What a majestic God, generous, lovingly kind, who promises the faithful in the midst of warning the unbelievers and who caresses these while blaming those! He is saying, “Tomorrow at the resurrection possessions and children will be useless to the unbelievers and will not profit them.” In other words, they will be useful to the faithful whenever they have carried out what is rightfully due to them, making them the snare of their own religion and seeking through them their endless felicity.
3:10 As for the unbelievers, their possessions will not take away their need for God, nor their children, and it is they who will be fuel for the Fire.
Muṣṭafā said, “How excellent are wholesome possessions for the wholesome man! What excellent assistance are possessions for being wary of God!” This is just what the Lord of the Worlds says: “And, with what God has given thee, follow after the Last Abode” [28:77]. He is saying, “In that of this world which He has given you, bring the next world to hand! Seek the felicity of the next world!”
The felicity of the next world lies in the recognition of God. Recognition comes from the light of the heart. The light of the heart comes from the lamp of tawḥīd, and the root of this lamp is the divine bestowal. As for its material, that comes from the deeds and obedient acts of the body. Obedient acts come from the strength of the soul, and the soul’s strength comes from food, drink, and clothing. Food, drink, and clothing are nothing but possessions. Hence possessions, by this series of steps, are the cause of endless felicity.
But, one must not pass beyond the measure of sufficiency, for then these will become the cause of rebellion, just as He says: “No indeed; surely man is rebellious because he sees himself without needs” [96:6-7]. This is why God’s Messenger supplicated, “Lord God, make the food of Muhammad’s family in the measure of sufficiency!”
When the measure of sufficiency is for the leisure to worship, then it itself is nothing but worship, for it is the supplies for the road, and the road supplies are also part of the road.
Shaykh Abu’l-Qāsim Kurragānī had a lawful landed estate from which he received his sufficiency. One day they brought him the grain from the estate. He took a handful and said, “I would not exchange this for the trust of all those who trust in God.” No one will know the secret of this except him who is occupied with watchfulness over the heart and knows to what extent the leisure of sufficiency helps in going forth on the road.
As for the unbelievers, their possessions will not take away their need for God. If the unbelievers had all the storehouses of the earth and all its buried wealth and if they sacrificed all of it for their own bodies to buy themselves back and be released from God’s chastisement, that would not be accepted from them; their expenditure of possessions would have no profit for them and would be useless—whether it was for giving comfort to the poor or for the welfare of all the people. This is because worship by possessions stands in the third rank among the levels of obedience. First is limpid belief, then bodily worship, then worship by possessions. But the unbelievers have neither belief nor bodily worship, so worship by possessions will be useless and without profit for them.
Again, the faithful servant has a believing heart, a tongue voicing tawhīd, and worshipful limbs. So, if on top of belief in the heart, remembrance on the tongue, and worship of the limbs he should give charity, or he should do good deeds in some respect, then, even if there is some doubt in these, there is hope that, since the escort of belief is along with them, they will not be rejected.
What is more marvelous is that even if the limpidness of belief in the rulings of the roots of the Sunnah is not present in his deeds and nothing enters into his register, there is still hope of salvation, for Muṣṭafā reported that God says, “The prophets, the angels, and the faithful will have interceded [on the Day of Resurrection], and there will remain the Most Merciful of the Merciful.”
Then he said, “So He will take a handful or two from the Fire and bring out many people who never did any good.”
