The Major Sins - Devouring wealth of Orphans-Abu Usama 917
By Abu Usamah | 2026-01-15T15:06:14.862326+00:00 | Topic: Repentance
The Major Sins Series - Devouring the Wealth of Orphans
Speaker: Abu Usamah
Opening
(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Introduction: The Sin of Consuming the Wealth of Orphans
Al-Imam Al-Dhahabi, may Allah have mercy on him, says the next major sin (Kabira) is the major crime and major sin of devouring and eating the monies of the orphan unjustly.
He brings only two verses of the Quran from Surah An-Nisa and one hadith that we've been dealing with in a few of the chapters that have already preceded.
Evidence from the Quran
First Ayah: Consuming the Wealth of Orphans is Fire
The first verse he brings is the statement of Allah:
"Verily, those people who eat the monies of the orphans oppressively, with injustice (dhulm), they do nothing but eat inside of their stomachs the Fire, and they're going to enter into the blazing Fire (Sa'ir), into Jahannam."
Second Ayah: Do Not Approach the Orphan's Wealth
He brought the second verse in which Allah said:
"And do not come close to the money of the orphan except to make it better. Do not come close to it, not to mention using it. Don't come close to the money of the orphan except to make it better."
Hadith: The Seven Destructive Sins
The last proof he used for this short chapter—even though it's a short chapter, the meaning of it is tremendous and weighty—is the hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.
Abu Huraira narrated that he heard the Prophet say:
(اجْتَنِبُوا السَّبْعَ الْمُوبِقَاتِ - Ijtaneboo as-sab'a al-moobiqaat)
"Stay away from the seven things that will destroy you."
And he mentioned from them: eating the money of the orphan. (Sahih al-Bukhari 2766, Sahih Muslim 89)
Who is the Orphan (Yateem)?
As it relates to the orphan, O my brothers, the orphan in Arabic is the yateem. The yateem has a special position in this deen, and there are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings that we have as it relates to the yateem.
Some of us sitting here think that the yateem is not connected to us because we don't have any relatives who are yateem. We may not even know we're yateem. But the yateem is connected to everyone in this masjid.
Before we get into that, who is the yateem? The orphan is the boy or the girl who lost their father when they were young. If they lost their father and he was a teenager, he was old, that is not a yateem. The yateem is that poor (miskeen), that weak (da'if) child who lost his father or her father when they were young. That's the yateem.
The yateem may be a person who is wealthy (ghani), he may be rich, filthy rich. And even if he is rich, he is still weak (da'if).
The proof of that is that the Prophet says:
"Verily, I am bothered, I am concerned about the money of the two weak people."
So even if the yateem is rich, he described him as being weak. Verily, I am worried about and I am concerned for the monies of the two weak people.
The first one is the yateem—his father is gone. So those people who are older than him, those people who are responsible for his estate and his money, they steal his money and he can't do anything about it because of his weakness (da'if), his weakness and his small size and his age.
The second one who I am concerned about, the money, because she is weak, is the woman. We are going to deal with that, InshaAllah, in some chapters that are going to come concerning the man who marries a woman, he does what he has to do with her, and then he runs away without giving her a dowry, a mahr.
So the point of all of that is that the yateem, even if he is wealthy, he is weak. And he deserves to be paid attention to. His position in the religion of Islam, O my brothers, is a high position.
The High Status of Caring for Orphans
Hadith: Being Close to the Prophet in Paradise
He told us, on the authority of Sahl ibn Sa'd:
"I will be along with the one who takes care of an orphan—whether that orphan is his orphan or someone else's orphan—І will be like this with them in Jannah." (Sahih al-Bukhari 6005)
Sahl ibn Sa'd, the companion and narrator of the hadith, said: When Rasulullah said this hadith, he split his fingers. He didn't say like this, he said like that.
And that is because, as the scholars of Islam said, no one—no wife (zawjah), no other prophet (nabi), no angel, no child-is going to be with Rasulullah in Jannah because he has the Praised Station (Maqam al-Mahmud). That is only for him and no one else, because he is the master (sayyid) of the children of Adam.
So his wives will be in close proximity to him, but they won't be with him like that. The awliya will be in close proximity, but they won't be like that. The mujahideen, the one who takes care of the yateem—you will be close to the Prophet.
