By Ustadh Dr Adekunle Mikail
Wealth and Children are adornment of the life of this world; and the ever-binding , the good works, are better with your Lord in reward and better in expectation – The Glorious Qur’an 18 vs 46
Life as a journey emanated from the Lord of this world, Allah, who is capable of all things; at its conception through the union of man and woman, to pregnancy stage when the mother carries the would be man in her womb for six months at least or for nine months as the normal delivery level common to most pregnant in all climes of the world or for more years ( as 2,3,4 ,5 and 10) as the maximum duration for carrying pregnancy, in distress upon distress, through his teenage years to adulthood and finally to the age of grey hairs and death, is of junctures, levels and gradations!
In the beginning of man’s journey through life, he will be feebleminded, weakened and full of frailty. After some years, during his post-formative age, probably, when he is eighteen years, vitality, agility and ability to do virtually anything, will be his lots!
As a matter of design, by the oft-designing owner of the world, he will have power to attain whatever he set his mind and effort at this unique time of his life. This time may be from his eighteen to sixty five! Alas, after this great opportunity, the vigour , authority and determination imbued him all these while will start decline until he becomes grey haired and feeble again!
This is succinctly presented by God in another verse of the glorious Qur’an as follows:
” Allah is He who created you from a state of weakness then He gave you strength after weakness, then ordained weakness and hoary hair after strength; He creates what He pleases, and He is the knowing, the powerful”.
Qur’an 30 vs 54
As man progresses in his Odyssey through the aforementioned stages , it is desirable for him to pass through the four junctures of sustenance as pointed by Allama Mutawaliy As-Sarawiy, that man’s sustenance are of four. They are : Wealth, Health , Righteous Children and the Life of the Hereafter.
Of all these four, the one at the base level which is basic and at the foundational level is wealth. Yes, wealth and especially righteous one which is earned from legal ends! Readers, know that wealth is good and the best of it is the one ,you earn from your legal labour and toiling!
Expectedly, as wealth provides the pillar upon which the life is built, many of us do not care from where we earn our wealth nor contemplate the repercussion of wealth wrought from illegal dealings!
To put it lightly, as believers in God and followers of His noble prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam, we must strive to earn our living from righteous ends for illicit earning has its adverse effects on where it is deployed such as one’s own soul, children and relatives!
This is the reason it is a religious duty to pray to God to grant one a righteous and legal means of earning wealth. And this is also the reason the prophet himself made it his habit to pray in the morning and evening as reported in his manners of praying as follows:
” Allahuma Inni As-haluka Risqan Tayyibah”
” Oh Lord ! I beseech from you; pure provision (devoid of impurities and illegality)!
It must be noted that it is on this form of sustenance that majority of human beings devote their formative and adult life on. They seek wealth from every end and corner of life at the expense of other forms of sustenance as if it can earn for them all other categories of wealth !
A poet of Arabian nativity as observed this and likened wealth to ‘animal made from dead object’ so as to enlighten us that as the material from which wealth is made is a deaden object, so is the product of such exertion if it is not earned and deployed for higher things such as the belief in God and apostles, alms for the less-privilege , infrastructure for the living and food for the commoners! He says:
” As for the one everybody is belabouring self for in acquiring / it is nothing but an animal made from a deaden object”
Sound health is the next level of sustenance man is given the allowance to earn for himself when living! And as it is in the acquisition of wealth as a sustenance, so it is in the acquisition of sound health; it must be earned through what are recommended and legal!
Seeking sound health as a matter of importance must be done with all sense of religious goodness. And when doing so, it must be devoid of impurities, intoxicants and illegalities such as using alcoholics to prepare the drugs that are to be used for the restoration of health, human parts or animals that Islam has deemed as Haram in making concoction for the normalisation of health and using unhealthy practices in seeking health!
In fact, looking for how to better or improve one’s health is encouraged in many Islamic references ! The glorious Qur’an herself, is a means to good health as it has been revealed in it the cure to the diseases of the mind and the generality of human body. We read:
” And we revealed in the Qur’an what is a healing and mercy to the believers”
The prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam had said when encouraging us to look for legal cure on ailments one may suffer from as follows:
” undergo medical treatment or treat yourself; for Allah Has not created a disease unless He Has created its cure. Those who know it know it and those who is ignorant of it are unaware of it”
To state the importance of good health in the scheme of things here on this earth ,another Islamic scholar has opined that : ” If anything equals this world it is wealth and if anything is worthy more than this life, it is sound health itself!
The third form or level of sustenance is good children! It is even categorized by Allama Sharawiy as the highest form of sustenance Allah can endow a man! Good child has even earned for prophet Shua’ib , prophet Musa ‘s ten years of tutelage and chaperone! (Alehima salaam)
It is even one of the three perpetual alms a man can enjoy long after he has died! This is contained in the hadith of prophet Muhammad salla-llahu alehi wasalam, as this :
” When a man dies, all his deeds stop except three ; perpetual alms ( tree planted, children he brought up in good manner and water he provided), knowledge others are benefiting from and righteous child!”
This is why the place Islam places child upbringing is high since it is Allah’s trust in the hands of man. Whatever he makes of it will be rewarded accordingly here in this passing world and the hereafter .
For those that bring up or wean their children to be of good manner and Islamic in outlooks, the prophet has prayed for them thus:
” May Allah bless a man who helps his child upon goodness ”
In the opposite, those who do not care for the betterment of their children in spiritual and temporal terms will be questioned and eventually put in hellfire on the day of recompense by Allah if they do not turn a new leave till their demise. Another hadith has this to say about them thus :
” All of you are overseers and you be questioned on whom you oversee! A man is an overseer his households and he will be questioned on them. A woman is also an overseer over her husband’s property ( including his children) and see will be questioned on them”
My readers, everything has its own completion, and the completion of human sustenance is being able to earn the hereafter! The hereafter is the Day of resurrection, recompense and judgement. On this day, ‘every secret will be opened’. Also, ‘the violence of that hour will be grievous’ while on ‘this day every woman giving suck to a child shall quit what she suckled in confusion,and every pregnant woman shall lay down her burden, and you shall see men intoxicated and they are not intoxicated except that God’s chastisement is severe’!
He who strives in this life with his wealth, children and health will earn the home of hereafter. They will be given a garden which runs therein ‘ a rivers of water which does not alter, and rivers of milk the taste whereof does not change, and rivers of drink delicious to those who drink, and rivers of honey clarified and for them therein are all fruits protection from their Lord!’