3 14 Reflection on economic security Negative effects of poverty

welcome to islamic finance podcast with me almighty challenge today is solo episode we are continuing our discussion this season about earning livelihood and all the issues regarding livelihood originally the core of this season is book by imam muhammad shaibani with the same title earning livelihood and from time to time we go back to his book and take few points and move back with some other discussions and so on for this week have found some interesting views from imam shaibani and his teacher imam biohanifa in the book by sheikh yusuf al-qardawi which is titled economic security in islam and so thought for today to share some passages from this book and reflect on the meaning in view of our overall discussion but before we go into that as you know to enjoy this podcast hope you have your coffee ready your tea or any halal liquid that you're drinking and hope you join me in simultaneous sip in three two one bismillah alhamdulillah that is very good so in this book economic security in islam sheikh khan is saying that islam refused the view of inactive life propounded by those who sever the worldly life on poverty and hunger there is no reference he continues in quran and sunnah in favor of this concept traditions collected on non-attachment to world to material world does not come under the definition of poverty because righteousness and non-attachment pertains to what is already in possession and from which non-attachment is to be displayed righteous person is he who has worldly possession such as riches and wealth but does not show or rare his love for them and this is what we have been talking about that zuch is not about what you have in your hand but what you have in your heart so the sheikh continues saying here that islam considers wealth as blessing of god which he has earned by lawful means and he is grateful to the gracious god for the same he views poverty as an adversity from the effects of which god's refute must be sought in order to clean the society from evils of poverty and hunger god has blessed men with various ways and means shay continue to say that it is preferable and honorable that god gifted the holy prophet alaihi wasallam with wealth as we read in the holy quran and there is verse from surah number 8 and we found you seeking and made you wealthy and rich the holy prophet salallahu is reported to have said and i'm just reading it doesn't doesn't bring the reference to this but he's saying that the best of wealth is that which is possessed by pious and righteous person in tradition poverty has been depicted as great setback by which an individual society faith and belief manners and morals worlds and deeds thoughts and culture cannot remain safe and protected of course poverty puts man's faith to touch the trials especially when he is surrounded by wealthy persons and poverty-stricken soul is engaged in hard labor while the rich sit idle nearby poverty drags men into depths of doubts on the working of the divine wisdom and distribution of wealth based on justice people with their dissatisfaction to the belief created by the pricks of poverty have mentioned when poverty turns towards region infidelity addresses it have me as your companion here infidelity means more disbelief treachery towards belief not just like infidelity in marriage or something like that but whoever translated the book used that sort of meaning which is not common and he does use the same kind of word infidelity to means more like this belief and so he's mentioning the shaykh is mentioning another hadith where he says that the prophet said it is very near the poverty that may turn itself into infidelity and another narration he's saying that the prophet salallahu invocations are enough testimony to show that severe poverty sinks men into infidelity sheikh david is very graphically sort of reminding us of the lines between poverty and disbelief and the lines can be easily crossed which is why he's saying prophet salsam ask refuge from poverty and hunger and seek refuge from poverty and disgrace so he continues that poverty and hunger are grave dangers which adversely reflect upon the behavior and deeds of person sometimes poverty compels him to address untoward behavior in religious and secular affairs so it has been mentioned that the voice of the stomach is of higher pitch than that of conscience it is also deregulatory for the reasons that along with misfortunes crop up unexpected doubts about models and good manners she goes here talking about benefit of giving people some money to save themselves from poverty as we said before reducing that extreme and he says that it can safely be construed that by receiving some alms to keep the wolf of hunger out of the door of men's house the character of person can be purified poverty is very dangerous for beside affecting faith belief morality and deeds consciousness and thoughts reflects on men to adopt an evil course in life how is it possible for poverty-ridden soul to feed his family and run deep in thoughts of higher nature imam muhammad shivani says one day his maidservant informed him when he was sitting in some academic gathering that his family had no flower this is basic food flower dates and so on whatever is today pasta rice and so they told him you don't have any more food in the house manesha is narrating from imam shaibani who said may god bless you you have made me forget 40 problems of jurispudence so impact on him on that thought was that he forget what he was thinking and doing mami hanifa is reported to have said this is his teacher who so possesses no flour in his house don't consult him for any issue under consideration because he is under worse condition and his opinion would never be genuine and justifiable so that's the end quote from abu hanifa and then we continue with the book psychologically it proves that strong sentiment affects men's thinking and his opinion in view of the authentic tradition judge or jurist in angry mood should pronounce no decision and keeping this in mind the clause of hunger and thirst has also been connected with it poverty and hunger on many accounts are dangerous for family life family can hardly stand the attacks of this evil this shows that islam has acknowledged the effects of economic conditions on the human's affair which sometimes make men transgress their