What is the ruling on a traveler who says, "I will stay with my relative, and if I do not find him, I will stay in a hotel, and if my money is lost, I have Allah"? Is this a sign of weak reliance upon Allah?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : May the Shaykh be respected, I have heard some preachers say more than once that people’s reliance upon Allah (tawakkul) has weakened. This is because if you ask a person who intends to travel, "Where will you stay when you arrive in the region you want to go to?" he says, "With my relative." We say, "And if you do not find a relative?" He says, "I have money, so I will stay in a hotel or an apartment." Then we say, "What if the money is lost?" He says, "Allah will make the matter easy." So he says, here Allah has been placed in the third position, which is a weakness in reliance upon Allah. And this, May the Shaykh be respected, is widely found, and such talk is frequently circulated among them, and they are the ones I asked about in the previous session.
The Shaykh : I say: One of the afflictions is for a person to speak about something that is not based on the Book of Allah or the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), so that he perceives the truth as falsehood or falsehood as truth. It is well known that if a person attributes something to its known cause, it is permissible. So if the traveler is asked: "How do you travel? Who do you go to?"
He says: "I go to my relative. If I do not find him, I have dirhams with which I will stay in a hotel. If I have no relative and no dirhams with me, Allah will make the matter easy." There is nothing in this of weak reliance upon Allah, because in the first instance he relied on apparent, known causes. If these causes are lost, he has then placed his hope in Allah. Even in his reliance on the known causes, deep in his heart he knows that Allah is the One who makes them easy for him, and He is the One who facilitated them for him. And if it were not for the facilitation of Allah the Exalted, they would not have been made easy.
This does not mean that he has placed Allah in the third position, but rather that he has clarified the known, tangible causes. If they become impossible, then Allah the Exalted will make the matter easy. There is absolutely nothing in this of a deficiency in reliance upon Allah or a weakness in reliance upon Allah.
The Shaykh : I say: One of the afflictions is for a person to speak about something that is not based on the Book of Allah or the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), so that he perceives the truth as falsehood or falsehood as truth. It is well known that if a person attributes something to its known cause, it is permissible. So if the traveler is asked: "How do you travel? Who do you go to?"
He says: "I go to my relative. If I do not find him, I have dirhams with which I will stay in a hotel. If I have no relative and no dirhams with me, Allah will make the matter easy." There is nothing in this of weak reliance upon Allah, because in the first instance he relied on apparent, known causes. If these causes are lost, he has then placed his hope in Allah. Even in his reliance on the known causes, deep in his heart he knows that Allah is the One who makes them easy for him, and He is the One who facilitated them for him. And if it were not for the facilitation of Allah the Exalted, they would not have been made easy.
This does not mean that he has placed Allah in the third position, but rather that he has clarified the known, tangible causes. If they become impossible, then Allah the Exalted will make the matter easy. There is absolutely nothing in this of a deficiency in reliance upon Allah or a weakness in reliance upon Allah.