Money matters
رَّبُّكُمْ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا فِي نُفُوسِكُمْ ۚإِن تَكُونُوا صَالِحِينَ فَإِنَّهُ كَانَ لِلْأَوَّابِينَ غَفُورًا
Your Lord is most knowing of what is within yourselves. If you should be righteous [in intention] – then indeed He is ever, to the often returning [to Him], Forgiving. (17:25)
وَآتِ ذَا الْقُرْبَىٰ حَقَّهُ وَالْمِسْكِينَ وَابْنَ السَّبِيلِ وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا
And give the relative his right, and [also] the needy and the traveler, and do not spend wastefully. (17:26)
إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينِ ۖ وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ لِرَبِّهِ كَفُورًا
Indeed, the wasteful are brothers of the devils, and ever has Satan been to his Lord ungrateful. (17:27)
These are handful of ayahs Allah gives us guidance on how we should think about shopping and spending about our money.
Ayah 25: your Master is more knowledgeable, more aware of in regards to what you have inside yourself. In other words I will not be able to check you, correct you directly and vice versa. This is something we have to figure out for ourselves. It is a matter of personal conscience, personal morality. So someone who does not watch over themselves carefully does muhasiba of themselves, they are not going to live by the instructions that are about to be given and that have already been given in this surah.
So Allah says
رَّبُّكُمْ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا فِي نُفُوسِكُمْ
If in fact you are good, righteous then Allah will know that better
فَإِنَّهُ كَانَ لِلْأَوَّابِينَ غَفُورًا
Those who keep coming back to Allah in repentance. Like we have the word ‘tau waab’ we have the word ‘au waab’…people who come back to Allah sincerely and feel bad about what they did and keep recognizing they made a mistake and keep coming back. For those, Allah is exceedingly forgiving. Inside the word ‘au waab‘ is the idea that we are never going to stop making mistakes, there is always going to be something we could have done better and we have to recognize that in ourselves and then we have to keep making istagfar to Allah for the shortcomings that we have. We have to be constantly aware of our own flaws instead of waiting for somebody else to point out what is wrong with me. I should be the first one to point out what is wrong with myself and constantly keep coming back to Allah which is a beautiful thing. It is the perfection of Allah, the only one perfect, it means all of us have some flaws… and we are always going to have flaws. We are never going to be done with our mistakes. So, that fact that we recognize our mistakes and that we ask Allah to cover our mistakes…
If we see a crack in the floor you cover it with some cement, this is literally the idea of magfira, that we do this is an acknowledgement that we are imperfect and also the acknowledgement that only Allah is perfect. And people that do not recognize that in themselves (may Allah not make us one of them), people who don’t actually think of what is wrong with themselves and what they could make better about themselves, have forgotten the perfection of Allah.
Now Allah gives us advice on how to spend our money. He says
وَآتِ ذَا الْقُرْبَىٰ حَقَّهُ وَالْمِسْكِينَ وَابْنَ السَّبِيلِ
And give to the one who possesses closeness…give the one relative his right
Allah is not making us think of all our relatives at the same time
ذَا الْقُرْبَىٰ
It is as if Allah is saying, consider each one of them individually. You have some fight with some, some uncle you don’t like, some cousin you don’t get along with…and somebody needs help. And you think of helping those you get along with and don’t think of people you had a fight with. You skip them. I will give my zakat in that place, my sadaqa to that relative, but my cousin…forget about him.
So Allah is telling us the people that are connected to you by the womb of the mother, if you have that connection you have to consider each and every one of them. They are in need whether you like them or not, whether you had a fight or not. If they need help, you have to help them.
And Allah in this ayah did not say
وَآتِ ذَا الْقُرْبَىٰ امَوَالَ
But
حَقَّهُ
Give him what he deserves, his right. That means, the money sitting in my pocket should be give to my family members that are in need is actually not my money according to the Quran. Their money I am holding, his right. Just like somebody works for you. You hire somebody to do a job for you then when they finish their job, the money you agreed to pay them…if you have not paid them yet you have to pay them. The money in your pocket is still not your money, it is actually their money. You have to give them. You can’t go shopping with this cash, you owe them this money.
That mentality has to permeate internalized by the Muslims. Our close relatives, the ones that need our help…that is actually their money. It is in our account, but it is not our money.
