Joe Bradford 4-8-16

Allah is whom we praise, we praise Him and thank Him and seek refuge in Him from the evil of our own souls and the evil of our actions. Whomsoever He guides, none can misguide Him. And whomsoever He leaves astray, none can guide to the truth.

And I bear witness that there is no one worthy of worship but God alone and that Muhammad is His slave and messenger. O you who believe, be mindful of Allah as He should be minded and do not die except as Muslims. O mankind, be mindful of your Lord who created you from one soul and from that soul its mate and from those two spread many men and many women.

Be mindful of those whom you ask your rights from and be mindful of the wombs that bore you, that gave birth to you for verily He is ever watchful over you. O you who believe, be mindful of Allah and speak the truth. He will guide you to righteous deeds and forgive you of your sins.

And whomsoever obeys Allah and His messenger has achieved the greatest achievement. The best of speech is the speech of Allah and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad. And the worst of affairs are those which are newly introduced and everything newly introduced goes astray and everything goes astray leads to the hellfire.

Clear and Ambiguous Matters

The Prophet is reported to have said, as is reported from him, from al-Nu'man ibn Bashir radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, that he said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim)

The Prophet, he said, that which is permitted is clear, and that which is impermissible, which is forbidden, is clear. And between these two are many ambiguous matters. So whoever saves himself from that ambiguity, then he has saved both his faith and his honor. And he who falls into ambiguity will fall into what is forbidden.

Many times in our life, we become so entrenched in issues which are ambiguous, that we forget to save our faith and our honor. We become entrenched in minutia, in issues which don't concern us. And as we know, the Prophet, he said:

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi)

From the good of a person's Islam, submission to God, is that they leave off that which does not concern them.

So the believer should be concerned with those things which directly affect him, and his family, community, and those around him. And it is unfortunate to say, but at times, we ourselves involve ourselves in things which are clearly haram. Things which affect us negatively, as well as those around us.

Misappropriation of Wealth

Allah says:

And do not devour each other's wealth amongst you in falsehood. Do not wrongfully devour each other's wealth amongst you, and then force each other to mediate to arbiters and mediators, so that you can take at least a small portion of someone's wealth sinfully, while you have full knowledge of doing so.

This verse was revealed about those, who when entering into business transactions with others, would lie to them and cheat. They would falsify information, and they would force those people into situations, in which they had not enough knowledge to make a clear business decision. And when that person argued with them, they would say, let's go and plead our case to the local judge, or plead our case to the local mediator, or plead our case to the Shaykh, and see if he decides in my favor or your favor, knowing that they had already sufficiently set the game up, so that anybody who heard what was going on, would rule in their favor.

This is one of the greatest محرمات, the greatest things which have been forbidden, which is أكل أموال الناس بالباطل. The misappropriation and consumption of other people's wealth, through falsehood and false means.

Trust and Transparency in Business

Now many times when we talk about these issues, we think about them simply in the terms of, well, this verse must be talking about ربا. This must be talking about gambling. This must be talking about things which are very clear. But many times, the different types of misappropriation of wealth, wrongful eating or devouring of people's wealth, comes in ways that we don't even imagine.

Many times they're promoted to our community through scams. One of the newest scams is that they say, I'm a Muslim, you can trust me. And in fact it's not a new scam, it's a very old scam. We base our transactions merely on the fact that someone is from our own community. Without checking on what they're saying and who they are.

The Prophet, he said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim)

Two people do business, they have a choice until they separate. If they are truthful and transparent, then their transaction will be blessed. But if they are not transparent, they hide things and they lie, then the blessings will be devoid from any transaction that they enter into.

Two Types of Misappropriation

In the works of Tafsir, explaining this verse, scholars of Tafsir such as Al-Jassas, Fuqaha such as Al-Qadi Abu Ya'la, they have said that misappropriation of wealth, أَكْلُ أَمْوَالِ النَّاسِ بِالْبَاطِلِ takes two, manifests itself in two ways.

The first, it manifests itself in a way in which you take someone else's wealth without their being pleased in you doing so. There's no due consideration. There's no mutual agreement. So you steal something. It's very clear that that is something wrong.

The second type is where the person that you're dealing with actually agrees for you to take their wealth from them. And you may be saying to yourself, how can someone agree for me to treat them inappropriately, to take their wealth wrongfully? Well, riba is a form of that. Gambling is a form of that. And there are other forms which are a bit more slight in which while we may be agreeable to what's happening, we're not fully confident in the permissibility or the likelihood of profit for either of us.

Misuse of Trust and Public Wealth

The Prophet, he said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari)

There are people, there are people who have been entrusted with God's wealth and they misuse it. They will have the hellfire on the Day of Judgment.

We don't think about the resources that we have in our masjids, in our Islamic centers. We don't think about the kickbacks that go for construction projects and parking lots. We don't think about why certain people are appointed to certain positions. Which is why every single Islamic center in this United States of America, if you don't fear Allah and appoint those who are trustworthy and transparent, then you should at least fear the law.

Uthman used to say, إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَيَزَعُ بِالسُّلْطَانِ مَنْ لَا يَزَعُ بِالْقُرْآنِ - God will straighten out those people with the law, who do not straighten themselves out with the Qur'an.

Riba, Gambling, and Investment

We mentioned riba, gambling, injustice. Many times people say, what is riba? Simplest way we can define riba is to say that it is a guaranteed return on your capital, regardless of whether you profit, or whether the project profits or does not. That's the simplest way. Money now, for more money later. Guaranteed regardless. You lose, I win. You win, I win.

