Give from whatever you have

Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in Surah Al-Talaq, everyone should spend from what he has.

As for those that the risk was tight, they still spend from what Allah has given them. So even if the risk is tight, they don't have a lot, they still should spend.

Allah only ordains on a soul what he has given. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will make after hard times, easy, good times. Subhanallah.

We reflect on the meaning of this ayah, I have read it before, but I didn't understand the full breadth of its meaning till I read a post.

And Subhanallah, it gave a different dimension for this meaning. And I remember my Sheikh always telling me, the Quran in the Day of Judgment will be like a virgin, we've only scratched the surface.

We don't really understand all the meanings of the Quran. And as we said before, when we read an ayah, we think we understand its meaning, just like when we say we harness the rays of the sun and get the energy.

Do we really harness the rays or we take a few rays and we say we've harnessed the rays of the sun? Same with the Quran, one or two meanings we get, but Subhanallah, scholars says it could have a hundred thousand meanings.

But we take one or two and we understand, we think that's the only meaning of this ayah.

But if we reflect on this ayah that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, he's telling us if whatever you have, spend from it.

So, and here this brother says in this, in this post, it didn't say spend your the money, because maybe you have wisdom, you have time, you have energy.

It's whatever gift Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given you, spend from it. So if you have money, you spend from your money. If you have knowledge, spend from your knowledge.

So this brother says, if if what you have, Allah has given you a nice tongue, spread it around, speak nicely to people.

If Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given you a good smile, smile at people. And that's where the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, your smile to your brother is charity. So just smiling at somebody is charity.

So if you don't have money, we usually say spending, spending money, but you can smile to people. If you have time and you can help others, help others.

And as we said, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) tells us, if you walk trying to help somebody, it's as if you did seclusion in the mosque of the Prophet for 30 days, and some people say 60 or for a year, just walking to help somebody.

And if you learn the Quran, teach people the Quran and ask them to help them memorize. And the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, the best of you are those who learn the Quran and teach it.

So the might not be money, but he has the knowledge and he memorized the Quran, he helps other to memorize, God willing.

And is if you have the wisdom that you can bring two people together, help bringing people together. And as we said before, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) told us, there are three occasions where you are allowed to lie.

And one of them, two people argued together, and you go to each one and say, he always mentioned you with good things, he likes you, maybe he was upset at the time, even though maybe it's not true.

But here, bringing people together, that's again a way to spend. And if if you have nothing else, pray for people.

And it's called pray, meaning not in front of them, but behind them. And the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) saying, the prayer as behind the people, will always be answered.

So if you have nothing else, but you have a prayer, pray for others, and you don't have to tell them you prayed for them.

So spending is not just money. Whatever Allah has given you, you spend from. But after this, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, if his sustenance was tight.

Even though it's Allah who made his sustenance tight, but always the Quran, when it's a bad thing, doesn't refer to Allah, if his sustenance was tight, he should spend from what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given him.

And as we know, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, protect yourself from hellfire with a piece of date. All you have is one date, take a piece and give it to a needy person, and this is to fear Allah.

The full Hadith, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, in the Day of Judgment, Allah will talk to each one of us individually. And we look to our right and see what we are good, our deeds.

We look to our left, we see our deeds. Wherever we look to see our deeds, except when you look at the front, we'll see hellfire, because Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us, we will all pass by hellfire.

So we see hellfire. So the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, protect yourself from hellfire, even with a piece of date.

Not a whole date. Some of us sit down and eat half a kilo or a pound of dates, and we don't think about it.

But the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, protect yourself from hellfire with a piece, not even one. Subhanallah.

And then the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, even if you don't have a piece of date to give away, nice words, we spread nice words among people.

So this is spending. And then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, Allah expects from you from what you can afford.

Whatever you can afford, spend. Subhanallah. And that's where the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) says, maybe a Dirham is better than a hundred thousand Dirham.

They tell him, somebody spent a Dirham and somebody spent a hundred thousand, that Dirham is worth more. They said, how, O Messenger of Allah?

He said, he had only two Dirhams, he gave one. So he gave 50% of the money. The other is a millionaire, it doesn't matter, he spent a hundred thousand, it doesn't matter.

So, because he gave one Dirham, it's worth much more than the guy who gave a hundred thousand because he's rich and it doesn't make any difference to him.

So, Subhanallah, so Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, spend, Allah only ordains on you to spend whatever you can afford.

And then, and Allah will make after hardship, ease. Most of the time, we don't want to spend money.

Why? Somebody says, keep it for a tough day or a rainy day. Here, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us, don't worry, give, and Allah will make it easy after the hardship.

So when we give, we'll get back. Subhanallah. And that's where the wise people say, you know.

Some people never have enough. Somebody who's greedy, never has enough of money, he collects money.

And we see, we heard about a billionaire who lost a few billions, committed suicide. Why? Because he never gets enough.

He never sees it's enough. And that's why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in Surah Ad-Duha, Allah will give you till you are satisfied.

Some people, Allah gives them so much and they're never satisfied. But the believer, God willing, Allah will give him and he'll be satisfied.

