“It was more important to be popular, than right.”
Ricky Gervais, UK Comedian.
In this digital age, having no social media sounds like a fantasy by itself. It seems that social media fuels every product and service, and more than ever, everyone is trying to become popular, hoping that they have enough following to obtain the privilege of working as an influencer.
In the pursuit of fame and attention, people use everything in their arsenal to achieve this goal. While chasing wealth is permissible in Islam, there is some limitation on that.
“Allah does not place two hearts in any person’s chest…. “
Al-Ahzab: 4
Ustads Nouman Ali Khan argue that this means Allah didn’t put the love of dunya and the love of akhirah inside one person (soul). In other terms, people behave because their intention is to get attention from humans or from Allah. Chasing wealth or being rich is completely halal, as long as it doesn’t affect your deen, what you do is still for Allah, because in the end, the Rizq (Provision) that we got is an Amanah from Allah. As long as you got your wealth from Halal source, no Riba or any impermissible things that might be attached to the Rizq.
While it is easy to see that having more money than others as something that objectively positive things, but there is nothing in the dunya that is without consequences, for the only (perfect) good things is in Jannah. The more money you have, the more people will be envied by you, and if your provision source is from a haram sources, you will grow restless and anxious, worrying that someone will know.
We can argue that this restlessness is coming from the hardening of the heart, since we do impermissible things, even though we know that Allah knows all things, including our haram things we did or even think. This thing is what forbidden in Islam, how wealth distract us and makes us far from Allah. While finding money for the pleasure of Allah, in which we do it in halals way, is permissible in Islam, as long as we pay our 2.5% Zakat from Income and other obligatory towards our family. Being rich is permissible in Islam, as long as we don’t flaunt our wealth (which is hard in this media social era), since it also the source of Arrogance, and being arrogant is the opposite of believe in Allah.
The true knowledge only comes from Allah, the knower of all things, is only Allah. May Allah forgive any mistakes or bias I have.