بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Allah says in the Qur’an:
And if Allah had extended [excessively] provision for His servants, they would have committed tyranny throughout the earth. But He sends [it] down in an amount which He wills. Indeed He is, of His servants, Acquainted and Seeing.” [42:27]
He tells us what would happen in society if He extended provisions for all His people i.e. made everyone rich, given everything we wanted; the result would be that we would have corrupted the land. Let’s look at the times we live in today. The percentage of very wealthy people is very small compared to the rest of the world, yet most of the corruption and crime that happens comes at the hands of the very rich.
Let’s take alcohol for example. A multi-billion pound industry run by some of the richest people in the world. How much crime was facilitated by alcohol alone? How much corruption and fitna has been caused by the poison that these rich people sell and the rich leaders of nations allow to be sold? Statistically every single country or city or county that used to be dry had a massive spike in crime after the introduction of alcohol.
This concept is similar to that of a “sadaqa jariya” (continual charity) in the way that we can trace our Islam back or through others such as parents or teachers; we are able to do good deeds because we learned from somewhere else. Crime works in that way too. The criminals themselves are still responsible but we cannot simply wave off the fact certain crimes were facilitated through certain policies in the certain neighbourhoods set by wealthy individuals taking control however they like, caring only about their bottom line which is to make more money.
Now Allah tells us that if we were all in those upper positions we would be heedless. Many of the working class people would rather party every day and night rather than go to work; imagine they had the chance to do that because of wealth – there will be chaos everywhere. When are there the most car accidents, fights and hospital treatments? Weekends, when everyone is free and the bars are full. Most of these wealthy people become “mutraf”, completely deluded by wealth, not a care about anything or anyone.
So instead Allah sends down provision with limits however He deems fit, which strikes a balance in the dunya. Let us remember that 2 of the 5 things we shall be questioned about on the day of judgement are about wealth – where we got it from and where we spent it. The more someone has, the more they will have to take responsibility for.
May Allah assist all those who are struggling financially and open doors to halal solutions for all issues.
Allah knows best.