The amount which is spent on the necessities of life is the...

The amount which is spent on the necessities of life is the smallest portion spent (out of all three areas), where as the amount spent on satisfying our lower desires and passions is where the vast amount of our wealth goes. Therefore, the Noble Prophet (S) has told us that if we reduce our base desires, then poverty will be easy upon us. Without doubt, a majority of the people who are poor are not deprived in relation to their primary needs and necessities (of life).

The state of poverty that people encounter is either in relation to their welfare (need) and well-being, or in areas of the base and lower desires (greed). A person may, for example, think that his house is too small for him and searches for a bigger house - thus, greed compells him to purchase a larger house. There are also other things which are “unnecessary expenditures” which are, many times, placed at the top of our list of priorities as necessities and essential requirements.

However, in reality we see that this is not the case! There are many people who go through great pains in order to gain the material pleasures of life which they do not need.

They have a house that is acceptable according to their status and requirements, their loans are all paid up, however they stop and ponder for a while and think to themselves: مِنْ سَعَادَةِ الرَّجُلِ سَعَةُ دَارِهِ… “One of the ways of happiness for a person is to have a large house…” In addition they also think that, “Tomorrow, my young children will grow up, my relatives will come over and…” In summary, gradually, such a person would make up excuses for himself, sell his old house, end up taking a loan from the bank just to purchase a new house!

One of the problems with people today is that they are not able to bear the challenges of life - there must be challenges and difficulties within life as these apparent “troubles” are actually no troubles at all! We do not say that if Allah (SwT) blesses a person (materialistically speaking), that he must throw that thing away!

Rather, our discussion focuses on the fact that we must not take these material things as being necessities of life which one needs and that one should spend his entire life chasing them! Thus, when a person does not have such base desires, then he is definitely not poor! Of course, we must accept the fact that when it comes to the absolute necessities of life, there are some people who are definitely poor and needy (of the basic needs).