Objectives of Islamic Law 6: Protecting Wealth

Occasion: transcript of an Isha khatira delivered at Bayt Al-Karim on July 29, 2026 Source: transcript of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed AbouSeif, watch the original video on YouTube

This is the sixth session in our series on the objectives of Islamic law, and the time is flying. We have spoken about the introduction and the reasons behind it, and now we come to one of the objectives: the protection of wealth.

Wealth is part of life

When imams speak about money, they usually speak about responsibility: how much attention we give to it, and what we will bring before Allah on the Day we meet Him. Often this leaves people keeping their distance from money altogether. But Allah, glory be to Him, made wealth a part of life that we cannot ignore, because it is a means by which I reach my place in His hands. Think about it: without money, how would I even feed myself?

Who is "in the way of Allah"?

The Prophet ﷺ was once sitting with his companions when they saw a strong man heading off somewhere. One of them asked why such a man was not out at war, why he was not in jihad. The Prophet ﷺ began to reshape the way they thought about the meaning of striving in the way of Allah. If a man goes out only to feed himself and keep himself from the haram, he is in the way of Allah. If he goes out to feed his wife and children, he too is in the way of Allah. The Prophet ﷺ was teaching them how many roads lead there.^[2]

My point is this. When the Prophet ﷺ spoke of feeding myself, my wife, my children, my family, of the poor and needy who depend on me, he was speaking of responsibilities, and every one of them needs money. Money talks, and without it we cannot do much at all.

We have misunderstood the Islamic attitude to money

We tend to think that Islam ignores wealth. That is not right. When the Prophet ﷺ paid a compliment, he said, in effect, what a good thing wealth is in the hands of a good, pious person. Wealth in the hands of the righteous is where its real benefit lies.^[3]

Yet we have a difficulty here. We recall the supplication of the Prophet ﷺ, asking to live as a miskīn and to die as a miskīn, and we imagine a humble man who owns nothing. I cannot fully translate it, and honestly we have not grasped the meaning of that hadith. If it is authentic, we would have to ask what miskīn means, and here we distinguish between two kinds of people who receive zakat: one has nothing at all, while the miskīn has something, but not enough for his needs. Let us set that aside for a moment and consider another report.

The companions said that the Prophet ﷺ was at his most generous in Ramadan, more generous than the blowing wind. Picture the wind: it comes carrying a great deal and leaves it everywhere. Does the wind go about with something in its pocket? How can we understand a man described with generosity like the wind, if he was simply poor? Someone who has nothing cannot be called generous for what he gave. Describing the Prophet ﷺ in this way means he had wealth, even if no one noticed. Allah had given him a fifth of what came from the wars. And at the end of his life, we see him asking his family whether there was any money in the house, and they answer that so-and-so had given something in the way of Allah. Why was he asking? Sometimes I ask my wife whether we have any food. Sometimes I mean that we have nothing, as usual, and sometimes I am only asking in case we have a guest. When the Prophet ﷺ asked about money, he was asking for himself or for others, and the question itself shows there was money.

The same is true of the companions. They often seemed poor because whatever they had, they gave. They gave and they gave, and at the end of the day nothing was left in their hands. That does not mean they never earned large sums over their days and months. When we describe the Prophet's ﷺ situation, we quote the report that they would go months without lighting a fire, living on dates and milk. Hearing that, people conclude that the Prophet ﷺ had nothing. That makes no sense. He had wealth, and his hand was always giving.

And whenever a need arose, what did he do? He sat and asked the companions who would help. It was a real appeal for giving, ﷺ. He would ask who was going to do such-and-such, and a hand would go up: "I am here for that, do not worry about anything." Abu Bakr used to come with the whole of what he owned. Hearing that, we should learn the importance of money, and then the importance of giving it.

Protecting wealth begins with work

When we say that one of the purposes of the Sharia is to protect wealth, part of it is that Allah commands us to work. Why? To earn, and to come home with food to feed our families, so that we are not a burden on others. You are not here to beg people: "Please give me food tonight, I have nothing." Allah has asked us to move. As we mentioned before, Allah tells us in the Quran that you will never find a creature without its provision.^[1] But where does that provision lie? In Allah's hands. You must go out, walk, find it, and return with it.

And if I cannot do that, there is another verse I can turn to: Allah is the One who feeds. Someone may say, "What about my retirement? What will I do then? I will not be able to earn. I am scared. I want my 401(k), I want this goal and that goal." Be calm. And tomorrow? Tomorrow is in Allah's hands.

A story of tomorrow's provision

I told you a short story before, Subhan Allah. A young couple, newly married, had just come back from their honeymoon and were looking for an apartment. They tried and tried, and in the end someone told them, "I have a place, you can go and ask." They went, signed the contract, and moved in. They were still setting up from scratch, and they needed some small thing, maybe salt, I do not recall exactly. The husband asked his wife, young and fresh as they were, to knock on the neighbour's door and see whether he had some.

She went and knocked. From somewhere inside she heard a faint, humble voice: "Come in." She opened the door to a room, and there was an old man. "Grandfather, how are you? Why are you here alone?" He told her that his son and daughter had left him and he had been trying to call them, but nobody answered. They had simply vanished. He was alone.

If you had come a month earlier, you would have found his treasure in his son and his daughter. We invest in our children, do we not? I spend everything I have to give my child a chance at this college and that training and that course of study. We invest in our children, and then suddenly we find our treasure gone.

The young woman called her husband, and he came. Look at the man, they said, what a lovely face, mashallah! They joked with him, they took him in, and they cared for him from that day to the last moment of his life. Where did those two come from? Why did they not find an apartment in some other place? Because Allah made them a provision for this man.

Tomorrow belongs to Allah alone

When we think about the future, we often go about it the wrong way. We try to occupy a place that belongs to Allah alone, as if we were sharing with Him in what only He manages, and He is exalted far above that. It is not our affair. We do what we can to secure the future, in sha Allah, but our belief is in Allah, glory be to Him. First, Allah asks us to do our best. Second, Allah forbade all forms of riba and asked us to deal in the right ways, to keep our wealth in the right way, so that we reach the right result.

I ask Allah to protect all of you, and to protect your lives. In sha Allah we start a new journey with a different topic next time. Make your supplication, and stay aware of the needy people around you, especially your relatives. I ask Allah to protect us all.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the speaker's remark that "you will never find a creature without its provision" is a paraphrase of a Quranic verse he refers to as mentioned earlier in the series, probably Hud 11:6 (unconfirmed); no verse is quoted in the talk. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: the speaker related this story by meaning and named no source; a similar narration is reported by al-Tabarani from Ka'b ibn 'Ujra, may Allah be pleased with him. The wording is to be checked before any citation. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: the speaker paraphrased the saying "what a good thing is righteous wealth for a righteous man," reported by Ahmad from 'Amr ibn al-'As, may Allah be pleased with him.