💯 Miscellaneous Benefits from Yemen

BENEFIT 34: Some of the harms of begging in the name of ’ilm and da’wah 1. Begging is a major sin The Prophet ﷺ said: “a person continues Begging until he comes on the day of judgement with no flesh on his face.” [Bukhāri & Muslim] 2. The Sharī‘ah has forbidden begging except in exceptional circumstances, so anyone who begs outside this category has violated the evidences and disobeyed Allāh and His Messenger. 3. Begging goes against the covenant which our Messenger ﷺ took from some of the Companions. ’Awf Ibn Mālik Al-Ashajj raḍhiyallāhu ’anhu said: “We, nine, eight or seven men, were in the company of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) and he said: 'Why don't you pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allāh?' while we had recently pledged allegiance. So we said: 'Messenger of Allāh, we have already pledged allegiance to you.' He again said: 'Why don't you pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allāh?' And we said: 'Messenger of Allah, we have already pledged allegiance to you.' He again said: 'Why don't you pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allāh?' We stretched our hands and said: 'Messenger of Allāh. we have already pledged allegiance to you. Now tell 'on what things should we pledge allegiance to you?' He said 'You must pledge allegiance that you would worship Allāh alone and would not associate with Him anything, (and observe) five prayers, and obey- and he said one thing in an undertone -that you would not beg people of anything.' And as a consequence of that I saw that some of these people did not ask anyone to pick up the whip for them if it fell down.” [Muslim 1043] 4. Begging goes against the guidance of the righteous predecessors with regards to abstinence, asceticism, contentment, piety, patience, and so on from noble qualities. 5. Begging falls under consuming ḥarām; as begging is ḥarām, the money earnt from that is also ḥarām. 6. Begging falls under eating people's wealth unlawfully, because people donate to them believing they are deserving of it when they are not. 7. Begging tarnishes a person's honour. 8. Begging removes a person's credibility (’Adālah) Imām Ibn Qudāmah raḥimahullāh said: “Whoever begs while it is not permissible for him to beg, and he does so frequently, his testimony is rejected; because he has committed ḥarām, consumed unlawful, and fallen into baseness... As for the begger who is permitted to beg, his testimony is not rejected unless he spends most of his life begging, or he does that a lot, this is when his testimony should be rejected; as this is baseness and his honour is removed.” [Al-Mughni (10/ 163)] 9. It draws humiliation, indignity and disgrace on the beggar 10. Begging indicates lack of patience and weakness 11. The begger is deprived of abstinence 12. The begger is deprived of asceticism 13. The begger is deprived of contentment 14. The begger gets accustomed to leading a luxurious life 15. He becomes lazy in seeking knowledge and his motivation to give da’wah declines. When there's a worldly gain involved the motivation is there, but when there's no worldly gain, “sorry I'm busy”. 16. Begging takes away barakah; wealth which comes to a person through ḥarām means contains no barakah. This is a reality that is witnessed when you look at the da’wah of beggers; even if they have classes, and students, etc., the barakah is minimal, if not completely absent. We ask Allāh for safety. 17. Beggers fall passionately in love with this Dunya and stop striving for the Ākhirah 18. In order to attract donations, beggers will exaggerate and make things appear worse or better than they actually are depending on the cause 19. Gradually the begger turns into a serial liar and is more than ready to forge receipts to cover his tracks. 20. Beggers waste a lot of time on this lowly occupation 21. Begging leads to fitnah arising between the beggers and the donors - especially when donors don't see any results 22. Beggers despise those who advocate abstinence & asceticism; in line with the way of the Salaf.