The Saver's Mindset and the Ḥadīth of the Bankrupt

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 2025-09-23 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Sūrat al-Takwīr and the Prelude to the Resurrection

In this blessed sūrah, Sūrat al-Takwīr, the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, tells us of a series of cosmic upheavals that none but He is able to bring about. Is there any among people who can wrap up the sun? Who can cause this scattering of the stars? These successive verses: ﴿إِذَا الشَّمْسُ كُوِّرَتْ * وَإِذَا النُّجُومُ انكَدَرَتْ * وَإِذَا الْجِبَالُ سُيِّرَتْ * وَإِذَا الْعِشَارُ عُطِّلَتْ * وَإِذَا الْوُحُوشُ حُشِرَتْ * وَإِذَا الْبِحَارُ سُجِّرَتْ * وَإِذَا النُّفُوسُ زُوِّجَتْ﴾ (When the sun is wrapped up, and when the stars fall dispersing, and when the mountains are set in motion, and when the pregnant she-camels are neglected, and when the wild beasts are gathered, and when the seas are set aflame, and when the souls are paired)^[1]. Who among people can do that? No one but Allah, Glorified and Exalted.

Then the Lord of the worlds tells us, as if it were a prelude to what will be on the Day of Resurrection, and the most majestic and greatest scene on that day is the servant's appearing before Allah, Blessed and Exalted, with what he put forward in his life brought before Him, so Allah says: ﴿عَلِمَتْ نَفْسٌ مَّا أَحْضَرَتْ﴾ (a soul will know what it has brought)^[2].

The Saver's Mindset

When you think about this verse, and picture a person after sixty, or sixty-five, or seventy, on a pension, in retirement, and what does he have with him? He begins to think: how many years do I have now? Thirty or forty? I need to save something. So he begins to take from here and there until he can pull his situation together, and he begins a small project. This mindset that thinks about saving, the saver's mindset, does not buy things that have no benefit. For example, we have a box of tissues at a certain price, and he finds the like of it for less, and he imagines that this difference, if it were gathered with others like it, would let them buy a great deal with it. And so the saver's mindset works with a logic completely different from the mindset of the spender, the squanderer, who spends without reckoning.

The Bankrupt on the Day of Resurrection

So if we think about the matter in light of the Day of Resurrection, you find that the believing servant gathers everything that can be used or invested to build up a quantity of things he will bring on the Day of Resurrection; he comes before the Lord of Might, Glorified and Exalted, with a great quantity of deeds.

And the famous ḥadīth is in the saying of the Prophet ﷺ: «أَتَدْرُونَ مَا الْمُفْلِسُ؟» (Do you know who the bankrupt is?)^[3] They said: O Messenger of Allah, the bankrupt among us is the one who has no dirham and no dinar, that is, the one whose pocket is empty. Then the Prophet ﷺ corrects this concept and makes clear that the standards of this world, represented by dirhams and dinars, do not represent value on the Day of Resurrection.

And people today disagree; the disputes that arise between a brother and his brother or sister, between two partners in a shop, between two neighbors, who divide between them whatever scraps they have, and all of it is worldly, and if you translate it, it turns into dirhams and dinars, all of it in the end numbers. You disagree with so-and-so over the price of a car; we quarreled, and in the end it all went back to numbers. So if we picture the whole movement of life and what circulates in people's chests and minds being translated in the end into numbers, the Prophet ﷺ corrects the concept; we work on the system that exists here, and he says to you: the matter is not all about numbers, rather the bankrupt comes on the Day of Resurrection and is not empty, on the contrary, he comes heavily laden: he comes with prayer, fasting, zakāh and Ḥajj. Allah is Greater! So what is he lacking? May Allah bless him, we envy him his state, but he comes having insulted this one.

Do you remember the matter of the tissues when we were buying them? We bought them for less, and we supposed that we had saved a difference here and a difference there, so that in the end an amount accumulated which, if gathered and saved in your hand, you could have made a project with. So we come on the Day of Resurrection having brought prayer, zakāh, fasting and Ḥajj, but the neglect that was in the small things: an insult here, a word here, a wrong here, a transgression here, and suddenly you are before a system of neglect that represents a neglectful mindset.

The Smoker Example

And forgive us for the many examples today. When we deal with the case of a man who smokes, who is excessive in smoking, we say to him: Shame on you, the food of your children. And what does smoking have to do with the food of his children? He says: By Allah, for my children I brought soap, sugar and flour, my children are provided for. So you say to him: Fine, just calculate how much you spend on this, and the total is such and such. If this had been saved for these children, they would have been taught in a better school, would have gone to a better place, would have been prepared for a higher gathering. Allah is Greater! So neglect in very simple, very small matters, this simple neglect may lead to a very great loss on the Day of Resurrection.

So the Prophet ﷺ says: The bankrupt of my Ummah is the one who comes on the Day of Resurrection with prayer, fasting and zakāh, but comes having insulted this one and done such and such.

Where Does Bankruptcy Come From?

The matter of bankruptcy: where do the obscene words come from? Where does the character assassination of people come from? Where does the disparagement of people and the denigration of their honor and their circumstances come from? It comes from an unsound psyche, it comes from a mind that is not upright. It is as if the accumulation of good deeds that the Muslim servant is keen on does not appear only in its outward form, but works on the brain from within, repairing this mindset.

We ask Allah, Glorified and Exalted, to set our conditions right, O Lord of the worlds, and to make us pleased with His pleasure.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Takwīr, verses 1–7. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Takwīr, verse 14. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim from Abū Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), with the wording «أتدرون ما المفلس»; the Shaykh relates the rest of the ḥadīth by meaning.