Is Poverty Piety? Wealth and Righteousness

Poverty is piety. If somebody is poor, that means, MashaAllah, this person is righteous going to Jannah. It's not the case.

The Prophet ﷺ, he informs us that wealth is a test, absolutely. And he also informs us that the people who have less, they tend to be the people who are more conscious of Allah because they have less material tests. They're able to focus on the worship of Allah and they're able to give less importance to these things.

That doesn't mean that if you take an average person who's poor and an average person who's rich, the poor person is 100% more righteous — not necessarily. From the 10 people promised paradise, 8 or 9 of the 10 people promised paradise were business people, were traders, well-known traders who are wealthy. They were affluent, they were not poor.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

"How good is righteous wealth for a righteous man." (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 17096; also reported in al-Adab al-Mufrad, Hadith 299 — graded Sahih by al-Albani)

It's a virtue. It's not just that we can say, oh, there's nothing wrong with you wanting to be wealthy. Rather, it is virtuous and recommended and rewardable for you to be wealthy — but you've got to go into it with the right intentions.