The Shaykh's advice to fear Allah in seeking lawful sustenance, and his mention of the hadith of the plank and the hadith of the cloud, and the interpretation of His saying, the Exalted

The Shaykh : ... and you, and two of the wonderful Prophetic hadiths that the masses of those dealing with banks have not heard of, and therefore their faith in the verse is weak. The first hadith: He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ... "There was a man before you..." up to the point where the poor man said to him, "Lend me one hundred dinars." He said, "Bring a guarantor." He said, "Allah is the guarantor." He said, "Bring a witness." He said, "Allah is the witness." So he lent him one hundred red dinars, and they agreed on a day for repayment. The debtor took the one hundred dinars and went out, traveling across the sea to work. The appointed day came, and he was outside the town, and he realized that he would be forced to delay the repayment beyond the agreed date. What did he do? He did something astonishing; if we heard what he did, we would think this man is a fool, a madman. He went to a plank, carved it well, and packed one hundred dinars inside it, filling it well. Then he went to the seashore; he was in one town and the lender was in another. He said, "O Lord, You were the guarantor and You were the witness," and he threw the plank into the sea. Yes, yes, by Allah... Allah, Mighty and Majestic, is capable of everything. He commanded these waves to take the plank to the creditor's town. The creditor went out according to the appointment, waiting for the debtor. The ship did not come, but his eyes fell upon this plank, and the waves were tossing it before him. So he reached out for it, and it was heavy. He took the one hundred gold dinars to his house and broke it open, and out came one hundred red gold dinars. A little while later, the debtor arrived. What should we say about this man? A dervish, a dervish, but a believer, as evidenced by the fact that he ignored what he had done. Because what he did was not subject to the natural cosmic laws that Allah decreed for people; he did not send it via registered express mail, no, all these matters are outside the norm, so he knew what he had done. And therefore he ignored the matter, and the creditor received one hundred dinars as if he had done nothing. Look, birds fall according to their kind; two righteous men. There is no god but Allah! He gave him one hundred dinars. The creditor received the one hundred dinars, and he was amazed by the previous incident, so he had no choice but to tell him the story. He said to him, "By Allah, I am the one who did this, because time caught up with me and I was unable to come to you on the appointed day, so I took the plank, packed it, and so on, and I addressed the Lord of the Worlds, who was the guarantor between us and the witness. I said to Him, 'You are the guarantor and You were the witness.' By His, the Exalted's, testimony and guarantee, He delivered it to you." He said to him, "May Allah bless you in your wealth," and he returned to him the one hundred dinars... We do things like this today, by Allah, except that we rarely see it; the world does not actually lack it, but this is very rare. No one sees it; no one sees who picked up this plank. If he took the one hundred dinars from the debtor and kept silent, who could say, "You took two hundred dinars from me"? What does this mean? That our Lord, when He knew this debtor's fear of Allah, made the sea serve him, made the sea serve him, and preserved his wealth from being lost. We are in the story of the bank. The second story, which is also strange: He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: It has never happened in the world that we heard a voice, not even from helicopters today in the end times, a voice from the sky saying, "O cloud, rain on such-and-such land," for example, the land of Ahmad ibn 'Abd Allah. He saw this cloud was moving this way, so he went this way, walking with the cloud. And the cloud emptied its load of water onto a garden. He looked over it and saw a man working with a pickaxe. He greeted him, as if he knew his name. The man was surprised and asked him, "How do you know my name? You are a stranger." He told him the story: "I heard a voice from the sky saying, 'Rain on the land of so-and-so,' so I walked with the cloud and found the cloud had emptied its load of water onto your land, so I knew that you were the one meant by this voice." He asked him, "By what did you deserve this divine care?" He said — as is the case with the righteous — "By Allah, I do not know and I am not aware; but I have this land, I plant it and harvest it, and then I divide my harvest into three parts: one third I return to myself to spend on myself and my family, one third I spend on my land, and the third part I give in charity to my neighbors and the poor." He said to him, "This is it. By this fear of Allah, you deserved the help of Allah, the Exalted." These meanings, which they call spiritual meanings, have fallen from the hearts of the Muslims, and unfortunately the Muslims have become like the disbelievers; they do not believe except in matter, except in matter, as if matter is permanent and lasting, but most people do not know. And indeed in that is a reminder for one who has a heart or who lends an ear while being a witness.