The Shaykh’s explanation of the hadith of Fadalah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) used to lead people in prayer, and men from among them would collapse during the prayer due to poverty, and they were the people of the Safah...

The Shaykh : The hadith that follows is also authentic. It is his statement: “It was narrated from Fadalah ibn 'Ubayd (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) used to lead people in prayer, and men from among them would collapse during the prayer due to poverty, and they were the people of the Safah, until the Bedouins would say, ‘These are madmen or insane.’ When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) finished the prayer, he would turn to them and say: ” Al-Tirmidhi narrated it and said, “It is an authentic hadith.” Ibn Hibban included it in his Sahih. *Al-Khasasah* (poverty) is with an open *kha* and two *sad* letters; it means destitution and hunger.
Fadalah ibn 'Ubayd says that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) used to lead people in prayer, and men from among them would collapse during the prayer due to poverty and hunger. Their nerves would relax, and they would lose control of themselves, falling to the ground against their will. They were the people of the Safah. When some Bedouins who did not know the condition of these Companions or the severity of their poverty saw them, they would say, “These are madmen or insane.” The meaning is the same, but the narrator is uncertain whether Fadalah said *majanin* or *mujanun*. The latter is an anomalous plural, as the linguists say. When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) finished the prayer, he would turn to them to console them, comfort them, and encourage them to be patient. He would say to them, peace and blessings be upon him: Does this hadith encourage a Muslim to intentionally seek poverty for the sake of poverty, or what? Some people may think that is the case, but it is not. Rather, this hadith is a consolation for one who may be afflicted with some destitution and need, and finds nothing there to satisfy his hunger and thirst. At that time, he finds these hadiths to be the medicine and cure for him, and they are what then turn him away from being a burden on others or a beggar among people.
This is what we understand from these hadiths. Otherwise, poverty itself is often a calamity for its owner, because it requires a lot of patience and acceptance of divine decree and destiny, and this is something many people cannot do...
Therefore, it was among the things from which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) sought refuge: poverty. He used to say: The reason is what we mentioned: that many people do not have patience with the hardship of life. As for a person intentionally seeking to be poor, that is not of Islam in any way whatsoever. That is because poverty only comes to a person when he is occupied with something for which his companion is praised by the Shari'ah, as we previously discussed regarding the description of Abu Hurayrah in his state of hunger and poverty. As for living in this manner, in his opinion, relying on Allah, while in reality he is lazy, lazy upon people and their pockets and their charity, this is not what Islam encourages. Rather, it has come in the Qur'an, the statement of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He: Meaning: take provision, the material provision, when you leave your lands, those heading to the Holy House intending Hajj or 'Umrah. So take provision and do not rely on the provision of the companions you are traveling with.
Therefore, he, peace and blessings be upon him, said: So the rich person who fulfills the obligation is more beloved to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, if he is met with a patient poor person. But it is not said that the grateful rich person is better than the patient poor person, because comparing one person to another in terms of superiority is not based on a single aspect: the richness for the rich and the poverty for the poor. Rather, it is based on what is gathered in each of the two persons of good deeds, obedience, and worship. So whoever has more worship is better in the sight of Allah. But if poverty is compared with richness, and each is standing within the limits of the Shari'ah, it appears that richness has a wider circle of good in it than the satisfaction of the poor person and his patience with his poverty. From here, a story is narrated that may be authentic or may not be, but it contains a lesson. They say that a man from those ascetics known as Sufis went out traveling in the wilderness, as is their custom. Knowing that such travel, such tourism, is not prescribed, and the matter is as he, peace and blessings be upon him, said: Going out like this into the wilderness, where a person lives with the beasts and leaves his fellow humans and does not deal with them, this is the least that can be said: that he contradicted the well-known hadith of the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, from the hadith of Ibn 'Umar: So this travel mentioned regarding the Sufis is non-Shari'ah travel. They claimed that one of them went out as is their custom, and he kept walking and walking until he became hungry and tired. So he took refuge in a ruin, and there he looked out from it to another ruin. He saw a lion coming, carrying in its jaws a prey, bringing it to a dog crouching there, resting. So the man said, “Glory be to Allah, Glory be to the Provider. How He has subjected this lion to this dog.” He said, so he heard a voice saying to him, “Be a lion and do not be a dog.”
And this is the moral of this story, which is very clear from dozens of hadiths, and I have heard some of them from you: .