And yes, Allah will give him more, but he's happy with what he has. We see a lot of people, rich people, worried.

Why? Because he's not satisfied with what he has. And the other thing, envious of blessings.

The people who envy, even though Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given them a lot, they still envy people for what they have.

Subhanallah. And ignorant from argument. Somebody who's ignorant, likes to discuss all the time and argues.

He never accepts an argument, you can give him ten proofs that he's wrong, and he still argues because he doesn't know.

And the last person, arrogant from praise. Arrogant person always loves to be told that he's good, he's wonderful, all these things.

Subhanallah, he never gets enough of praise. Another post I read and I found it very interesting.

And Subhanallah, it post says, pork is the only thing that Muslims agreed that is forbidden.

If you ask any Muslim, pork is the only thing that's agreed that's forbidden. And yet Muslims take bribery.

Some of them take bribery, some of them eat the interest, some of them do backbiting, some of them do gossip.

Some of them boycott their relatives, some of them will take the orphan's money, and we see this a lot in our Muslim countries.

The brother dies, his children, his uncle, the uncle takes away the money of the children.

And when you tell them all this, they say, Allah is forgiving and merciful. So the only thing that we agree on really forbidden is the pork.

Everything else, Allah is forgiving and merciful. When eating the money of the orphan is much worse than eating pork.

Because pork, Allah could forgive you, you're harming yourself, but when you take the money from the orphans, you're harming somebody else.

And yet all of us Muslims, we agree pork is forbidden, everything else, Allah is forgiving. Subhanallah.

And then another post, it says, when do we say, Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs?

We learned that we say, Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs. And as we know, Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, when he's being thrown in the fire.

Gabriel comes and says, could I help you? So he says, as for you, I don't need any help.

As for Allah, he could see my predicament and he can help me. And he said, Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs.

Allah is sufficient for us is Allah is enough for us. And He is the best disposer of affairs is the one to rely on.

So always we have to believe, Allah is sufficient for us. Allah is enough. We don't need anybody else if Allah is with us.

And He is the best disposer of affairs, He is the best to rely on. So the scholar says, there are two situations we say, Allah is sufficient for us.

The first one, when you want good, something good. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in the Quran, if they accept what Allah has given them.

They say, Allah is sufficient for us, Allah will give us more from His bounty, His bounty. So when we want something good, we say, Allah is sufficient for us.

That's one situation. The other situation where we are in tough times, like Abraham, peace be upon him.

When he said, Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs. He's falling in the fire, Allah is enough for me.

So the ayah says, those to whom people said, indeed, the people have gathered against you, so fear them, but it increased them in faith.

After the Battle of Uhud, somebody came and said, the disbelievers now, with their arrogance, they're going to come and attack Medina.

Because they thought they won in the Battle of Uhud, why not attack Medina? So the believers said, Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs.

Allah is enough for us, and we rely on Him. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, so they returned with grace from Allah and bounty, no harm touched them.

So we remember when we say, Allah is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs.

The Sheikh Al-Ghazali, may Allah have mercy on him, analyzed what's happening with the Muslim nation.

And gave us the symptoms of what's wrong with the Muslim nations these days. First of all, he says, woe to a nation whose leaders are ignorant.

Woe or oh for a nation that's the ignorant means those who have no experience, no knowledge.

Subhanallah. And if we reflect on most of the Muslim countries today, they are led by the ignorant.

They have nice words, but they have no action, they don't know anything. Subhanallah.

And if we look, I read once a post, why did the USSR fall? Even though they were one of the powerful nations on Earth.

They said, the West had put in a key position in the USSR, somebody who hires and appoints the key people.

And he said, all I had to do is appoint people that have no experience in the job. With time, it collapsed.

It's like imploded because all the people who are leading have no experience, so it fell down.

Same as the Muslim nations, all the most of the leaders have no experience and don't know how to deal with issues.

Subhanallah. So this is the first issue the Sheikh Al-Ghazali defined. Then he told us.

If you want to force people to do good things, it doesn't make a good person. You teach the person, not force on him.

A lot of us say, let's force the Sharia on people. Subhanallah. But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, there is no compulsion in religion.

You don't force religion on people. And that's why the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) for 20 years built a nation.

Teaching what means there is no god but Allah, teaching good deeds, not force, he didn't force on anybody to do anything.

And that's what we have to understand. You want to build a nation, start with the young children and teach them.

Teach them right from wrong, and lawful from unlawful, give them time when they grow up, they will change things.

But don't try to force people, there is no compulsion in religion. And he says, forcing people to pray or do anything, doesn't make a believer.

It's not a believer. Teach them why they should pray, teach them why they should be good, teach them how they contribute.

So it's very important to teach rather than force. A lot of us say, we have to force on people Sharia.

If they don't believe in it, how could you force on them? So we worship Allah because we know Him and we're grateful rather than somebody forcing us to worship Allah.

And then he tells us, I wonder about nations, and most of the Muslim nations are like this.

They're happy when their team, rugby team or soccer team won a game, but they're not happy when the Muslims are being killed everywhere.

They react to winning a game, but they don't react to their Muslim brothers. And yet we see, we are evolved.

