PROPERTY FOR FELICITY (III)

There are many other narrations, as well, that dissuade from earning property. What those narrations censure, however, is not the worldly property itself, but its harm and misuse. For instance, property that causes its owner to lead a life of excess, to forget about Allâhu ta’âlâ, and/or which stalls their acts of worship, is harmful property. So is property that causes one to become oblivious of death and of the events that one is to experience after death. Harms of this sort manifest themselves on many a person. Rarity of people who have pulled through these harms is why the narrations containing negation have a majority. As is seen, property may be the source of two antonymous developments. Khayr (goodness, usefulness, good), and sherr (evil, harm, harmfulness, vile). Because khayr causes goodness, it has been commended; and because sherr causes evils, it has been censured.

It has been understood that property is a great blessing. To waste property, (i.e. isrâf,) means to abhor a blessing conferred by Allâhu ta’âlâ, to disesteem a blessing, to spurn a blessing, and, in short, to be ungrateful, which is termed ‘kufrân-i-ni’mat’. And this, in its turn, is a grave offence that incurs an inimical retribution on the part of the Donator of the blessing, which means that torturous reprisals are imminent. When a blessing is not appreciated and treated in due manner, it will desert you. When you show gratitude for it and treat it in such a manner as it deserves, it will abide, and multiply, too. The seventh âyat-i-kerîma of Ibrâhîm Sûra purports: “If you pay gratitude, I shall certainly increase the blessings I have given.”