Don’t Confuse Piety with Poverty | Jumu'ah Khutbah | Dr. AbdulRazzak Junaid

Opening

All praise is due to Allah, Our Creator, the Originator and Designer of the Heavens and the Earth. And upon the best of creation, Muhammad ﷺ —

We send our salutations upon him, his family, his companions, and all those that follow them in goodness till the end of times.

May Allah make us from them.

The Sobering Reality of Muslim Poverty

My dear brothers and sisters, today I will begin my khutbah by sharing a sobering reality. Statistically speaking, over one third of Muslims globally — and remember we're in the billions — are living under the poverty line. And in Muslim majority nations, half of them live under the poverty line. And even those that are classified as middle class nations, they're also struggling and they're poor too, if you compare them to the general global standard of wealth.

You know what that means? That means that there are millions of Muslim children that sleep hungry every night. That means that there are orphans displaced, that have no one to care for them, no one to help them. That means there are women with children with no one to support them.

How did we as an ummah get to this point? And what are we supposed to do going forward? And why is it that we constantly hear this romanticized version of the life of Rasulullah ﷺ — that he was poor and he loved being poor, and that he was simple ﷺ, and that poverty is a virtue? Is this really what Islam came to teach us? Is this really what we find in the Qur'an and in the authentic teachings of our beloved Messenger ﷺ?

Because that's not the case.

The Prophet ﷺ Was Wealthy, Generous and Noble

When we look at the life of Rasulullah ﷺ:

The Prophet ﷺ was self-sufficient. He was rich, he was wealthy, and he was generous and he was noble. The Prophet ﷺ was not someone who was destitute, poor, asking others for help.

How could people have this perception of Rasulullah ﷺ, and regurgitate and mention the ahadith of when he would struggle — nights would go when there would be no smoke from his house, and he would tie rocks to his belly — and not mention it in context?

The Prophet ﷺ did not do this out of inability. He did this out of choice, because he preferred others over himself. He had two qualities: he had wealth in his hands, and he chose to give it to others.

Allah Enriched His Prophet ﷺ

For those that say otherwise — how do you interpret the verse that Allah عز و جل, His Creator, said:

"He found you in need — you had عائلة, you had dependents, you had people that depended on you, Ya Rasulullah — فَأَغْنَىٰ — and He made you rich, He enriched you."

And yet we read this verse and we say instead وَوَجَدَكَ عَائِلًا فَأَفْقَرَ — "and He made you poor." Astaghfirullah. Allah promised to make the Prophet ﷺ rich. Allah promised that He enriched the Prophet ﷺ. He is the one who said:

"And We give you rizq, Ya Rasulullah — We are the ones who take care of you."

From the time and the moment he was born ﷺ, as a Sayyid from the most noble lineage — under the kafala and care from his family, from his grandfather, to his uncle, to then being a shepherd, to then going into business, and then the war spoils — the Prophet ﷺ, when you hear the ahadith of his generosity:

He would give and give and give as though he never feared poverty. Do you think he borrowed from the Sahaba to give like this? Do you think his generosity is from the wealth of others? It was his own wealth ﷺ. He was self-sufficient.

Allah عز و جل throughout the Qur'an, on the tongues of the anbiya:

The Prophet ﷺ is an example for us — that we as Muslims should also be affluent. We should also have the dunya, but not in our hearts — in our hands, so that we could support Muslims.

We ask Allah to put the dunya in our hands and not in our hearts. That, my dear brothers and sisters, is zuhud. That is real asceticism. That is Islam.

Poverty Is Never a Virtue in Islam

When you look at Islam, and you look at the Qur'an and sunnah, whenever poverty is mentioned, poverty is never mentioned as a virtue. And yet many Muslims think of it as a virtue. And in fact, many lines of poetry sometimes even synonymously compare fuqara' to ulama — that scholars, those that bear the tradition, they are the fuqara'. And if a scholar for example is doing well financially, that means he's doing something wrong. Na'udhu billah.

Why this perception with Islamic economics? Why should Muslims suffer? Why should we globally be in such a situation? That shouldn't be the case.

The one who threatens with poverty is not Allah — it's Shaytan:

Shaytan threatens with poverty. And when you look at non-Muslims, the a'da' Allah — what did they do to the Prophet ﷺ? The Quraysh — they boycotted, why? Because they weaponized poverty. What do they do now with Muslim countries? What do they do now with our people? Taking our resources, funding themselves. They weaponize poverty. That's what they do. And that's what they've been doing.

We need to wake up from this ghafla, this heedlessness. Because when poverty spreads within communities, morality, the akhlaq of people, collapses.

Islam came as war against poverty — not against poor people. It came to uplift and help the poor people, but as war against poverty. No one should be suffering in hunger. No one should be without support and help.

The Consequences of Poverty in Our Communities

When you look at many of the problems that exist today, a lot of them go back to economics. A lot of them go back to finances. When you look at young people that struggle to get married — what is their main issue? "I can't afford it. I can't afford to get married." Or when you look at many divorce cases, a lot of times the strife that happens between couples is because of finance.

When you look at all of the Islamic akhlaq and the things that we hear and we read about — generosity to guests, generosity to family members, being generous to one another, supporting Muslim causes — how can we do this without finance? How can we do this without the Muslims being wealthy?

