabic language, like even with something like Islam and iman, so Islam when it's used alone versus when Islam and iman are used together. When Islam and iman are in the same sentence, then Islam represents the outward expression of faith, iman represents the inward expression of faith. So they say when it comes to miskin and ibn al-sabil, when they are used together, miskin represents the poor person who is close to you, your neighbor or someone within your locality, someone that is struggling to pay their bills, and they're close to you physically, so they have a greater right upon you. And ibn al-sabil is the one who's traveling through, so he's not from your town, he's not from your neighborhood, he's not from your locality, but he's traveling through. So Allah is saying, prioritize those that are closest to you in terms of your relatives, then prioritize those that are closest to you in terms of locality, and then spend on ibn al-sabil upon the one that is passing through. And Allah says, وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا And do not spend wastefully. إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينَ Verily, those who are wasteful, and in the English language,
the word waft and tabdir will actually end up being translated the same way, but they're very different, which I'll get to in a moment, inshaAllah. إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينَ Verily, the wasteful are the brothers of the devils. وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ لِرَبِّهِ كَفُورًا And verily, the shaytan was to his lord, or is to his lord, كَفُورًا ungrateful. So, what's the difference between israf and tabdir? The easiest way to put it, and this could be honestly a 30 minute lecture in and of itself, and I mean that, right? If you were just to talk about the way the ulema distinguish israf from tabdir, that's a halakha. So I'm going to summarize it as best as I can, inshaAllah ta'ala. Israf generally speaks to extravagance with that which is permissible. So it's not that the spending or what you're purchasing is haram in and of itself. So usually when israf is used, it's referring to the purchase or the spending in regards to things that are within the domain of halal, but they're either stretching you or they are stretching the purpose of that halal to where it becomes questionable. So you're either stretching yourself too far, or you are stretching something that is halal in its nature to where it's starting to find itself in the realm of the things that are impermissible, either in what is sought through them or something else. Tabdir is exclusively spending in impermissible. It's exclusively spending with or in things that are impermissible. And what's the connection to the shaytan? And the ayah lends itself when the ayah says, وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ وِدَعُ بِهِ كَفُورًا That the shaytan was ungrateful to his Lord. The connection is that when you use Allah's ni'mah to disobey Allah, then you are like the shaytan. When you use Allah's blessing to disobey Allah with it, then you are like the shaytan.
That's how you become from the brothers the siblings of the devils. Because shaytan used what Allah gave him of power, of position, of prominence. He used those very same things that Allah gave him to disobey Allah. And so when you spend on things to disobey Allah, or you spend with things that you disobeyed Allah to earn, then you are like the one, لِرَبِّهِ كَفُورًا What an ungrateful way to repay your Lord for His ni'mah. How ungrateful is it that you use the blessing that Allah gave you to disobey Him with it. SubhanAllah. So that is the peak of ingratitude. And again, that's a very brief summary of a topic that I personally find fascinating between israf and sabir. But that is, again, so israf is generally speaking in the realm of extravagance or the permissible. Sabir is exclusively in the realm of the impermissible, and that's why it's tied to that according to most of the scholars. Now, let's start to define that middle path. How do I really start to practice taskiyah with my spending? Well, first and foremost, آتِذِ الْقُرْبَ حَقَّ Spending on your family. Allah condemns stinginess with the same degree that He condemns extravagance. And that's an important point that's often lost. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala does not say He doesn't condemn extravagance, and then dot, dot, dot, somewhere down the line stinginess is also bad. No. To be stingy with those who have a right upon you is just as bad as being extravagant. So extravagance and stinginess fall in the same category. So spending on the family is the greatest reward. And the first recipients, what's the connection to عِبَادَ الرُّحْمَٰنِ the servants of the most merciful? The first recipients of رحمة, of mercy, have to be your family. So if you're merciful with the foolish but cruel with your family, what's the point?
We talked about how you deal with the جاهلون, you deal with people on the outside that are rough and rude and don't, you know, they really don't have any right upon you. They're just annoyances, obstacles on your path back to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Your family is not an obstacle. You don't just get to say سلام, peace out, to your family every time you have an argument and treat them in a certain way. No, your family is, they're not an obstacle. They're an essential component to getting ahead. Whoever around you, or whoever is around you, a family or within access to you, a family. They're an essential component to drawing near to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so the first recipients of رحمة have to be your family. And the Prophet ﷺ, he says, I love this حدي because it just shows how the Prophet ﷺ really reframed how we think about concepts like صدقة and things of that sort. He said صلى الله عليه وسلم in a حديث from Abu Huraira رضي الله عنه دينار أنفقته في سبيل الله ودينار أنفقته في رقبه ودينار تصدقت به على مسكين ودينار أنفقته على أهلك The Prophet ﷺ gave these four دينار He said a دينار that is spent as a contribution in the path of Allah. The دينار that is spent to free a slave. The دينار that is spent on the needy. And the دينار that is spent on supporting your family. So he gave ﷺ four دينار. Once again, the دينار that is spent in the path of Allah. The دينار that is spent to free a slave. The دينار that is spent on the needy. And the دينار that you spend to support your family. He said ﷺ أعظمها أجراً الذي أنفقته على أهلك The greatest of them in terms of أجر The greatest of them in terms of reward is the one that you spend on your family. And of course sometimes you combine the two.
