All praise is due to Allah, we praise Him, we seek His help and we ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides, there is none that can misguide him and whoever Allah misguides, there is none that can guide him. There is no God worthy of worship except Allah alone, there is no partner and that Muhammad (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) is His slave and final Messenger.
O, you who believe, fear Allah as he deserved to be feared and do not die except as Muslims. (Surah Al-Imran: Family Of Imran: 3:102)
O, Mankind, fear your Lord, who has created you from a single soul and created from it, its mate and from them both, many men and many women and fear Allah through whom you demand your mutual rights and indeed Allah is ever watchful over you (Surah An-Nisa: The Women: 4:1)
O, you who believe! Fear Allah and speak a word that is true and He will correct your deeds and forgive your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has indeed achieved a great success. (Surah Al-Hajj: The Pilgrimage: 22:77)
The best speech is the book of Allah (The Qur’an) and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam).
The worst of affairs in this religion are the newly invented manners and all of them are innovations.
Al-Imam Ibn Kathir (May Allah Have Mercy Upon Him) In his tafseer when he comments on the verse of Allah SWT in the Quran, in which Allah says: “There is not a single beast which is upon the earth. Not a single thing that treads upon the face of the earth be that human, jinn, insect or an animal. Not a single beast, except that it does not control or have the ability to control its own rizq (provisions).” Where its wealth comes from. It is Allah SWT that provides for those beasts and it is He who provides for you and He is the all hearing and all knowing. Al-Imam Ibn Kathir (May Allah Have Mercy Upon Him) did commentary on this verse to show and to give an example of how great the rizq of Allah SWT is and how it suffices all forms of His creations.
He gives the example of the crow. That when the crow lays an egg and it hatches, the parents of that chick, they fly away. They don’t feed the baby, they don’t give it any water, they give it no sustenance and they fly away because the baby is featherless. Since it is featherless, the babies parents will not return to it until after 2 or 3 days, until its feathers starts to appear. So during those 2 or 3 days of absence, that baby crow, it opens its beak looking for sustenance and Allah SWT had decreed another bird, that’s not its parents or a crow, will come and gives its sustenance for those 2 or 3 days. Then after 3 days, the feathers of that bird begin to grow, the parents of that baby crow realize, it is their own and they come back and look after it.
This is the example, Ibn Al-Kathir (May Allah Have Mercy Upon Him) gave to illustrate an extremely important point. A point that is in the forefronts of all our minds and that is the issue of rizq. Where are we going to find our provisions from? Where are we going to find our source of income? We have families, we have children, we have parents, we have siblings. We have bills, we have houses, we have cars. We have so many issues, all of them pertaining to this issue and we are going through recessions, some say a double dip, some say a triple dip. Some say this and that. This is the cause and that is the cause and so now, we have become attached to materialism. In this issue of rizq we become pre-occupied to when and where we are going to get our source of income from. Within this equation, with this quagmire of different factors we have forgotten the most essential and the most important point that relates to you and i as Muslims. That for us as Muslims, for people who believe in Allah SWT, for people who accept the tawheed (oneness) of Allah SWT, rizq, before it is anything and everything else, it is an issue of tawheed. It is an issue of aqeeda (belief). It is an issue of our belief.
Rizq is just not something you get your pay cheque from. It is not about the banking the bank you use to store your money. It is not about whether you get benefits or not. It is not about the recession and the economy or any of those issues. Before all of that, it is an issue of our aqeeda (belief). That is why when we go back to the book of Allah SWT. We go back to the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) we find that Allah SWT and His Prophets, they connect this issue of rizq to the tawheed (oneness) of Allah SWT. To our aqeeda (belief). That is why when you look at the most essential component of our lives that is aqeeda (belief) and tawheed (oneness). When we look at this issue and when we look at the 3 categories of tawheed (oneness): Rububiyyah, Uluhiyyah and Asmaa Was-Sifaat, rizq falls in within those 3 categories.
We have tawheed (oneness) of Allah SWT in his Rububiyyah. We unify Allah SWT as the creator and the provider, the one who gives life and death. Apart of that is, Allah SWT controls all of our rizq. There is not a single person, not a single power or force within the heavens and the earth besides Allah SWT that controls your rizq. Not your boss, not your employeer, not the government, not your bank. It is Allah SWT before anything and everything else. There is not a single beast or person on the face of the earth except Allah SWT provides for it. It is Allah SWT that knows where it came from and it is Allah SWT that knows where it’ll goto. All of this has been prescribed in a clear book.
Allah SWT says within the Quran: “Order your family to establish the prayer and remain patient upon it, for we do not ask of you any rizq, we will provide you your rizq.” It is Allah SWT who gives rizq. It is Allah SWT who is Ar-Razzaq, the one who provides. Allah SWT is the provider.
Then we come to the second category of tawheed (oneness). Just as we worship Allah SWT, we only pray to Allah SWT. We fast only for Allah SWT. We slaughter only for Allah SWT sake. We make Hajj only for Allah SWT, we sacrifice only for Allah SWT, then likewise when we seek our provisions, before anything or everything else, we seek it only from Allah SWT. We make du’aa for rizq only from Allah SWT. When we have trust or reliance on something or source of rizq, it is upon Allah SWT.
The Prophet Muhammad (SallAllahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) said:
“If only you relied on Allah a true reliance, He would provide sustenance for you just as He does the birds: They fly out in the morning empty and return in the evening with full stomachs.”
If you had that type of reliance upon Allah SWT, that type of tawwakul in Allah SWT and you turn to Allah SWT before anything or everything else then you would find the provisions and the rizq that Allah SWT had decreed for you.
And tawheed (oneness) in Asmaa Was-Sifaat, unifying Allah SWT in His beautiful names and attributes, that Allah SWT alone is Ar-Razzaq the provider. Allah SWT alone is Kareem, The Most Generous. Allah SWT alone is Al-Jawad, the one who gives without any fear of poverty. He gives by day and He gives by night.