Dear Islamic brothers! If we ponder over the situation of our society at present, we can easily observe that almost everyone in our society has suffered from some sort of trouble. Someone is in debt while the other is facing family problems; someone is poor while the other is unemployed; someone wishes to have children while the other is upset with his own disobedient children. In short, everyone is facing one problem or the other. In these troubled times, poverty rate is increasing with no blessings in sustenance. This is why almost everyone is caught in the poverty trap. People in our society frequently complain about poverty, starvation, unemployment and lack of blessings in sustenance; yet, surprisingly, neither they seriously ponder over its causes mentioned in the Glorious Quran, blessed Ahadees and the sayings of the blessed saints, nor do they take practical steps to remove these causes. In today’s Ijtima’, اِنْ شَــآءَالـلّٰـه عَزَّوَجَلَّ we will be listening to the causes of poverty and lack of blessings in sustenance, so that we can remove them and succeed in solving this problem to the greatest possible extent. Let’s first listen to a parable related to the blessings in sustenance and obtain benefit from the Madani pearls mentioned in it.

Blessing of valuing the sustenance

It is stated on page 263 of the first volume of ‘Faizan-e-Sunnat’, a 1548-page book published by Maktaba-tul-Madinah – the publishing department of Dawat-e-Islami:

An eminent scholar of Hadees, Sayyiduna Hudbah Bin Khalid رَحْمَةُ اللهِ تَعَالٰی عَلَيْه was once invited by the caliph of Baghdad, Mamoon-ur-Rashid. After eating, the great scholar began to pick up and eat the bits of food that had fallen down. Astonished, the caliph asked, ‘O Shaykh (رَحْمَةُ اللهِ تَعَالٰی عَلَيْه)! Are you not full yet?’ He رَحْمَةُ اللهِ تَعَالٰی عَلَيْه replied: I am full but I have heard a Hadees from Sayyiduna Hammad Bin Salamah رَضِىَ اللهُ تَعَالٰی عَـنْهُ, ‘Whoever picks up and eats fallen bits of food from the dining-mat, will get free from the fear of poverty.’^[1] I (the Shaykh) am acting upon the same blessed Hadees.

Highly impressed, the caliph gestured to a servant who brought a thousand dinars [gold coins] wrapped up in a handkerchief and gave it to Sayyiduna