Lesson of the Day 1346

Ayahs of the Day:
Whoever heeds the messenger is being obedient to God. As for those who turn away, We have not sent you as a guard over them. [4: 80]

Hadith of the Day:
Charity to indigent is charity, but charity to kin is both charity and nurturing of (kinship) bonds. [ Tirmidhi]

Wise Quote of the Day:
Everyone in this world is a guest, and his wealth and belongings are but a loan. The guest must go sooner or later and the loan must be returned. [Ibn Mas'ud radi Allah anhu]

Guidance of the Day:
When you give charity, begin with your poor relatives and kinsmen, and your needy neighbors, for they are more deserving than others, and the reward for giving them is greater and more abundant.

Make your charity secret, for it is stated in hadith that its reward is seventy times that of publicly donated charity. Secret charity is better because it is more likely to be sincere, and sincerity is the spirit of works. It is less likely to be subject to ostentation which ruins works. So beware of ostentation in your charity and in all your works. Beware of showing the poor how obliged you expect them to be, for there are severe threats against such behavior. [Counsels of Religion by Imam al-Haddad]

Food for Thought:
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives. Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour for death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear. What we gave, we have; what we spent, we had; what we kept, we lost.