Balancing Wealth and Zuhd

So today we are in the final part of Adab al-Dunya, where we will look at the concept of the importance of wealth, the importance of having halal sustenance, and This section, it basically kind of balances out the final part of Adabuddin, right? So in Adabuddin, in the etiquettes of religion, the last part of that discuss the importance of zuhad.

And then in Adabadunya, the etiquettes of worldly life, the last part discusses the importance of wealth.

So for many people, This sounds like a contradiction, right? Wealth or zuhud? You can't have both.

Well, actually, in our religion, you can.

You can have wealth and you can have zuhud because wealth is a resource and zuhud is an internal state, right? Zuhud is the condition of your soul.

Is your soul attached to your wealth or is it attached to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? It is completely permissible, if not recommended, for Muslims to have wealth, to at least have enough wealth that you are not a burden on society, you are not dependent on someone you're not supposed to be dependent upon, right? To at least have enough wealth to live a dignified life that you don't beg, you don't steal, you don't feel inclined to do bad things for the sake of money.

there is a certain dignity that is attached to wealth in our religion.

And when we look at the Sahaba, we find that the greatest of the Sahaba, many of them were, on one hand, role models of Zuhd, but on the other hand, they were wealthy businessmen, like Abu Bakr, Omar, Osman.

Talha ibn Ubaidullah, Zubayr ibn Awwam, Abdur Rahman ibn Auf , the majority of the Ashara Mubashara, the blessed ten, were wealthy.

Yet they were also people of Zuhud.

And they are our role models.

And this teaches us that to be righteous does not mean to be poor.

You can be righteous and wealthy.

In the famous hadith, when Amr ibn al-'As had converted to Islam, and Rasulullah had put him in charge of an army to go and conquer a land.

And he told Amr that he would get a good amount of booty out of this.

And Amr said that I didn't convert to Islam for money, right? Because of course, as a new convert, he is under the misconception that, you know, he needs to abandon money now, right? He comes from a wealthy background, but he thinks that to be a good Muslim, you need to abandon money.

And Rasulullah made a famous statement.

How beautiful and how blessed is righteous wealth for the righteous man.

How blessed is righteous wealth for a righteous man.

And so this hadith reframes our thinking of wealth.

Wealth is a resource.

In the hands of a righteous man it is a blessing for the entire ummah.

In the hands of evil people it is a curse for many people.

And so It is something the Ummah should strive towards to ensure that wealth is in the hands of the righteous.

Because they will use it in a way that is pleasing to Allah and beneficial to society.