And where is Rasulullah's Maqam al-Mahmud? It is in Jannat al-Firdaws. So the position of the yateem in the deen is exalted and it is high.
Hadith: Softening the Heart
Another proof of that, the exalted position of the yateem and how he is connected to everyone here, is that he says:
"Whoever wants to get rid of and do away with the harshness or the hardness of his heart, then go and find an orphan and rub his head."
If you are a person who can listen to the Book of Allah being recited by a good reciter—that reciter may start crying, but it doesn't affect you. You never cry for any reason at all. Someone close to you, your mother may die—may Allah prevent that from happening unless they die on Tawheed. A person's close relative, loved one may die, and the man can't even force himself to cry because he has the hardness (qaswa) in his heart.
He is harsh (shadeed) with his wife, harsh with his children. He doesn't want to be like that, but he seems as if he can't help it. When he goes away, he feels sorry for the way he dealt with his children, and he wants to find out: How can I get rid of this harshness (shidda)?
مَنْ أَرَادَ أَنْ يُلَيِّنَ قَلْبَهُ مِنَ الْقَسْوَةِ فَلْيَمْسَحْ بِرَأْسِ الْيَتِيمِ : He says
Let him go and find an orphan and simply rub his head.
By Allah, we believe in that. We believe in that. Those people who put the precedence of the intellect (aql) over the revealed texts (naql) they may say: Well, I rubbed the head of an orphan and my heart didn't become soft. That's because Allah didn't want the guidance (tawfiq) for you.
So we believe in those issues, that the orphan is a creation. All you have to do is touch his head. So if you know of an orphan and you have this and you suffer from this, or your heart is already soft and you want to make it more soft, then rub the head of the orphan.
Hadith: Purification of the Ummah
The Prophet also said in explaining and showing to us the position of the yateem in this ummah:
"Allah the Most High will not purify, He will not cleanse an ummah that does not give the weak ones from amongst them their rights."
And the yateem have a lot of rights (huquq).
The Quran's Warning About the Orphan
As Allah mentioned in the Quran:
"Have you seen the one who disbelieves and he denies the Hereafter? That is the one who repels and he is repulsive towards the orphan."
"Do not be rough and tough with them."
The person who is rough and tough with the yateem, it is as if he doesn't believe he is going to be raised up on the Day of Resurrection to deal with what he put forth as it relates to that yateem.
So the yateem in this deen has a position that is tremendous, whether it is your relative or not your relative.
Taking Responsibility for Orphans
Those of you who know, like what's been going around recently on one of the good Muslim internet sites—there were two young children. They lost their parents in America, Muslims. So the Muslims were looking for someone to take care of these two children, because if the Muslims didn't hurry up and come to take the responsibility, they were going to be put in a home with disbelievers.
When we hear about issues like that, we don't adopt them because adoption is not permissible in Islam. But we become the sponsor (kafil), the one who is responsible for that yateem.
Another issue about the yateem that is misunderstood is that you may be a yateem. And you may feel that your life is difficult because you had to grow up depending on Allah, and then upon yourself. And there was no one to take care of you. That's why he is the weak one (da'if), because he doesn't have his father whose job it is to defend him and to look out for him.
So that absent father who is not defending his children right now, but he is living—you are no better than leaving your child as an orphan.
The responsible Muslim father is the one who is going to go to the school to deal with the problems that his child is facing in the school. The disbelievers who study with his child are using abusive language towards his child. He is in the school when the bell rings. Before the assembly: I want the headmaster, I want his teacher, I want the parents of that child.
The father is never that busy where he has to say to his mother or his wife: You go sort it out—and she can't even speak English. The yateem is weak because the father is not there to defend him.
The Prophet as the Imam of the Orphans
For the person who grows up as a yateem, or he is a yateem right now, or he knows of a yateem—the Messenger of Allah was the imam of the yateem. He was the imam of the people who are orphans, because he himself was an orphan.
As you all know:
"Didn't We find you as an orphan, Ya Muhammad, and We protected you and took care of you?"
So to be a yateem is not necessarily something that should be looked at as: This is not a good thing. Rasulullah was a yateem.
And some tremendous scholars of Islam were yateem, like Al-Imam Al-Shafi'i, Al-Imam Ahmad, Al-Imam Al-Bukhari, Al-Imam Ibn Abdul-Barr—were all from the yateem. Tremendous scholars in Islam.