حَقَّهُ
When you owe someone money, you are quick to pay. Specially a higher authority, someone in the government, taxes you pay quickly, you owe the electricity company money. They cut the electricity. You pay quickly. You know that if you don’t, there are going to be consequences so you pay quickly.
Allah is the authority behind the close relative. The close relative may not have any authority. As a matter of fact he deserves zakat or sadaqa. They are not financially capable. That means that they are not in a position of authority. But now their authority is validated by Allah. Allah is the authority that is saying you better give them their right.
Then on top of that is the miskeen… it is a combination of two words.
Masaka’ and sakana’, formulated by both of those words meaning people who are stuck in a situation. Miskeen does not mean poor people. There are other words for them, for example, Fu qa ra’.
Miskeen is a deeper concept. Someone who is not able to help themselves in their financial situation or political situation or whatever. For example, if somebody is a driver and he makes his money but his eyes go weak or he has to go for surgery and he cannot drive. Now he is stuck. He has nothing else to do. He is not a beggar. People who have retired but their retirement savings are not enough for them, they are not able to get a job, not of the age or health conditions. They are not able to do it.
Single mothers who have children and they have to take care of their children and they cannot afford day care and because they have kids they cannot get a job, and if they take a job their children are left unattended. They are too young and they have no family that can support them. These are the people that are called miskeen. They are stuck literally from every angle. They are in this caught and they don’t know what to do. Allah says take care of such people … and by the way it is an extension.
So the first people you took for are within the family. And then we identify who are in that situation in our community, but the problem is that we don’t know such people because “how am I going to know that in the city?”, In this neighborhood there are people with such problems…how are we to know if we don’t get to know each other and we don’t make an effort to know the family? We just say salam alikum in a grumpy way after the jummua congregation and walk away.
Get to know each other, families know each other. Then we will be able to actually become a community. And when someone has a problem they don’t have to go begging
Spread the salam, means you get to know one another, this is the idea,
Wab nas sabeel‘ – the son of the path. The idea of son is someone associated with something, someone who is constantly travelling, on who cannot afford to live in one place for too long. The Bedouins could not live in one place, constantly moving around, one category is ‘al musafir’. The other is people who cannot afford stable houses. They are living in a motel, then in somebody’s house, then somewhere else, then somewhere else. Because they are in such dire situation they are not able to stay in one place. They don’t have a permanent home. We have to identify such people and take the opportunity to help them. For example, a family member who lives far away and calls you and says “we are having a little bit of a problem, can the children stay with you for a few weeks? It is an inconvenient? Because you have your own family to take care of”. We are actually supposed to understand that is their right. That house when they were in need, the house that you live in is actually not your house only. A piece of it is for them according to Allah. This is their haq we have to give it.
You can’t say “I am busy right now”. We have to have this attitude for giving. Allah says this: ‘wa a tee za kurba haq.
Allah also says
وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا
Don’t spend frivolously and don’t go out of your way to spend wastefully. The first thing that comes out of the ground is called “al bazar”. When a farmer plants a seed and the plants come out fully, he has to wait a long time till it is fully grown, but al bazar is that it has just come out a little bit. It is premature, it is not ready. If you cut it right now there is no benefit. But there are some people that as soon as money comes into their hands they spend it. As soon as they get their pay check they have to get a new set of shoes or a big screen TV or a car, go out to a new restaurant and spend all their money every chance they get. They spend their money, spread their money in every direction. You walk into a store like the biggest buyer and ask to have things put in, they tell you a price and you say “I don’t care”.
Here it is important that Allah adds
وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا
…and do not spend wastefully
Allah did just not say don’t spend your money, but not to spend it wastefully. Don’t go out of your way to spend money, which is the incredible hikma of the Quran. To some extent all of us will waste some money, it is inevitable. Somebody who goes on an extreme, he says “maybe I buy my wife a new dress”, he is about to buy it and she picks out a dress and he says
وَلَا تُبَذِّرْ تَبْذِيرًا
…and do not spend wastefully
“No, no, we can’t buy it”.
Or you are about to buy your kids some toys or a gift for someone and you say “we are not going to do tabzeer”… or you are about to get a new car and you say “no, I will get a 1975 model, any thing more than that. Because it still has 4 wheels and goes from point A to point B, so I am just going to buy myself a donkey and a cart behind it and that is how I am going to live my life”.
By Nouman Ali Khan