The 365 · Tazkiyah · Day 183 · Dunya
Ḥubb al-Māl · The Love of Wealth
The disease
حُبّ الْمَال
Ḥubb al-Māl
Why it's named first
Because Allah testified to it in our hearts. He said: 'wa tuḥibbūna al-māla ḥubban jammā' - and you love wealth with an immense love (al-Fajr 89:20). He did not accuse us of liking it; He said we LOVE it. And jammā is overflowing, abundant, excessive love. Then He listed the consequences in the same surah: orphans not honored, the poor not fed, inheritance devoured greedily, and the love of māl weighing down the entire heart. Ḥubb al-māl is not the use of wealth; it is the attachment to it as a destination. It is the heart that bleeds when money is spent and lifts when money is gained. The heart that sleeps better with a higher bank balance and worse with a lower one. The heart whose worship of Allah subtly correlates with the prosperity of its dunya.
In the Qur'an
'And you love wealth with an immense love' (al-Fajr 89:20). 'And he is severe in the love of wealth' (al-ʿĀdiyāt 100:8) (referring to the human being). 'Wealth and children are the ornament of this worldly life, but the lasting good deeds are better with your Lord' (al-Kahf 18:46). 'Truly the love of good (wealth) has made man miserly' (al-ʿĀdiyāt 100:8).
In the Sunnah
'Wretched is the slave of the dinar and the dirham, the slave of the velvet and silk; wretched, and may he be thrown on his face. When he is pricked with a thorn, may he not find a cure' (Bukhārī 2887). And: 'Two hungry wolves let loose on a flock do less harm than a man's craving for wealth and status does to his religion' (Tirmidhī 2376). And the warning: 'For every nation there is a fitnah, and the fitnah of my nation is wealth' (Tirmidhī 2336).
The cure
Treat māl as a tool, not a destination. The Prophet ﷺ said: 'Wretched is the slave of the dinar and the dirham' (Bukhārī 2887). The cure is to be the master of your wealth, not its slave. Practical: 1) Give before the end of every month, not when comfortable; the muscle of giving weakens love of wealth; 2) When you feel chest-tightening at the thought of an expense (a parent in need, a community ask, a zakāh calculation), that tightness IS the disease; meet it with deliberate giving; 3) Calculate your zakāh precisely and give it joyfully, not grudgingly; 4) Hold no wealth as 'mine' in your inner narration; rehearse: this is Allah's, I am the temporary steward; 5) Sit with the poor weekly and remember whose wealth was tested with hunger and whose was tested with abundance.
What is at stake
When ḥubb al-māl captures the heart, three things bend. Ṣalāh becomes a brief interruption in the chase. Zakāh becomes a deduction painfully calculated and minimized. Sadaqah becomes a marketing line for the brand, not a secret between the soul and Allah. The lover of wealth begins to choose work over prayer, prosperity over presence, networking over family, and slowly the dīn is dressed in the clothes of the business, instead of the business being dressed in the dīn.
A du'a for this day
Allāhumma jʿalnī sayyid mālī wa lā tajʿalnī ʿabda hū. (O Allah, make me the master of my wealth, not its slave.) And the Prophetic duʿā: Allāhumma in-nī aʿūdhu bika min al-bukhli wa al-jubni, wa min sharri fitnati al-māl. (Bukhārī)
A reflection to carry
There is a sentence in Surat al-Fajr that should stop you. Allah, speaking to the human being, says: 'wa tuḥibbūna al-māla ḥubban jammā.' And you love wealth with a love that overflows. He did not phrase it as an accusation against the disbelievers; He phrased it as a description of us. We love it. With abundance. With a love that fills our chest larger than the love of many other things. And the Prophet ﷺ, who saw the truth of human nature without sentimentality, said: taʿisa ʿabdu al-dīnār. May the slave of the dinar perish. Read that: he called the lover of money a slave. The slave does not own; he is owned. He does not direct the master; he is directed by the master. He does not sleep peacefully unless the master is content. Ya akhī, ya ukhtī, the question is not whether you have māl. It is whether the māl has you. Test it. Imagine your bank balance dropping by 80% tomorrow. What happens in your chest? If your salāh stays the same, your character stays the same, your trust in Allah stays the same, then māl is your tool. If your chest collapses, if your mood blackens, if your worship rusts, you have a master other than Allah. The cure is to give before you are forced to, to hold the wealth in an open hand, to remember it is His and you are the temporary steward.
Read the longer reflection
Yā Rabb, You testified about our love of wealth before we could even confess to it. You said we love it jammā. You did not give us room to deny. So I bring the disease to You openly. Ya Allāh, I love māl. I love the feeling of a healthy account. I love the security of paid bills. I love the comfort of not worrying. And in itself that love is not a sin; You yourself called māl khayr, good. But the love has, in my chest, grown beyond the place You allotted for it. It has, at times, climbed onto the throne where only love of You belongs. It has whispered: pray less, work more. Give less, save more. Trust the spreadsheet, not the Razzaq. Forgive me, ya Allāh. Forgive me. I want to be the master of my wealth, not its slave. So strengthen my giving. Make my zakāh precise and joyful. Make my sadaqah secret and frequent. Make my hand light when a parent needs, a sibling needs, an orphan needs, a masjid needs, an ummah-sized wound needs. Let me give before I am asked. Let me give when my chest tightens (because that tightening is the disease and the giving is the medicine). Ya Allah, take this nafs of mine that thinks money is safety and remind it that You are al-Wakīl, the Trustee, the true safety. Take the spreadsheet out of the throne of my heart and put Your name there. Let māl serve me, and let me serve You, until the day my hands are empty and only my deeds remain. And on that Day, ya Rabb, let me find that the dollars I let go of in this life had been depositing themselves all along in an account I cannot see, waiting for me, multiplied by Your faḍl beyond every multiplier this dunyā can offer. Āmīn ya Razzāq, ya Wakīl.
Sources: Quran, Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Tirmidhi, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ghazali. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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