Which Is Better: Poverty Or Wealth?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

You walk down a busy street in the middle of Cairo and your gaze falls on a homeless man lying asleep on the sidewalk. You look to your left, and you see a well-groomed man talking on his cell-phone as he drives past in his Mercedes. Feeling sorry for the poor man on the sidewalk, you put some money under his hand and walk on. The sharp contrast of poverty and wealth sets you thinking about the ups and downs of life. You wonder, "Which is better: poverty or wealth?" ...

Whether poor or rich is already written. We are tested with wealth and poverty. The difference is how it change us in terms of drawing closer or farther away from Allah. If the poor person is content with what he doesn't have and not blaming Allah for his lack thereof, then he understood the meaning of his slavehood to Allah, and a great blessing for him to be poor. If the wealth and comfort of life distract the rich person from the remembrance of Allah, then having wealth is a great fitnah for him.

Generally speaking, the safest option lies somewhere in the middle. But sometimes when poverty comes one's way, one is driven to Allah in a manner that wouldn't otherwise have been possible, and sometimes, when wealth comes one's way, it saves one from falling into impatience and jealousy.

Allah Most High says,

كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ ۗ وَنَبْلُوكُم بِٱلشَّرِّ وَٱلْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً ۖ وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ ﴿٣٥

Every soul shall taste death, and We severely try you with hardship and comfort, and it is to Us that you will be returned." [Qur'an Al-Anbiya 21:35]

The point is not worldly hardship or ease, the point is how we fare when we return to Allah. Poverty and wealth are thus not good and bad in and of themselves. Rather, they become good or bad depending on how one reacts to them--if one reacts to poverty with patience or to wealth with gratitude, it is good, and if one reacts to poverty with bitterness or to wealth with forgetfulness, it is bad.

May Allah Most High save us from the trials in this life and the next. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam