We believe that a true and comprehensive
understanding of Islam would not be possible without careful recognition of the
Prophetic Tradition and the Prophet's Household. And Allah is the Source of Strength.
Guard Your Mode Of Transaction
" Many a times we have heard or believe that money is the greatest of all needs, or, we are told that someone is in dire need of some cash. We see NGOs asking for cash, beggars begging for cash, corporations struggling for cash profits, individuals busy in acquiring money.
This is absolutely a misunderstanding and misplacement of our needs and focus areas. Come to think of it, if you were on an isolated island in the pacific with a billion dollars, but no means of communicating to the outer world or getting off the island, what good would this much money be to you?
Cash, paper money, healthy bank accounts, is not our need today, it never was. Gold and silver and coins and treasure was never our need. Our need was and is good health, good food, good women, good houses, good lifestyle, or replace good with lavish. Money and all that is an equivalent to it is only a means of satisfying our needs.
So we learn that the real value or importance belongs to anything which satisfies our needs and in this case money.
If you had a billion dollars today and you time travel 200 years back, your money will be of no value as back then the currency note was not accepted. If you take Pakistan Rupees to your vacations in Europe, and there are no money exchangers available or open, it will be of no value because they only accept Euros.
So we learn that the value or importance not only belongs to the entity which satisfies our needs but to that entity's specific properties
It is clear that the mode of transaction must have importance. The question is what gives importance to the mode of transaction? Why is a dollar bill of today not acceptable 200 years ago? It is because importance is given by the end user, the counter party. The value of your Pakistani Rupee is Zero if the money exchangers in Europe do not want to buy it. The value of your billion dollars is Zero if the end user wants to sell his services in return of wheat, corn, water, coconuts etc and not cash.
In simple words, if you want to live in a big house, which will satisfy your need of a big house, you need to have money or coconuts, in the quantity and quality as required by the seller. The seller or counterparty will determine what you need to pay as a cost of the house.
So we learn that the counterparty is the entity which defines the real value and importance of the mode of transaction which will in-turn help us satisfy our needs.
Today, financial stress is one of the major trials and tribulations people go through, to the extent that people kill others (which is easy) and even kill themselves via suicides (which is easier) to get them rid of their financial stress. Because they cannot cope up with not having the means or entity of value, which the counterparty requires, to satisfy their needs. Just imagine what sort of a stress is such a feeling which can drive a man to insanity, to kufr, to sin, to against everything that he stood for, to murder, to theft and to suicide.
Those who claim to believe in the hereafter, their need is a life in paradise, because the only other option is hell. What is the mode of transaction for us so that we can satisfy our need of paradise? This is mode of transaction shall be such which is required by the the counterparty (should not use for God but just for the sake of analogy) because we have learnt that it is the requirement by the counterparty which gives anything its true value.
The Quran has stated in Surah 43, Ayah 35, that the golds and embellishments is only a provision for this life, while the hereafter is with our Lord for only those who guard.
So bring with you sons and daughters, wives, animals, golds and silver, the commodities will be of no value, and rightly rejected, because the requirement by the counterparty is our guarding.
If only people understood, they would have guarded their eyes, tongues, private parts and hands from the forbidden, guard their bodies from immodesty, guarded their income from the haraam, guarded their behavior from insolence, guarded their company from the wretched, guarded their hearts from hypocrisy and insincerity, guarded their time from forgetfulness of Allah, guarded their emotions from uncontrollability, guarded their nafs from desires and guarded their minds from ignorance.
Short of finances and we are ready to kill or be killed because that is the severity of the problem. Short of guarding and what will you do, because you can neither kill nor be killed then. "
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