Three days after the incident a friend of mine phoned me and...

Three days after the incident a friend of mine phoned me and told me that as he was looking into his account books he found that he owed me a hundred dirhams, and wanted to pay me back quickly. I was surprised and could not remember how he came to owe me this money. However he reminded me, and told me that he used to pay me back in instalments, and after checking his books he found that he had not paid me the last instalment.

Well, he paid me the money, and as I was thinking over the events I remembered how Allah promises in the Holy Qur’an, to increase a good deed ten folds. I remembered the amount of ten dirhams that I had taken out as charity. Help to a Jewish girl! A great scholar Al Haj Mu’iin Ashirazi relates that a friend of his Sayyid Darshooji who was a businessman said to him that his business was in a bad state and that his capital had been depleted and he was in debt.

As he was in this dire state, a Jewish girl once came to him and informed him that she was getting married and that she was an orphan. She asked him to take pity on her and to sell her some home accessories at a cheap price. Although the businessman was in a bad economic state, he decided to sell the girl the goods at a cheap price. Whereby the goods cost a hundred and fifty tumans, he gave her a discount of thirty tumans and sold her the goods at a loss.

Soon after that, he was offered some household commodities that were rare to be seen in the market at a very low price and with an additional advantage that they were offered to him on credit. Although he was hesitant to take on the deal, he did so and ended up making a huge profit, since people were in need of the items due to their scarcity in the market. In this way he recovered his capital and his economic condition improved. Charity is key to sustenance!

Sheikh Kulaini in his book Al Kaafi relates the following tradition from Imam Ja’far Sadiq (a.s.): “ Cure your sick by giving Sadaqah or charity, and remove troubles and mishaps by giving charity, and increase sustenance with charity. Charity banishes seventy shaitans from what is within one’s beard, and charity goes unto the hand of Allah before it goes unto the hand of the needy” .

[^7] Our Holy Prophet (S) says that: “ We should give charity as it increases our property, and it makes the mercy of Allah befall on us”. [^8] Once Abu Abdillah (a.s.) asked his son how much money he had. His son replied that he only had forty dinaars.