ISRÂF AND ITS HARMS

Why isrâf is something bad, and its harms: That isrâf is harâm is a hard fact. It is a kind of illness in the heart. It is a bad habit. Our religion’s condemning parsimony and stinginess more strongly than it does ‘isrâf’ does not show that ‘isrâf’ is not so bad as parsimony. Stronger condemnation of parsimony is on account of fondness for hoarding goods connate in the human nature. Likewise, although the scholars of our religion state that urine is dirtier and more strongly harâm than wine, our religion does not condemn urine as strongly as it does wine; and the punishment called ‘hadd’, that is inflicted on wine-drinkers and which ordains that the convicted be flogged, with eighty stripes for drinking wine, has not been ordained (for guilts committed) with urine. For, men are generally fond of drinking wine. As for drinking urine; it does not ever occur to anyone. The Word of Allâhu ta’âlâ which purports: “Do not waste! Allâhu ta’âlâ does not like those who waste,” would suffice to show the wickedness of isrâf. An âyat-i-kerîma in the Isrâ Sûra purports: “Do not commit tebdhîr! Those who commit tebdhîr are the devil’s siblings.” The devil’s siblings are devils, too. There cannot be a name worse than the name ‘devil’. There cannot be a stronger condemnation of isrâf. As Allâhu ta’âlâ says not to give anything to people who waste their property, He calls them the worst of names. An âyat-i-kerîma in the Nisâ Sûra purports: “Do not give your property to dissolute, base people!” As He condemns Pharaoh He declares, as is purported in the Qur’ân al-kerîm: “He was one of those who committed isrâf.” He condemns the people of Sodom and Gomorrah as follows: “Rather, you are people who commit isrâf!”

In a hadîth-i-sherîf quoted in the two basic books of hadîth whose authenticity is known by everybody, [i.e. in the hadîth books Bukhârî and Muslim,] our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ states: “Do not waste your property!” In a hadîth-i-sherîf that Imâm Tirmizî ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih’, (209 [824 A.D.], town of Tirmuz (Termez), to the south of Bukhâra and on the south bank of Amu Daryâ (Oxus river) – 279 [892], Bogh,) quotes on the authority of Abû Berza ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’, our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ states: “On the Day of Judgment, no one will survive the accounting unless they answer four questions: How they spent their life. How they practised their knowledge. Where they earned their property from, and where they spent it. Where they tired and exhausted their body.”