So you spend on your family and it's صدقة أنصلة It's صدقة as charity as well as maintaining the ties of kinship. That does not mean by the way that you feed the bad spending habits within family. This means that you are not stingy. That you are generous and kind with your family. And that's something that we should practice. We should see it as rewardable. And let's face it, the gratification that you feel when you put a morsel of food in the mouth of a family member or you spend on something for a family member. The gratification is very different than when you spend on charity. When you spend on charity, it's clearly in the realm of أجر and صدقة and things of that sort. But the Prophet ﷺ taught us to have the نية, to have the intention when we spend on our family members. And yes, by the way, that means عيد the gifts too. And no, please don't use this right now if you're watching this together as a family to say this is why you should buy me that extravagant عيد gift. Everyone should think about what extravagance looks like in their regard. But being كريم, being generous with your family and all of this is typically dictated by, again, intentionally المعروف, by custom and by a person evaluating properly their own means. And sometimes people are going to be unfair with this. But generally speaking, upholding the notion of كلم, the notion of generosity with our family members is extremely important and is a part of seeking Allah ﷻ's pleasure. It's a part of being عباد الرحمن, the first people entitled to the رحمة of عباد الرحمن are the family members of عباد الرحمن. Those are the first people that need to see that رحمة. And how did the Prophet ﷺ reframe this? I'll give you a couple of instances, insha'Allah ta'ala. Sa'id ibn Abi Waqas ﷺ, he said that I fell ill during فتح مكة,
during the conquest of Mecca, and I almost died. So he fell ill and he almost died, subhanAllah, during فتح مكة. Side note, how beautiful is it that Sa'id radiAllahu anhu lived and he lived for decades after the Prophet ﷺ and he took Islam to China, of all places, subhanAllah. But Sa'id radiAllahu ta'ala anhu thought he was going to die on the year of فتح مكة, years before the Prophet ﷺ passed away. So the Messenger of Allah ﷺ came to visit Sa'id radiAllahu anhu thinking that this is his end. Sa'id radiAllahu anhu thought he was dying. So he said to the Prophet ﷺ, Ya Rasulullah, I have a great deal of wealth. I have a lot of money and the only inheritor I have is one daughter. I have my daughter to inherit from me. So should I will away all of my wealth? Should I will away all of my wealth? The Prophet ﷺ said no. He said, then two-thirds of my wealth? The Prophet ﷺ said no. He said, then half? The Prophet ﷺ said no. So I said to the Prophet ﷺ, a third? And the Prophet ﷺ said no. And then the Prophet ﷺ said, الثلث وثلث كثير A third and a third is too much. A third and a third is too much. And Sa'id radiAllahu anhu was surprised because the Prophet ﷺ, he is someone who calls to sadaqa all the time, alayhi salatu wassalam. He tells people to give in charity. The Prophet ﷺ himself of course being a Prophet of Allah, al-anbiya, they don't leave behind inheritance. They do not leave behind inheritance. Whatever they leave behind, fahuwa sadaqa. man tharafna fahuwa sadaqa What's left behind from the Prophets is charity because no one can inherit from the Prophets. So Sa'id radiAllahu anhu was surprised that the Prophet ﷺ is telling him, despite him only having one person to inherit, he has a lot of wealth,
the Prophet ﷺ saying a third and a third is even too much. Sa'id radiAllahu anhu was surprised. So the Prophet ﷺ said, if you leave your inheritors without need, it is better than to leave them in poverty begging from the people. SubhanAllah. To leave your inheritors without need is better than leaving them in poverty begging from the people. That's not rahmat to your family. And he said, indeed you do not spend anything on your family except that you are rewarded for it, even the morsel of food that you raise to your spouse's mouth. And he said, radiAllahu anhu, will I be left behind from my migration? And the Prophet ﷺ said that you will not be left behind after me and do righteous deeds intending Allah's ﷺ pleasure except that it will add to your elevation and rank. And perhaps you will remain until some people benefit from you and others will be harmed from you. And then, subhanAllah, the Prophet ﷺ made dua for the extension of Sa'id radiAllahu anhu's life. And guess what? Sa'id radiAllahu anhu lived for decades after the Prophet ﷺ and took Islam to China, indeed benefiting in a beautiful way that Islam as a whole, that the Islamic civilization benefited from the life of Sa'id radiAllahu ta'ala anhu in so many ways. I'm talking about China but the conquest of Persia, right? Under Umar ibn Khattab radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, he was the main commander, and the contributions of Sa'id radiAllahu anhu are many. But the point being from the perspective of Ibadur Rahman, that the Prophet ﷺ is telling Sa'id, look, a third is too much, and that's the maximum. And the spirit of that is that a person should think about their family, and that is part of honoring Allah ﷻ, honoring of Rahman, is to show that Rahman to the family. And the last thing I'll end with, inshaAllah ta'ala, is what about sadaqah? What about charity?