The Role of Mothers in Raising Orphans
Which brings our attention to this point: When the dunya looks at Al-Imam Al-Bukhari, who put forth the most authentic book in the dunya after the Book of Allah—that virtue (fadl) goes back to his mother, after Allah, and his teachers. Because the mother must have been doing her job to have the boy turn out to be a scholar of Islam, an emir from the scholars of hadith.
So when we look at those scholars who became—and who were at a time orphans—they know, as they say: Behind every powerful man, behind every great man, there is a great woman. Behind every yateem, there is a great woman.
So this is a call to our wives, our sisters, our aunts, the mothers of the Muslim youth: To stop preoccupying themselves with Bollywood and all of that other nonsense, and rehearse the Quran with our children, and cause your children to love Islam and the Quran and the Sunnah.
Examples of Young Companions
The little boy, his name is Mu'adh ibn 'Afra, and Mu'adh ibn 'Amr—two little kids on the day of Badr went to Abdur-Rahman ibn 'Awf and said: Where is Abu Jahl?
Two little guys: Where is Abu Jahl?
He asked them: What do you two want with Abu Jahl?
They said: We're going to kill him because he used to curse Rasulullah. That's how he used to deal with the Sunnah. We're going to kill him.
Abdur-Rahman ibn 'Awf couldn't do anything but smile and point. He thought it was strange. Do you know who Abu Jahl is? There's no one in the dunya today, a personality from these disbelievers, who is on par with Abu Jahl's personality.
Do you know who Abu Jahl is?
Doesn't make any difference. He cursed Rasulullah, so we're going to kill him or die trying.
That's how we want our women to raise our children. But if we as husbands and brothers are not giving an example, then how is it expected that our women are going to be uppermost and foremost in that?
So behind every yateem, there is a woman who has a great responsibility. And it's not strange, O my brothers, that Islam even gave her a special position.
Caring for Widows
The Prophet said about her:
"Whoever goes after taking care of and looking after the woman who is a widow (armala)—she lost her husband, she may have children, she may not have children, she's an armala—whoever goes after taking care of and looking after the woman who's a widow in our religion, he will be like the one striving in jihad. He will be like the one who is praying and he never
Testing the Orphan Before Giving Them Their Wealth
The last point as it relates to the yateem is: Those people who are responsible for the orphan, you need to address and you need to study those verses from Surah An-Nisa.
Those rulings (ahkam) that are telling you how to take care of the money of the orphan. From those verses, Allah said:
"Those who are responsible for the orphan, and they're growing up, then test them to see their intellect. When they reach the age of maturity, and they are at the age where they can get married, test them to see their intellect, to see whether or not they are in a position to take the money, to be responsible for the money." (Quran 4:6)
Because there's another verse that says:
"Do not give the foolish ones the money." (Quran 4:5)
You can't give someone the money and he's not going to deal with the money correctly. You give him 100,000 pounds, and he goes and buys a car for 150,000 pounds. He's from the foolish ones (sufaha).
Don't give those people the money from your children, your wife, your relatives. If a person is foolish (safi), you will be a person who makes dua to Allah, and your dua is not accepted.
ثَلَاثَةٌ يَدْعُونَ اللَّهَ فَلَا يُسْتَجَابُ لَهُمْ رَجُلٌ كَانَتْ تَحْتَهُ امْرَأَةٌ سَيِّئَةُ الْخُلُقِ فَلَمْ يُطَلِقْهَا وَرَجُلٌ كَانَ لَهُ عَلَى رَجُلٍ دَيْنٌ فَلَمْ يُشْهِدْ عَلَيْهِ وَرَجُلٌ آتَى سَفِيهَا مَالًا وَقَدْ قَالَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى وَلَا تُؤْتُوا السُّفَهَاءَ أَمْوَالَكُمْ
"Three people will make dua to Allah and He will not answer them."
The first person is a man who's married to a woman who has bad character, but he won't divorce her. The bad character here means he has doubt as to her chastity ('iffah). He doesn't know if she's having relationships with other men.
That's the meaning of bad character here. That's what the scholars said. They didn't mean all of our wives who make us angry sometimes because they're from the daughters of Adam, as we make them angry because we're from the sons of Adam.
So don't think this hadith is telling you: Divorce your wife because you're mad with her right now over some spat that you had. No. The hadith is talking about the woman who you doubt her sincerity to you, or the terrible woman in her character (akhlaq), she's really a bad girl.
