A Profitable Deal

Revive your heart with the Quran, so that your soul may find peace in faith. Recite it frequently and seek His bounty and the clouds of forgiveness with it. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.

Dear brothers, we are still living with the best generation and seeing how faith responds immediately to the words of Allah the Almighty. When His words were revealed: {Who is he that will loan to Allah a goodly loan, so that He may multiply it to him many times?}

The Response of Abu Dhahdah, may Allah be pleased with him

Abu Dhahdah, may Allah be pleased with him, said: O Messenger of Allah, does Allah want us to lend? He said: "Yes, O Abu Dhahdah." What is the meaning of the verse? Its meaning is that Allah wants us to spend in His cause so that He may return to us what we have spent on the Day of Judgment, just as a loan is repaid. However, in dealing with the Most Generous, He returns it in multiples.

How did Abu Dhahdah respond to this divine incentive? He said to the Messenger of Allah: Show me your hand. He wanted to make a covenant with him. The Prophet gave him his hand, and Abu Dhahdah said: I have lent my Lord my garden. His garden had six hundred date palms, meaning that with a simple calculation, the area of the garden would not be less than three dunams. And where? In the city of Medina! You can imagine how much this land was worth at that time.

Abu Dhahdah gave the Prophet, peace be upon him, the freedom to dispose of this garden in acts of charity to Allah, as soon as he heard: {Who is he that will loan to Allah a goodly loan?} His wife and children were content with this word to sacrifice the garden and the beautiful times in it, for they knew its meaning: I have lent it to my Lord.

Imagine you are a resident of Amman and you have a garden in the Ghor, for example, and someone comes to you offering to give up this garden now, and in return, gives you a palace with a large garden in Khaldah or Abdoun, for example. For Abu Dhahdah and his family, their certainty of the Hereafter made their deal more alluring than this deal. For them, the fleeting world is less than a year in our calculations. The garden they left for Allah cannot be compared to the land of Paradise, about which the Prophet, peace be upon him, said in a narration by Bukhari: "A place for a whip in Paradise is better than the world and all that is in it." O whip with which horses are beaten, if placed on the ground, it would occupy an area not exceeding a few square centimeters. This area in Paradise is better than the world and all that is in it, suffice it to say that it is eternal and the world is fleeting.

The Response of Abu Talhah al-Ansari, may Allah be pleased with him

Similarly, Abu Talhah al-Ansari, when this verse was revealed: {You will never attain righteousness until you spend from that which you love}, he donated a garden of his. The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: "Make it for the poor among your relatives."

A Call to Action

Therefore, my brother and sister, whenever you read the Quran and come across verses like these, try to spend even a small amount. Why? To maintain a living response to the Book of Allah. You can place a box at home and put this small amount in it every time you read the verse, and take out the collection every now and then, so that you may attain righteousness and Allah may multiply it for you many times. Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.