Contentment & Satisfaction
couple of months
back I was consumed with the disease of envy. I used to be jealous of my own
friends, their pay packages, their standards of living, their cars, their families...
just about everything. What made this problem worse was the absurdness of this jealousy.
You see, the things that I was envious of were not the things that I actually
required. Instead, those things, if granted to me would complicate my life. For
instance, I used to be jealous of my friends having a car. But I don’t require
a car for my commute. It would simply stagnate in the parking lot and add to my
woes. I was jealous of my friends having two and three children while I had
only one. But given my resources, I can focus on the proper upbringing of only
one child. In short, whatever I had been given was tailor-made for me. I then
made a summary of all the favours I have been granted by God and the list put
me to shame. I had no reason- actually no right- to feel deprived. I was just
being ungrateful.
I then came across a beautiful Hadith narrated by Hazrat
Ali (God be pleased with him) which says that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said,
“He who is satisfied with a little provision (rizq) from God, God would be satisfied with a little of his deeds.”
[Baihaqi]. SubhanAllah! What else could a person want?
This Hadith has been enlisted in the chapter dealing with ‘Sound
heart’ (Qalbe saleem) in Kalaame
Naboowat, which we know from the 88th and 89th ayaat of
Surah asShu’ara is one of the things that make us eligible for Paradise.
“The Day when there
will not benefit [anyone] wealth or children
But
only one who comes to Allah with a sound heart.”
This is because only a person with a sound heart can ever
be content at whatever God has given him. A corollary would thus be: A person
who is content with whatever God has given him would develop a sound heart!
In another Hadith by Ibn Majah, Abu Hurairah (God be
pleased with him) narrates that the Prophet ﷺ told
him, “Be content with whatever God has given you, you would then be the most
grateful of men”.
These are thus the benefits of contentment:
1.
God being pleased with us even
if our register of deeds is not very attractive.
2.
Developing a sound heart.
3.
Being counted amongst the most
grateful of men.
But is reaching this level of contentment so easy?
Absolutely not!
Anas bin Malik (God be pleased with him) quotes the Prophet
ﷺ as saying, “If the son of Adam had a valley full of gold, he would want to have
two valleys. Nothing fills his mouth but the dust of the grave.” [Bukhari and
Muslim]
And do we not witness this all
around us? A person who is destitute only wishes for two square meals a day. But
once this need of his stands fulfilled, he desires that he be given more. A debtor
has only one thing on his mind- that if given some money he would repay his
loans. But once his loan is repaid, he wishes that he be granted some more money
to buy household appliances, then some more money to purchase his own house,
then some more money for a car and then some more money to expand his business
and then some more money to... this cascade never ceases till he reaches his
grave.
And if we think over it, having a
lot of money is not such a good thing after all. Why?
1. Abu
Hurairah (God be pleased with him) narrates in a Hadith
recorded by Imam Tirmizi that a poor man would enter Paradise five hundred
years before a rich man. This is probably because the latter would be held back to
account for his money.
2. The
Qur’an has been unequivocal in stressing the point that the riches of this
world and your children are merely a trial. This does not come more in-the-face
that in the 15th ayat of Surah atTaghabun, where it has been bluntly
said that “Your wealth and your children are but a trial”. In the opening
passage of Surah alKahf, God says, “Indeed, We have made that which is on the
earth adornment for it that We may test them (as to) which of them is best in
deed.” If wealth and children are nothing more than a trial, is not a lesser
trial any day better than a grater one? The Prophet ﷺ was always apprehensive of the Ummah getting too wealthy. He had said that every Ummah has a fitnah and the fitnah of
my Ummah would be wealth. He had also
said that he does not fear poverty in our case as much as he fears wealth. The
example of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal when he was offered a bag full of gold to
bribe him into accepting the post of Chief Justice is an eye opener. He
submitted before God that the previous trial (of getting flogged) was easier
for him than this trial of getting bribed with money and supplicated God to
turn it away from him.
3. Wealth
also leads to punishments as we see in the case of Qaroon in Surah alQasas. The
people who were amazed and covetous of his wealth when they used to see him roam
about flaunting them on the streets were quick to realize their folly when they
saw him getting afflicted with divine punishment.
4. Wealth
makes a man arrogant and keeps him away from accepting the truth. In almost all
the stories of prophets mentioned in the Qur’an, we note that it was always the
affluent class that rejected the prophets. They were too proud of their
richness in wealth and children. ‘Why has he not been given gardens and gold
and palaces?’ they would ask. Leave alone a prophet, they could not even accept
Saul as their king for the sole reason that he was not blessed with wealth.
[Surah alBaqarah ayat 247]
5. One
more problem with being rich is that it makes man transgress his limits. It has
been said in Surah alAlaq that “Man transgresses because he sees himself ghani (self-sufficient).” Please note
here that he is not actually self-sufficient, no one is. He only considers
himself to be so. We are all dependent on God for the most basic of our needs. Abu
Hurairah narrates that the Prophet ﷺ explained, “Ghani
is not one who has the treasures of the world. Instead, ghani is one who is satisfied at heart.” [Bukhari]
6. A
wealthy person does not consider himself in need of God anymore. He becomes
negligent of his prayers and makes his wealth his god. God cautions us against this
when He says, “O you who have believed, let not your wealth and your children
divert you from remembrance of Allah. And whoever does that - then those are
the losers.” [Surah alMunafiqoon ayat 9].