The lady from the People of the Book who drinks alcohol (khamr). The lady from the People of the Book who smokes marijuana and watches dirty films, and you're still married to her. What kind of love is that? You make dua to Allah, and there's no answer for that dua.
Why? Because of your negligence and the way you're dealing with her. All of your sins and your wrongdoings and disobedience, they're so great, Allah doesn't answer.
Second one is a man who lent another man money, and he didn't have him write it down.
It's your responsibility when you give a debt, that you tell the one who took the money: You have to write it down. It's obligatory, big or small. He'll make dua to Allah, and his dua is not answered.
Because when it's time to pay the money, that guy may forget, he may forget: How much did I give you? He may deny it. Then there's fitnah between the Muslims. And you've got to close the door to the fitnah by saying: Here's the paper, you wrote it down. This is your handwriting with two witnesses.
In your culture, your uncle borrows money from you, and you're shy to say: Uncle, we have to write it down. You're shy, you're embarrassed, and you don't even say it.
Here, the culture of the earth, let's throw it out of the window. In your culture, the lady walks around with no shirt on her chest, on her upper body. We're going to throw that out of the window.
The culture here has no place. In your culture, when an elder comes, you make ruku to him and you bend down to him. We're going to throw that out of the window.
The third person will make dua to Allah, and it's not answered, and that is the individual who gave the money to the foolish one (safih). And Allah said: Don't give your money to the foolish ones.
So in this particular verse, Allah said: Test them when they reach the age of marriage. Test their intellect. If you find that they are capable, then give them the money. Give them the money.
And whoever is rich, then do not take from their money. You have enough of your own money. You just give them good treatment (ihsan) by taking care of them. You don't need their money.
And whoever is poor and he's taking care of an orphan, then let him eat with what is ma'ruf. Let him eat, let him take from his money what is reasonable, acceptable.
And do not eat their money and devour their money in an attempt to get rid of the money before they grow up. He's getting bigger and bigger. So each year, the amount of money that you're investing from his property is increasing, because pretty soon he's going to be of the age of maturity. And you want him to be at zero when he gets to that age.
Don't eat their money in an attempt to get rid of it before they grow up.
And if you give them their money because you feel that they are intelligent, they can handle it, then take some witnesses and say: Come, look, I gave him his money and I'm free. In the dunya and on the Day of Resurrection.
So you need to come to understand this verse and what the scholars said about that verse. Anyone who is responsible for the monies of the orphan, let him fear Allah, as Allah said in the Quran:
"Let the one who is responsible for the money be afraid of a situation where had he left his children behind and they were young and weak, he would have been afraid for them." (Quran 4:9)
None of us wants to leave our children like that. The companion thought he was going to die. 'Amr ibn al-'As, a rich man: Ya Rasulullah, I wanna give all of my money away in sadaqah before I die in this sickness.
Rasulullah told him:
"Ya 'Amr ibn al-'As, for you to leave your children self-sufficient with money is better for you than to leave them asking the people, in need of the people, beggars. Leave them with some money. Teach them how to be self-sufficient, to work for themselves." (Sahih al-Bukhari 1295, Sahih Muslim 1628)
And again, we have to mention this, O my brothers, because it's one of the problems we have as an ummah. The welfare state, the welfare system, it does injustice to the upbringing (tarbiyah) of the child. Show your son that you are a worker and you teach him work ethics.
Don't leave your children weak (du'afa), where they need the people. So those of you who are responsible for the monies of the orphan, your nieces, your nephews, your best friend's nephew in charge of his son, his daughter, then fear that situation just as you would fear dying and your children are left behind like that. All of us are afraid of that.
All of us who have children are afraid: If I die, who's going to take care of my children? So let him fear Allah.
And when it's time to give the money of the dead person, the deceased, you're going to distribute his money. If the relative of the deceased comes, if the orphan comes, if the poor person comes while you're distributing it, be sure to give them some of that money.
Conclusion
The orphan has a position in this religion, and those of us who are responsible for them should fear Allah as it relates to their rights (huquq).
The Prophet, as it relates to the issue of the orphan in this religion, used to go the extra yard to look out for the well-being of the orphan, and that's his Sunnah that we want to call all of you to.
وَصَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَى نَبِيِّنَا مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