Gambling. Gambling is a guaranteed loss, or a guaranteed win, based solely on chance.

What is then the difference between these, and investment and business? Investment is the potential of return, or the potential of loss, based upon capital or work, in the real economy. Actual wealth and value is created. Not just something which is sold for more than it later, even if there's something placed in between.

Modern Scams in the Muslim Community

Now, I know what you're saying, most of us are not involved in the financial industry, we have no idea what's going on. But I want to talk to you today about a scam which is run in the Muslim community, and it comes up every few years, where people guarantee you return.

And they tell you, I'm going to show you the secret, without a lot of hard work, I'm going to show you the secret, without having to put in much money, of how you can make exponential returns. You can take a hundred dollars, and by the end of the year, have fifty thousand dollars, while you're sitting in the comfort of your home, not having to do anything, not having to read anything, not having to put any effort in whatsoever. How do I do that? Join my special group, and I'll show you how to hack the system. I will show you how to become rich quick.

It's very well known that there is no such thing as a get rich quick scheme. Unless you're taking someone's money.

So what do they do? They say each of us, there's five of us, we're going to put in fifty dollars each. And if you bring in one more person, then in a month I'll give you fifty five dollars. So what do they do? Everybody puts in five. Five people, fifty dollars, two hundred and fifty dollars. But if everybody's getting a payout of fifty five dollars after a month, if they bring that person in, where's that extra five dollars coming from? It's coming from the money of the newest member. So you're funding the payouts to the older members through the money that comes through the newer members.

And one of the telltale signs of this, what they call a Ponzi scheme, or a multi-level marketing plan, is that the assets which are being sold are garbage. They're worthless. If you buy them, you'll be stuck with them.

The common denominator here is that everybody at the bottom of the pyramid loses. And this is one of the clearest types of أكل أموال الناس بالباطل misappropriation of wealth that afflicts this community every few years. And unfortunately, it's done through religious rhetoric. It's done by telling people they can have a halal lifestyle. It's done by selling the deen for a little bit of the dunya.

Inheritance Issues

And lastly, another type of misappropriation of wealth that happens all too often in our community is our refusal to divide up our inheritance in the manner in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has designated in the Qur'an. And you'll be surprised.

People will come to you and they will say, fathers will say, and I've had this happen with me personally. A family comes and they say, we want to know how to divide our mother's inheritance. Say, okay, we need to have all of the family together. And then we need to decide whose assets were what. Many times, husband and wife, your assets are co-mingled. So you need to have a list. Whose was what?

The first person to refuse is the father, the husband of the deceased. Why? When you ask him, why are you refusing to divide up the inheritance as Allah has said in the Qur'an, he'll say, well this is because my sons will get more than my daughters. And I am a champion of women's rights. And I will not allow the women of my family to be wronged. What he won't tell you is, his wife had a lot of gold that she hid in her closet. And he doesn't want his daughters to get that. So he uses his objection to the Qur'an to legitimize his taking of his daughter's wealth. And this happens more often than not.

And in fact, this idea of men always getting more, and women always getting less in inheritance is completely false. And it is based on an ignorant assumption that was first promoted by orientalists, and unfortunately, promoted by some Muslims themselves. There are seven situations in which a woman inherits in Islam. In three of those, she always takes more than a man. And in one of those, she takes equal. And in the three other, she takes less, but she has a pre-emptive right for maintenance over those men who took more, such as her brother.

Consequences of Consuming Haram Wealth

So we have to be extremely clear not to fall in to taking other people's wealth. Because the Prophet said, as is recorded by al-Bayhaqi, and was graded as sahih by Shaykh al-Albani in al-Sahihah:

(Sahih al-Jami' al-Saghir)

Whoever's body is fed from the haram, then the hellfire has more right over him.

Second Khutbah

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:

It is shaitan who promises you poverty and orders you to lewdness but Allah promises you forgiveness. Allah promises you forgiveness from him and bountiness or bountiful blessings in this life and the next and Allah is the ever expansive and the all knowing.

Many times we resort to taking others wealth to cheating others even our family members even our beloved brothers and sisters in our community because we are afraid of poverty but Allah has promised us that if we believe in him and do what is right then we have no need to fear poverty and that everything else after that is bounty.

The True Bankrupt Person

The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam was once with his companions and he said, as recorded in Sahih Muslim from Abu Huraira:

Do you know who the bankrupt person is?

قالوا من لا دينار له ولا متاع - They said the person who has no money and no property.

(Sahih Muslim)

He said the bankrupt person will be the person who comes on the day of judgment and he has prayer, and he has fasting, and he has zakah and he has all forms of good deeds and he has cursed at this person and hit that person and killed that person or taken the wealth of that person so this person on the day of judgment if he has any good deeds his good deeds will be taken to recompense those that he's wronged in this life and if he has no good deed left then the sins of those people he wronged will be thrown upon him and he will be thrown into the hell fire.

Oh Allah forgive us of our sins and our trespasses in our affairs and make our feet firm Oh Lord of the worlds. Oh Allah make us amongst the honest make us amongst the truthful and make us amongst those that seek your pleasure in both deen and dunya يا رب العالمين

Oh Allah we have wronged ourselves and if you do not forgive us and have mercy upon us then we will truly be at loss.