The Response to Those Among the Orientalists Who Said That Islam Prohibits Worldly Work.

The Shaykh: And it has also passed with us some hadiths that the upper hand is the giver and the lower hand is the taker. So, the interpretation of this hadith, i.e., the hadith of al-Bukhari, when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) saw the coin and said: , that it prohibits working to earn a livelihood through lawful means, is a false interpretation. So, what is the intended meaning of this hadith? It is the same intended meaning as in the hadith: , meaning do not be overly eager, do not compete fiercely for material means, for they may distract you from performing religious obligations. It is as if the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was looking from behind veils, from behind the unseen, when he said this and that, when he said: , and when he said: . We see today that the Muslims, whose complaints from reformers and Islamic callers were loud in urging Muslims to adopt the means of life and the means of economic rise and prosperity, were, until recently, about half a century ago, urging Muslims to work as these disbelievers work so that they may become powerful as they became powerful. And if the result of these calls gave a reaction, it is that Muslims today do not care for anything as much as they care for their worldly affairs, securing the means of living for themselves, competing fiercely for them, and in doing so, they neglect what Allah has obligated upon them, which is gathered by the word of taqwa (mindfulness of Allah). So, they do not fear Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in their methods of acquiring their livelihoods. The most prominent of this is that we hardly find a merchant, farmer, or owner of a profession who does not deal in riba (usury or interest). And when we argue with them and remind them of the hadiths and verses regarding the prohibition of riba, they say in excuse: Why should we work if we do not deal in riba? Our trade would stop and we would not be able to seek our livelihood? So, the logic of these people is that there is no way to earn a lawful livelihood except through the path of the haram (forbidden). And this is a claim that invalidates what is issued by a Muslim who reads the saying of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He): .
In summary: Islam does not prohibit engaging in the causes of livelihood, but with two conditions. The first condition is that the Muslim does not compete fiercely for them to the extent that it distracts him from performing other obligations. The second condition is that his striving be within the limits of the Shari'ah, so he does not sell what is not permissible to sell, and does not engage in any of his transactions with the state or with people in what is not permissible, such as riba (usury or interest), which we gave as an example earlier. So, the author's statement here: "The Chapter on Going Out to the Farm" indicates the permissibility of a Muslim going out to his farm, to his plantation, as one of the means of his livelihood, because Abu Sa'id al-Khudri went out to his date palms, and he is a noble and famous Companion, so his action depicts to us a part of what the Lawgiver brought, which is going out to seek sustenance. And it is sufficient in urging work with the two previous conditions that we do not compete fiercely for it to the extent that we forget some obligations, and that we do not engage in forbidden means. It is sufficient in urging work and specifically in planting, the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): . This is a great exaggeration in the urging of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to engage in the causes of agriculture and earning lawful sustenance. He says: If one of you hears that the Hour has stood over the people, and he is preparing to plant a seedling from the seedlings he has, and while he has taken it intending to plant it, and the world becomes chaotic and the Hour stands, he does not say, "The Hour has stood, what will sustain me after that?" and so he does not leave it, but he plants it. This is from what the Sunnah brought in urging the engagement in the causes of sustenance, and specifically through the path of planting. And so, Islam never prohibits engaging in the causes of sustenance, but it wants that to be with justice and moderation, so he does not neglect his family because of his neglect of engaging in the causes of sustenance, nor does he drown his family in sustenance because of his fierce competition for it, so he forgets, and his family forgets with him, what Allah has obligated upon them of performing the obligations. And the previous hadith: And this is the reality, the greatest proof of the truth of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in what he informed about, for Allah has imposed upon the Muslims the humiliation of the Jews in the lands of Islam . Why is this? Because they competed fiercely for the world, and nothing matters to them except obtaining money. And from the examples that occurred in the land of Palestine itself is the initiative of the large landowners in Palestine to sell their lands to the Jews themselves, and this sale was one of the strongest causes of the establishment of the Jews in the land of Palestine. So, they bought them at the highest prices, and those wealthy landowners sold them to them, hoping for the money they had. So, the outcome of that was that they were expelled from their wealth and their lands, and nothing remained for them except disgrace and shame, we ask Allah for safety. This is our comment on the athar (report) of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri and his going out with his friend to the date palms. As for his statement in this hadith: "So he went out and he was wearing a khamisah," the khamisah is a marked, striped garment, most resembling what is known even today in the Levantine countries...