Subhanallah. And then he says, false practice of religion. Just because somebody has grown his beard and wears a dress.

Subhanallah, he is religious, rather than that, he could be good, he could be bad. But he says, a lot of this falsehood is what deceives people.

And reminds us, a bird came to drink from a well, and first there were children playing around the well, so the bird didn't drink.

And then came a man with a beard, and she said, this must be a pious man, and she came to drink, he threw a rock at her and took her eye out.

She went to Prophet Solomon and said, take my, I want my right back from this man.

So he said, we should take his eye just like he took your eye. She said, no.

Ask him to shave his beard because that's what deceived me. What deceived me is the beard.

The kids, she didn't go because she knew they might hurt her, but what deceived is the beard, the false beard.

Or the beard that didn't reflect piety, didn't reflect things. And that's why I always say.

Yes, it's important to have a beard and have all these things, but first your manners.

Because especially for us in this society, we might be the only Muslim a person meets.

Subhanallah. So if we are the only Muslim a person meets, rather than just say, I am have a beard, it's our manners.

And we remember the story where somebody said he was a bus driver in London.

Said he's seen a person going to the mosque, get on his bus and get off at the mosque.

So the bus driver gave this Muslim extra change. Small change.

And the Muslim looked and hesitated, should he return the extra back to his to the driver or not?

And he decided to give it back. So the driver said, I am testing you.

You go to the mosque every day and I see you. I wanted to see if you are true and Islam taught you anything.

And I am coming to visit the mosque, but before I visit the mosque, I wanted to make sure does it teach anything or not?

So here, the author of the post says, I almost sold Islam for a few pennies or a few cents.

Why? Because sometimes we are the only people, Muslims that somebody deals with.

If we're good, all Muslims are good. If we're bad, all Muslims are bad. So we have to be good and know we are representatives and ambassadors of Islam wherever we go.

And then Sheikh Al-Ghazali says, the Pharaohs and the tyrants only became like this because people made them that way.

People, if people did not stop them, or did not make them powerful, they wouldn't be powerful.

And they give us an example, if the sky rains freedom, slaves would want umbrellas to save them from this freedom.

Subhanallah, because we know nothing better. Subhanallah. And then Sheikh Al-Ghazali again says.

If you want to change something in a nation, change their mindset first. Change their mindset.

Before you change their politics or their social, they have to think, they have to be able to reflect.

And that's where Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in the Quran, do they not reason? Do they not ponder?

But that's why we have to change people's minds before we change anything else. Subhanallah.

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in a Hadith, my servant, you wish and I wish.

So we want things for ourselves, and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wants things for us. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says.

If you accept what I give you, I will give you what you want. So, if you accept whatever I give you, I will give you what you want.

Rather than most of us are ungrateful, we don't say, praise be to Allah. If we accept and say, praise be to Allah, Allah will give us more, God willing.

And a nice post I read, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, a Hadith we all know that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala comes down.

In the last one third of the night, to the what we call the lowest heaven, to this heavens or skies in this world.

Subhanallah. And then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, who will pray for me and I will answer him?

Who will ask me and I will give him? Who will ask for forgiveness and I will forgive?

So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, with all His power, He comes to us and declares to us, ask and I will give you.

Subhanallah. And yet some of us might have a problem and we're sitting worrying about these problems and how we're going to solve it.

When Allah has put out His hand and says, ask and I will give you. And another Hadith, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says.

I will be bashful that a believer puts his hand out asking for me and I return them with nothing, empty-handed.

Subhanallah. So Allah is there waiting for us, and yet we're busy with this world.

And there's nothing wrong with being busy with this world, but why don't we ask Allah to solve our problem?

Allah is sufficient for us. Allah is enough for us. Subhanallah. Finally.

Some of the verses in the Quran that we have to reflect on. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says.

Whoever sees, it is for himself. Whatever you see and comprehend, it's for you.

And the idea behind this post is everything we do is for us. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says.

What would I do with whatever you offer? I don't need it, but I need the piety.

The piety, but I don't need whatever you offer. So, whoever sees, it is for himself.

Whatever you see and reflect on, it's for you. Whoever does good, it is for himself.

If you do a good deed, it's for you. Subhanallah. Sometimes we do a good deed for the reward, but really it's for us.

It benefits us. Whoever is thankful, he is thankful for himself. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says.

Whoever strives, he strives for himself. If you do Jihad, it's for you, not for anybody else.

Whoever is guided, he is guided for himself. Whatever guidance, it's for yourself.

Subhanallah. Whoever is stingy, he is stingy against himself. If you're tight and a miser, you are against yourself.

Whoever disobeys, he disobeys against himself. If you do a sin, you earn it yourself.

So everything we do in life is for our soul. And that's what something we have to realize.

Everything we do is for ourselves, and we should seek Allah's acceptance for it.

So everything we do, we have to seek Allah's acceptance. Good deeds, if we don't do it for the sake of Allah, we don't get the reward.

Everything we do is accepted from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So here, we have to realize whatever we do in this world.

We are responsible for ourselves, and we have to take care and do it ourselves, God willing.

Oh Allah, guide us among those whom You have guided.