THE VICE WHICH LOOKS LIKE GENEROSITY

A person who has this habit has earned his property quite easily by way of inheritance or smuggling or hoarding or lottery or lotto, instead sweating for it. Therefore, he does not appreciate how hard it is to accumulate wealth by permissible means. So he spends his money either for prohibited (harâm) purposes or on unnecessary things. He spends his money on things not approved by wisdom or Islam. Stupid people seeing him spending freely think of him as a generous person. In reality, he does not possess the virtue generosity. Earning and saving money or property is like going uphill with a heavy load on one’s back. Spending money is like letting a spherical stone roll downhill from a mountain top. Poverty holds back many people from being better people. Many people lose their belief because of poverty and become apostates (murtads). It is stated in a hadîth-i-sherîf: “Poverty is a blessing for my Sahâba. Being rich will be a blessing for Muslims who will live in later times close to Doomsday.”

I have realized well, after long experience:
Knowledge determines man’s value,
Having wealth determines the knowledge!

It is very difficult to earn wealth through trade which is carried out in accordance to the rules of Islam. Generally very few people earn their wealth by following the rules of Islamic laws. Permissible wealth comes in drops. By contrast, forbidden wealth comes like a flash flood. It is a virtue to be generous in dispensing property, whereas squandering is a vice and a forbidden act. Generosity (sahâwat) means to dispense in order to form the habit of generosity and to get rid of the habit of stinginess. It is not generosity to give for the purpose of obtaining something worldly or satisfying a certain desire of the nafs.