104. Did the Prophet Muhammad live a simple and humble life, or did he have limited means and live a poor man’s life? For short, what was his wealth status?
The word used in the Quran for money is qiyam, which literally means a place to settle down. God has made wealth a means of qiyam for people, that is, it works to provide a base to people for their livelihood. We need money as a base for what we do in this world; we do not require money for luxury. Here, ‘base’ means that money forms a kind of material support for the purpose we have to achieve in life. For example, installation of an elevator in a house could be done as a display of wealth, or it could be done to facilitate movement of the elderly and those who may not be able to use the staircase. The former approach would be against the teaching of Islam. But the latter approach, which is to facilitate movement, shall be looked upon favourably. Everyone is allowed to earn money to acquire a base for the work they have to do in life. The quantum of wealth earned by an individual is not the concern of Islam; the individual must simply earn his livelihood honestly and spend it on utility rather than on vanities.
Once Umar ibn al-Khattab came to the Prophet’s house and saw the latter lying down on a mat. The Prophet’s body had marks from the substance the mat was made of. This made Umar weep, as he realized that the Prophet, being a messenger of God, was living in difficulty while his contemporary kings were leading luxurious lives. The Prophet explained to Umar that we must be satisfied with what fulfils our need. Kings and emperors are concerned about living in luxury, but for the Prophet whatever fulfilled his need was enough. In today’s age, several things have become our need, such as a phone for communication and other gadgets to get our work done. All these are classified as needs and Islam does not prohibit acquiring them.
Also, the definition of ‘need’ may vary. Something that may be the need of one may not be the need of another. So, there could never be a universal yardstick defining ‘need’; a conscientious individual is the best judge of his needs and well understands when it becomes greed.