Elsewhere,
He praises those “men whom neither commerce nor sale distracts from the remembrance
of Allah and performance of prayer and giving of zakah”. [Surah anNoor ayat 37]
7. The spine-chilling
incident of Tha’labah bin Hatim alAnsari alluded to in the 75th to
78th ayaat of Surah atTaubah tells us that getting wealthy can even
make a man a hypocrite. This person approached the Prophet ﷺ and asked him to pray to God to
grant him wealth. The Prophet dissuaded him from asking for such things and
explained to him that he himself does not prefer being wealthy. But upon his
persistence, the Prophet finally prayed for him and the effect of the prayer
showed up in an unprecedented increase in his herd of goats. This herd kept
growing and growing, forcing him to take them beyond the outskirts of Madinah
for grazing. Engrossed in his flock, he began to show up for congregational
prayers only during Zuhr and Asar, then only for Juma’a and then began neglecting even the Juma’a congregation. Upon the completion of a year, when the
Prophet sent his representatives to him to collect his zakat, he behaved arrogantly with them and called it an unreasonable
tax. Thereupon, these ayaat of the Qur’an were revealed wherein he was
condemned as a certified hypocrite, overriding the norm that the names of
hypocrites were not revealed in public. The Prophet ﷺ refused to accept his zakat
telling him that we do not accept zakat
from hypocrites. After the Prophet, Caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar and Usman (God be
pleased with them) also refused to accept his zakat and this wretched man died a hypocrite!
[Ma’ariful
Qur’an: Ibn Jarir, Ibn Abi Hatim, Ibn Marduwayh, alTabarani and alBaihaqi on the
authority of a narration from Sayyidna Abu Umamah Bahili]
Solutions:
Having
understood these horrifying hazards of being wealthy, we should now ponder over
the means by which we can save ourselves from falling in this trap. The key is
to be judicious in our approach towards wealth. Money is not evil per se; but
getting engrossed in it and being neglectful of the rights of God and of fellow
human beings certainly is. This is what we can do:
1. We
should not cast envious and covetous eyes on others. God advises us: “And do
not wish for that by which Allah has made some of you exceed others. For men is
a share of what they have earned, and for women is a share of what they have
earned. And ask Allah of his bounty. Indeed Allah is ever, of all things,
Knowing.” [Surah anNisa’ ayat 32]
2. We
ought to realize that the riches of this world are far too short lived and
inferior as compared to the riches of the hereafter. So a person should concentrate
more on earning for his afterlife than the present one. This has been beautifully
elucidated in Surha Aala, where God says, “But you prefer the worldly life, while
the Hereafter is better and more enduring”.
3. The
lives of the Prophet ﷺ
and his companions are a living example for each of us to
emulate. Lady Aishah (God be pleased with her) says that there used to pass
three consecutive months with there being nothing in our house except two black
things- dates and water. Even after the victory at Khaibar, the Prophet was
least interested in opting for luxuries. He used to compare himself with a
traveller who rests for some time under a tree and then continues with his
journey [Ahmad, Tirmizi, Ibn Majah].
Caliph
Syedna Abu Bakr Siddiq had had his salary deducted when his wife saved enough
money to prepare a bowl of pudding for him. He contended that this was excess
money, over and above his needs. Caliph Syedna Umar used to wear coarse, humble
clothes and eat simple food despite being the ruler over all of Persia, Arabia
and a large part of Byzantium. Caliph Syedna Ali also shared this lifestyle. Syedna
Usman used to be cautious of not overspending even on the oil in his lamp
fearing divine accountability. The governor of the wealthy province of Syria,
Abu Ubaidah bin Jarrah used to live on the outskirts of Damascus in a shabby
hut and ate stale bread dipped in water. Abu Zarr Ghaffari was so strict in his
austerity that he believed food being saved for the evening was an act against tawakkul. Ibn Sa’ad writes in alTabqaat
alKubra that Lady Aishah used to spend tens of thousands of dirham in a single
day in charity despite the fact that her clothes used to be riddled with
patches and there used to be nothing in the house to even break the fast. May God
be pleased with them all. Are these narrations only meant to make us emotional
and overawe us, or are they meant to make us reconsider our lifestyles and
priorities and reform our lives accordingly? What exactly was it that these pious
elders had understood and we are unable to understand?
4. We
need to contemplate over the reality of wealth. Abu Hurairah narrates from the
Prophet ﷺ that “A servant says, ‘My wealth.
my wealth’, but out of his wealth only three things are his: whatever he eats
and makes use of or by means of which he dresses himself and it wears out or he
gives as charity, and this is what he stored for himself (as a reward for the
Hereafter), and what is beyond this (it is of no use to you) because you are to
depart and leave it for other people.” [Muslim]
This
Hadith tells us that having excess wealth beyond our basic needs saved as bank
deposits and investments is not going to be of any use to us. We should be
prudent enough not to hanker after it.
5. We
should have complete faith in God. He explains this in that 60th
ayat of Surah alAnkaboot, “And how many a creature carries not its (own)
provision. Allah provides for it and for you. And He is the Hearing, the
Knowing.” He has taken upon Himself to provide for us and it is He alone who
knows what is best for us, a realization of which would make all our financial insecurities
vanish into thin air.
If
we sincerely follow these steps and be content at whatever God has given us, we
would definitely be at peace with ourselves, and tomorrow, we would be address thus:
“O
you soul in complete rest and satisfaction, return to your Lord, well-pleased
and pleasing (to Him); and enter among My (righteous) servants and enter My
Paradise.”
[Surah
alFajr]
-Dr. Parvez Mandviwala
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