The Response to Those Who Say: Where Should I Put My Money If I Do Not Place It in the Bank?

The Shaykh: Religious people, religious people, they say to you, "Where am I supposed to go with my money?" My son here, 'Abd al-Rahman, worked as an employee for a man you might see on Friday, if Allah wills, named 'Abd al-Rahim Abu Muhammad Khadraj.
The student: He is Jordanian.

The Shaykh: Yes.
The student: He is a Jordanian from Amman.

The Shaykh: Yes, he is probably originally Palestinian, I don't know, but he is now in Jarash. He resided in Kuwait for many years and came back with a decent amount of money. He bought a very large piece of land there in a village a bit far from Jarash, and he worked it and planted it, and so on. I visited him once or twice on the occasion that my son 'Abd al-Rahman got a job with him. He has an Arabic pharmacy, and he comes every Friday from Jarash in a pickup truck, parks it in front of Abu Malik's mosque, and sells honey there. He specializes in bringing honey from the West Bank. What do I need to tell you about him? Yes, on the occasion of riba (usury or interest), on the occasion of my son getting a job there, we went to his house in that village. From one conversation to another, he said, for example, "I went to him to arrange the work between my son and him, so we need to see what he can employ him for." He said during the conversation, "I want to send him on an errand, for example, to the bank, so that I can deposit a check or cash a check, or so on." I was surprised, or I pretended to be surprised, and I said to him, "O Abu Muhammad, you deal with the bank? I send money, and so on." On that day, I suggested to him the safe deposit box, and I have had this idea since I was in Sham (Damascus). He had no news of this thing and no knowledge of it. The solution he said: "This is a good solution, but I think it is not here in Jarash. It would cost me to go down to Amman." I said, "What is there? Obedience to Allah, and so on." So my point from this speech is that religious people are afflicted now, because they say to you, "Where am I supposed to put my money?" And this was part of his speech: "Where am I supposed to put my money?" I said to him, "My brother, by Allah, this question was asked of me when I was in Britain, do you remember once? There, I received questions of this kind from non-Muslims residing there, from Egyptians and Syrians and others. We are here in a foreign country and there are many thieves, and so on. And we are forced, where do we put the money? We put it in the banks." I said to them, "Glory be to Allah, is it necessary that when you have an abundance of money, you raise the flag and say, 'Here in this place, and exactly in this corner, there is a treasure of money,' so that you attract the attention of the thieves and they come to rob the houses or the people in the houses? Fear Allah, O people, and remember the saying of Allah: and so on. So the Muslims are very ignorant of the fear of Allah and the rulings connected to achieving this fear. Unfortunately.