When we think of the ibadah — the worship of Hajj, and Zakah, and kaffaraat, and expiations, and giving in sadaqah — and we think of all of this, how is it possible without wealth?

The Story of Abu Bakr and Finhaas

So my dear brothers and sisters:

The Prophet ﷺ was wealthy. So we must be wealthy. And he was generous and noble and he would give to others. And those that say otherwise, let me tell you a story.

Abu Bakr رضي الله عنه — when the verse was revealed:

He went to the yahood, to the madaris of the yahood. And there was a scholar, a rabbi by the name of Finhaas. And he was teaching. And he came to him and told him, "Fear Allah. Fear Allah. And take Muhammad ﷺ as your messenger. Take him as your messenger. Because you know it's in your Torah, you know it's in your book, and yet you deny. And give Allah a good loan."

Why would he say this? Because he knows — they were known for hoarding wealth. Did anything change?

And so what did Finhaas respond? He said, "You tell me to give Allah a good loan? And only poor people ask for loans. So that must mean your Allah is poor and faqid, and we are wealthy."

Abu Bakr was so enraged that he struck him. And Finhaas went to the Prophet ﷺ to say, "Look at what your companion did to me." And Abu Bakr explained, "I did this, Ya Rasulullah, out of anger for Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى — and this is what he said about Allah, that He is faqid and that they are rich."

And Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى revealed the verse:

Allah heard what they said — that Allah is poor and they are aghniya. "We shall record what they said, and their killing of the prophets without right, and We will say: Taste the fiery punishment," because of this crime.

If this is what they said about Allah عز و جل, then what do you think should be our understanding of His beloved ﷺ? You think Allah — being al-Ghani, al-Mughni, Akram al-Akrameen — would leave His messenger to be asking others for wealth, when He ﷺ Himself had many streams of income and used that to support Muslim causes?

Our Obligations: Zakah, Awqaf, and Fair Trade

It is upon us, my dear brothers, that we be people that give zakah. We must be people that purify our wealth through that obligation. Abu Bakr رضي الله عنه fought against those that denied giving zakah — he fought against them. The Prophet ﷺ fought in Badr in order to reclaim the wealth of Muslims. How can we say Islamic economics and finance is not important, when we clearly look at the seerah and the Qur'an and we see this?

And the second thing — we must be involved in awqaf, endowments. We shouldn't leave people to be struggling. We need to be those people that support the zakat institutions, the relief organizations. We need to be the ones that fund the clinics, that fund the hospitals, that fund the scholars, that fund the students. We need to do this.

And the third thing that Islam came to do to fight against poverty is fair trade, fair business — not the riba system, where the wealthy constantly keep getting wealthier and wealthier, and the 1% has more wealth than the rest of the world. How is this possible? What is this ridiculous capitalistic society? Is this Islam? Is this how an Islamic economic world should look? Where the poor just keep getting worse and worse, and more suffering, and the rich just keep getting more and more greedy?

The Islamic framework for giving loans is out of ihsan — that you pull the people up with you. You pull the Muslims up with you. And that is what we must do.

Du'a: Seeking Refuge from Poverty

We ask Allah — the same du'a that the Prophet ﷺ made:

We ask Allah's refuge from poverty. We ask Allah's refuge from being few in number. We ask Allah's protection from being humiliated and debased and low in front of people. And we ask Allah's protection from being those that wrong others or become wronged by others.

Second Part of the Khutbah

My dear brothers, as we speak now, there are Muslims that are hungry. There are Muslim orphans that have no one to care for them. There are mothers that have no one to support them. And yet we mention the ahadith of Rasulullah ﷺ and cry when we remember his hunger — but what are we doing for the Muslims of today's world? What are we doing for them?

We need to be at the forefront of these economic problems. We need to be at the forefront of helping them. Because Allah عز و جل has given us a lot of wealth — He's blessed us. We need to be those people that establish those zakah institutions. We need to be those people that give endowments for Muslim causes. We need to be those people that help the orphans, that help the refugees, that help the widows, that help Muslims across the world.

Educating Our Youth on Islamic Economics

And we need to uplift the understanding of Islamic economics within our ummah. We need to educate our youth. Because a lot of Muslims now demonize wealth — "Oh, this is the dunya, I don't want anything to do with it." What do you mean you don't want anything to do with it? You're here! You're supposed to say:

So we must educate ourselves and educate our youth. And we must promote youth entrepreneurship. Because as the hadith of Rasulullah ﷺ — even though it is weak — he said the majority of wealth is found within tijara, is found within business. So we need to encourage youth entrepreneurship.

And we need to reframe ourselves and our understanding of zuhud. As I mentioned in the early part of the khutbah, the Prophet ﷺ — صَلُّوا عَلَى رَسُولِ اللَّهِ — was wealthy, self-sufficient, generous, and noble. He ﷺ was not poor, ascetic, and a beggar. ﷺ

We need to follow his way, we need to follow his path, and reframe how we view zuhud. Zuhud doesn't mean not having the dunya. It means having the dunya in your hands — supporting Muslims, supporting different causes — and not in your heart.

Closing Du'as

We ask Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى to make us mafatih lil-khayr, maghaliq lil-sharr — keys to goodness and locks against evil.