(The people of wealth have taken away the rewards)

The Shaykh : From this, we know the eagerness of the early merchants among the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him). When the poor came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), they sent one of their representatives, a man from among them, who said, "O Messenger of Allah, the people of wealth have taken away the rewards." By "wealth" he meant money, that is, the rich. "The people of wealth have taken away the rewards: they pray as we pray, they fast as we fast, they perform Hajj as we perform Hajj, and they give charity while we do not." This weighed heavily on their minds because they were poor and destitute, while the rich had preceded them in good deeds, performing acts of obedience and worship and sharing in them with them, whereas they could not share in the one thing in which the rich had excelled them: giving charity with their money, while they were poor. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said to them: or he said: meaning the last of them is: The representative of the poor returned to them joyful and happy. That is, the Messenger (peace be upon him) gave them a form of worship that no one could catch up to them in unless they did the same. So the poor began to focus on this dhikr after the prayer. But soon the representative of the poor returned to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) to say to him, "O Messenger of Allah, the rich have heard what you described" or "what you told us, and they did what we did." So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: The purpose of this hadith is that the poor, because they are not occupied with trade, buying, and selling, have free time. So they utilize this free time in the remembrance of Allah, in reciting the Qur'an, in sending blessings upon the Messenger (peace be upon him), and in reading the morning and evening adhkar and on every occasion. There are many books that explain these adhkar and awrad. As for the rich, because of their occupation, as I mentioned earlier, with regulated, organized, and systematic trade matters, few of them are able to be diligent in performing the voluntary acts of worship and extra prayers. So I say that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has made a cause for every thing, and He has enumerated the ways to draw near to Allah (Mighty and Majestic), each according to his capacity. We say now that merchants cannot do in worship and dhikr what the poor can, but merchants can do in acts of nearness and obedience what surpasses the poor who are free for worship and obedience. How is that? By refraining from installment sales and selling in a single transaction for cash. And we said earlier that this is more beneficial for them in this world and in trade, because all the customers will return to him. And from another perspective, when a merchant sells to a poor person for cash who cannot pay the price in cash, look now how much profit this merchant will make. The Messenger (peace be upon him) said in the authentic hadith: If you lend a Muslim two hundred dinars, it is as if you gave one hundred dinars in charity. Imagine how many loans, hundreds of loans, these merchants provide to their Muslim brothers. How much charity will be available to them at the end of the day, which they cannot record in their ledgers, because this charity is recorded by our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He) for them on the Day of Resurrection: So the Islamic bank, may Allah reward you, exploits that legal opinion that permits installment sales at a high price, higher than cash sales. Then, in addition to its contradiction of the Sunnah, as we mentioned, it resorts to a trick by inserting an intermediary between, for example, the merchant of refrigerators, or cars, or iron, or cement, or the like, all of which are real, and this poor person. It takes from him the increase that he should have been entitled to if the capital had been lent to the poor person. For example, if he lent him five hundred dinars, it would be as if he gave two hundred and fifty dinars in charity. But greed, avarice, heedlessness of obedience and worship, and not remembering that day which we mentioned earlier: These Muslims fell into this violation of the Shari'ah on one hand, and the contradiction of the material purpose and material profit on the other hand, if they had known.