Combining Naqlu With ‘Aqlu In Solving Poverty And Any Existential Obstacles Of Life Is Prophet’s Muhammad And His Companions’ Antidote, So Copy Them.
Poverty in any of its forms, is bad, no doubt! It is like a bitter medicine in the sour mouth of a sick soul. It kills creativity.
It stunts growth and bends the back of a principled man to do what he will otherwise not do. Largely, it is an encroachment on the right of man to live properly.
If you look at the poverty of economy or economy of poverty, whatever way you want it, it is a parasite which stylishly intrudes into an uncritical governance until it turns its hosts, that are the citizens; into paupers day by day until they will curse the day they were destined to be born in the country.
If it is the poverty of idea or intellectuality, it is a want that makes its owners the slaves of other minds, towns and countries.
It drives them to the lowest level of human and humanity, for hardly they will be able to wrangle themselves from the poverty of economy which it has predisposed them to, in the first instance.
What of poverty of kindness? It is the mother of all scarcities! It makes the beast out of men even in the midst of plenty! It prods humanity into cruelty and makes them act as if they are the only creatures of the Creator of the heavens and Earth.
Sometimes, it causes them to behave god-like in negative manners!
For if there is absence of poverty of kindness, according to Prophet Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), in anything one is doing, it beautifies it while its presence degrades everything one may be doing! In another tradition, he ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), said that:
“Whenever Allah wants to bless a household, He shows them the door of kindness”. This portends that, they will be merciful with one another, forget and forgive their mistakes and sins and pardon their foibles.
The overreaching effects of this kind-heartedness in the lives of the household are that the household will grow in leaps and bounds, strong to counter the life’s problems and high in ranks of goodness and happiness.
Perhaps, it is the many havocs poverty pushes its friends into that made prophet Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) to seek refuge with God against it every morning after his observance of the morning canonical prayer ( Subhi) and the night one ( ‘Ishai), despite the words going round among the scholars that the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), having little sustenance is a miracle and supernatural so that the unbelievers would not say he had beguiled his followers to accept him as a prophet for reasons of his wealth, money and heavy property.
Whether the thinking of the league of scholars that see his lean purse as part of his legion of miracles is at par with the truth or not, Prophet Muhammad ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), has not shown any liking to any form of poverty, though he has not also acceded to materialistic life style either.
To say the obvious, he has shown a very clear hatred to the bodies of poverty in many of his prayers and actions as a prophet!
And may be, for the evil capability of poverty to turn its owner, if care is not taken, to an unbeliever in God Almighty, the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), has not played with it at all and it explained the reason he has sought refuge in both altogether, every morning and in the night.
We read in a Hadith that the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) used to say while beseeching God in the morning and night as follows:
“O Allah, I seek refuge with you against disbelief and poverty. O Allah, I seek refuge with you against the punishment of the grave. There is no God except You.
( For the one who wants to take this Naqlu every morning and night ,it is Arabic transliteration is: “Allahuma innii ahudhu bika minal kufri wal faqri, allahuma innii ahudhu bika min ‘adhaabil-qabri, laa ilaaha illa anta, 3 times)
Connectedly, the above cited Hadith has shown a big connection between poverty, disbelief and the punishment of the grave!
What this is pointing to is that if one does not strive spiritually as well as educationally to bar poverty out of one’s life, there is tendency that the adverse effects of it can lead one into disbelief in this life and we all know the repercussions of disbelief in God in the grave and on the day of judgement. May the good Lord save us from them all.
And if the prophet, for all the blessings God Has blessed him with, ( Salla-llahu alehi wasalam) would seek refuge with God against poverty, why can’t you do the same and be relieved of the enemy of man and the Jinn?
Not only that, for hating poverty among his nascent community in Madinah, the prophet (salla-llahu alehi wasalam) did not give his companions only the Naqlu for barring poverty into oblivion, he has also encouraged them to trade even with the last item they may possess until they were able to have a steady job or means of livelihood.
This is what had transpired between him and a man from among the Muslims of Madinah and this is the use of one’s ‘aqlu or intellect to battle poverty which confuses and takes man from a believer to a disbeliever.
The Prophet And Muslims’ Livelihood
The story is told of a man from among the Muslims of Madinah who came to the prophet and asked for some nourishment. The prophet was not one to refuse any request for help. At the same time he did not like to encourage begging or dependence. He therefore asked the man:
” Don’t you have anything in your house?”
“Yes”, said the man. “A saddle blanket which we wear sometimes and which we spread on the floor sometimes and a container from which we drink water.”
“Bring them to me,” said the prophet who then took the items and asked some of his companions, ” Who will buy these two articles?”
“I will ,” said one man , ” for one dirham.” Another said: “I will take them for two dirhams.”
The prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) sold the articles for the two dirhams which he handed over to the man and said, “With one dirham, buy food for your family and with the other buy an axe and bring it to me.”
The man returned with the axe. The prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) split a log with it and then instructed the man:
” Go and gather firewood and I do not want to see you for fifteen days”.
This, the man did and after two weeks had made a profit of ten dirhams. With some of the money he bought food and with some he bought clothes. The prophet was pleased and said to him:
“This is better than getting a blot on your face on the day of resurrection.”
This true story emphasises that as an adult Muslim and in particular when you have a family, you must fight poverty spiritually, educationally and trade-wise, and you have the obligation to work and pray!
You are required to use your initiative and use whatever resources you may have to earn a living. If you fail to do so, you face the prospect of “getting a blot on your face” or in other words, of suffering some form of disgrace through your inactivity and dependence.
The story also points to the most effective method of offering aid and support. If you provide handouts to people who are well, able-bodied and have some resources, however small, you would not in fact be offering effective help to that person.
You may help to meet an immediate pressing need but it will only be a one-off, short term remedy. You will in fact be encouraging dependence and the lack of self-respect and esteem in the person you wish to help.
Doing that may be hard, but as it is in another prayer of the prophet on easement of difficulty and poverty, we will combine the act with the prayer/Naqlu, so that the multitudes who are given to begging already and who do not want to work and pray to defeat the poverty in our midst will see reason and take example, in the above instance of the prophetic poverty-reducing efforts.
The prayer/ Naqlu reads:
“Allahuma Laa- Sahla illa maa Ja’ltahu sahlan, wa-anta Taj’ahul- Husna idha Shiita sahlan!”
Meaning: “Oh Allah, nothing is easy but that which you make easy and you can make hardship easy if you so wish!”
It has not been the prophet (salla-llahu alehi wasalam ) only that combined prayer with work, what he had done to the man above to nip his poverty in the bud, has also robbed off on other companions, especially the Prophet’s cousin, Ali Ibn Abii Taalib.
One morning, ‘Ali Ibn Abii Taalib went outside Madinah in search of work so that he could feed his family. He came upon a lady looking for a labourer to carry water from a well to a clay pit.
He agreed to carry the water for her in return for some dates. He did so and got about twenty dates. On the way home, he met the prophet who asked what he was carrying. ‘Ali said:
” It is the dates I earned for work I did. My hands are blistered from drawing water from the well with a palm-fibre rope.”
The prophet rubbed ‘Ali’s face and his hand and in obvious approval said: and he continued: ” O ‘Ali, give me a date, I will treat myself with it.”
In closing, combining Naqlu with ‘Aqlu in solving poverty and any existential obstacles of life and the hereafter is Prophet’s Muhammad and his companions’ way, so oh you dear readers, endeavor to copy, follow and ape them in lessening any form of poverty that may confront you and you are promised to get the relief.