limits of natural sentiments and so just for this review will just read another last line which kadavi is saying poverty is also dangerous to the great extent for the leadership of any nation and also for its freedom desire of defense can hardly be created in the course of the destitutes of nation because the people paid no heed to remove the suffering of starvation of the people who are also the members of the same nation and leg behind to extend helping hands for pulling the downed trodden out of the jaws of poverty how can it be possible the defense of country be dumped on the delicate poverty ridden's shoulders while others enjoy in the lapse of luxury besides starvation and poverty tells upon health of person to turn him narrow-minded and create in him device of anger and hatred jealousy and enmity which sap away his energy to weaken him in the economic field that was from the book by sheikh kardavi economic security in islam think particularly what liked is that example that very graphically shows that not having and going into that dangerous line of extreme poverty can paralyze people it paralyzes even the scholars from scholarly work and other people from engaging in high level thinking whether it's about moral issues or issues of advancing nation so poverty really is beside dangerous effects it could have on the faith it's against strategic issue for nation because nation that is divided where rich are not generous where people are left to themselves and they are shackled by this poverty it creates terrible condition for the whole society which is the similar situation to that hadith if you remember people on the boat and the processor said if the people who are in the lower deck don't have access to the water from the upper deck they will start drilling the holes in the boat and then the water will sink the entire ship if we are active if we understand that that we need to be very generous to help those who are in this situation and it is only when we are working cooperatively as society and lifting everybody up that we can have good society otherwise if we adopt this attitude of just thinking myself and never think about another person and what problems they might have that atomized broken down society will lead to everybody's life being worst off so we have seen how this is issue of poverty is affecting people their behavior it's also affecting scholars so it's not just people who are your everyday people who might not understand the impact that some pressing situation might have on their psychology and then it goes up to the highest level of people who are trained to think judges as imam abu hanifa saying shouldn't judge on matters when they are faced with lack of food as he mentioned in their own homes when they have their own personal problems that interfere with their judgment from the affairs of people to affairs of basic citizens want to elevate this discussion to again strategic level issue that affect heart like money even zakat is there to move the hearts wonder whether we should also consider how the negative consequences of this divided society where people are suffering where we have major problems that affects human psychology could be exploited in the society when we have lot of foreign let's say influences in many of our muslim country and foreign means foreign to islam or to our culture to our normalcy in life when we have many of the public influencers from the media or academics or even some sort of philosophers or ideologues or even some kind of scholars who might not only not have other sources of income or independent source of income but in fact some of these judgments that affect our society and our people and our religion at the end of the day what if this area could be exploited to make people's security and livelihood dependent on sources that might have agenda so when that livelihood income and food comes it comes through the sources that are trying to put message in community that is at odds with what we believe in and this is not unique lot of foreign influences are done through sponsoring and influencing and the use of this so-called soft power to change public opinion judgment and so on so you you even see that in previous u.s election for instance when memes and social media accounts were created to divide society and drive certain outcomes we shouldn't be naive to think that amongst many activists academia youtuber and media influencers that much of what they say is bent by power and influence of the money that is standing behind them you have many muslims who we now find let's say just on youtube much of what they do is is sponsored by certain people who who have agenda and wonder if we should be thinking that if we are looking for opinion or judgment or commentary or situation we should be thinking who is financing those opinions and judgments whether those people have independence in what they are saying or whether those opinions come with the strings or they are purchased with the promises and security of income and status in the past especially scholars would usually have independent finances from let's say endowment funds or something like that we live in time where there is information war going on and the issue in the war is trust as they say first casualty in war is always the truth and would say the last one is lie especially information warfare and perhaps as society we need to think about to have clarity of thought we need to clarity of where the funding who is funding the truth and misguidance and how secure and independent are those sources that are telling people what is right and what is wrong okay so that's the note for this week let me tell you about next week have interesting coding very soon this week with person with vast experience in managing wealth and various projects so we'll talk about investing and other opportunities so look out for that episode very soon also want to have maybe zoom calls with some of you to talk and take on some of your questions regarding cryptocurrencies and things like that and the third idea want to share with you is very soon will be putting some introductory course on youtube on islamic finance hope to call islamic finance 101 if you are not already subscribed subscribe to my youtube channel and again don't forget our other channels whether it's telegram or whatever email list and so on to keep updated wish you all the best salamonic