Because there is this question, can a person be extravagant with charity? Can a person go too far with charity? And the answer to that, first there's the obvious. In the mercy of Allah ﷻ, Allah ﷻ, though His right is greater than the right of anyone else, Allah ﷻ tells us to prioritize the repaying of debts before charity in His cause, subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so even hajj, which is the right of Allah ﷻ upon us, if a person has an immediate debt, not a revolving debt like a mortgage, a hilal one of course, something that's being paid month by month, but a debt that's due, the priority is that you pay off the debt first. Don't put yourself further in debt to go to hajj or to give sadaqah. Your best expression for Allah ﷻ is doing some of the other acts of sadaqah that are not financial in their nature. Service, volunteerism, helping people. But when it comes to your financial contribution, get rid of your debts. Because when you live under your debt, it's not good for anybody. It's not good for your spirituality. It's not good for your relationship with Allah ﷻ. Get rid of it. Because debt is gharamah too. Debt is ghareem as we said. It sticks to you and it stalks you. And so try to get rid of your debt as much as you can. So that's one way. There's also another thing. You've heard the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ asking the sahaba to give. And Abu Bakr as-Siddiq radiAllahu ta'ala came, and he refers to Umar radiAllahu ta'ala came, and he gave half of his wealth for the sake of Allah ﷻ. And the Prophet ﷺ said, what have you left for your family? And he told them, half of my wealth is for Allah ﷻ. And then came Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, and Abu Bakr gave all of his wealth. And the Prophet ﷺ said, what did you leave for your family?
And he said, Allah and His Messenger ﷺ. And the Prophet ﷺ praised him for that. It is important to understand that that is the exception, not the norm. The Prophet ﷺ actually would not let the companions give away all of their wealth in sadaqah to where it would harm their families. He knew that Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu had a specific station with Allah ﷻ, a maqam, a station of certainty. A station of certainty with Allah ﷻ that Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was not going to give all of his wealth away and then say, what have I done, and then mess it up. Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was going to maintain his stability, go to the marketplace, earn again, and he would still be in a good financial situation. And plus, ustuqillah yastuq, be truthful with Allah, and Allah will be truthful with you. Who was more truthful with Allah than a siddiq? Okay, so when Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu says, I'm giving you everything ya Rasulullah, and then I've left Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, that means he has full trust that he's going to go back and earn and he'll be fine. So Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu was the exception. But you read the hadith of Abu Talha radiAllahu ta'ala anhu donating the gardens to the Prophet ﷺ when he heard the ayah, thantanadu dh-durwa hatta tunfiqu mimma tuhibbuun that you will not achieve righteousness or the reward of righteousness in Jannah until you spend from that which you love. Or the famous hadith of Ka'ab ibn Malik radiAllahu ta'ala anhu where when Ka'ab's tawbah was announced, Ka'ab wanted to give everything for the sake of Allah. What did the Prophet ﷺ say to both of them? He said, you should leave something for your family. The Prophet ﷺ told Abu Talha that you should leave some to those that are closest to you. He told Ka'ab radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, hold on to some of your wealth, don't get so excited. Ka'ab gave the shirt off of his back because he was so happy due to the tawbah being accepted and sadaqah.
So the Prophet ﷺ told everyone other than Abu Bakr radiAllahu anhu and a few other sahabah, and I'm not going to get into the scrutiny of those narrations but we can certainly say that the exceptions were the Prophet ﷺ allowing people to give everything. The norm was the Prophet ﷺ saying no, you should hold on to some of it. So that is the way that the Prophet ﷺ recognized and emphasized the right of the family and being balanced and reasoned, reasonable as you give even for the sake of Allah ﷻ, not putting yourself in hardship. And so if you give tiyakin, only give half of your wealth, don't give all of it. We want to be merciful. So don't give all of your wealth like Abu Bakr radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, just half of it for the sake of Allah ﷻ. I'm not serious, okay, so you don't have to give half of it for the sake of Allah ﷻ. But it's something for us to think about, the right of the family, and especially subhanAllah as we go into these last nights of Ramadan and we're thinking about how we're going to spend our sadaqah, let's think about how we're going to spend on the people that are closest to us, how we're going to show them our generosity inshaAllah ta'ala when we have the means. And again, let's remember that if Allah ﷻ has limited our means in this process, in this period, let's think about other ways that we can show generosity to the people around us, other ways that we can compensate with our character inshaAllah ta'ala, and everything else. So inshaAllah ta'ala with that we'll go ahead and conclude. Again, I'm going to ask you please keep me in your du'a, my family in your du'a inshaAllah, and keep all of the yaqeen, team members, many of them who are taking out of their own last ten nights right now, to make sure that I don't mess up the technology, make du'a for them and their family,
inshaAllah ta'ala, counts all of this as as sadaqa and ibadah for them inshaAllah ta'ala. And I pray that Allah ﷻ accepts from each one of you as well. InshaAllah ta'ala see you tomorrow. Jazakum Allah Khayran, wa salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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