Living With Minimalism – A Blessing That Brings You Closer to God

“His most perfect blessing on you is to give you just enough, and to deprive you from what will cause you to do wrong.

When you have less to be happy with, you will have less to be sad about.”

In this stage of the journey, Allah will manage your providence (rizq); He will manage what He gives you because He would like to give you what is enough for you, not what will make you go wrong.

Allah Almighty has given a law in the Quran, that when people have so much and they feel that they don’t need anything, they become unjust and tyrant:

No! [But] indeed, man transgresses. Because he sees himself self-sufficient. Indeed, to your Lord is the return. (Quran 96:6-8)

Sometimes you feel self-sufficient, you feel that you have a lot:

And if Allah had extended [excessively] provision for His servants, they would have committed tyranny throughout the earth. But He sends [it] down in an amount which He wills. (42:27)

The Best Blessing

So it is the most important and the most complete blessing that He gives you just enough. You might ask for more because you don’t understand, yet more will give you less morals and perhaps less quality of your heart.

But Allah will bestow on you what is just enough. And He divides His providence according to people. One person will not go wrong if he becomes richer, so he makes him richer; and another person will not go wrong if he becomes more powerful, so He gives him more power.

But if He knows that more power will corrupt you, He will give you less power; and if He knows that wealth will corrupt you, He will give you less wealth.

When you rely on Allah to give you just enough, then this will be the most blessing that He will give you.

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had said that just giving you enough is a blessing. He would ask Allah Almighty to give him enough. And that enough is relative obviously based on circumstances, place and time, geography… But he knows best what to give you and what to exactly is good for your heart.

Be Happy with Less

If you feel happy for the worldly games, know that this life will come to an end. When He will give you enough, He cares about your afterlife, not just this life.

If you have less to be happy with, then you will have less to be sad about when you lose that.

So because anything that you have in this world, you will either leave that thing or that thing will leave you, and this will bring sadness and grief.

So when Allah gives you less, He gives you less to grieve about! And that is not a call for poverty or glorifying poverty as some people misunderstood. It’s about being happy with what you have, and live content with what you have, and that contentment is a very important step in your journey to Allah.

We ask Allah to give us contentment in our heart.

A Journey to God (Folder)

About Dr. Jasser Auda
Jasser Auda is a Professor and Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies at the International Peace College South Africa, the Executive Director of the Maqasid Institute, a global think tank based in London, and a Visiting Professor of Islamic Law at Carleton University in Canada. He is a Founding and Board Member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, Fellow of the Islamic Fiqh Academy of India, and General Secretary of Yaqazat Feker, a popular youth organization in Egypt. He has a PhD in the philosophy of Islamic law from University of Wales in the UK, and a PhD in systems analysis from University of Waterloo in Canada. Early in his life, he memorized the Quran and studied Fiqh, Usul and Hadith in the halaqas of Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo. He previously worked as: Founding Director of the Maqasid Center in the Philosophy of Islamic Law in London; Founding Deputy Director of the Center for Islamic Ethics in Doha; professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, Alexandria University in Egypt, Islamic University of Novi Pazar in Sanjaq, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, and the American University of Sharjah. He lectured and trained on Islam, its law, spirituality and ethics in dozens of other universities and organizations around the world. He wrote 25 books in Arabic and English, some of which were translated to 25 languages.