Money… The Root of All Evil?

Money…The Root of All Evil

By: Leah Vernon
YouRACreator member

There is much speculation surrounding this so-called root of all evil. This green piece of square paper with government approved ink tattooed on it in the shape of the White House makes evil thoughts and actions come about wherever it may lay. Many Muslims and non-Muslims alike have taken the concept of an inadequate object like money and linking it with a humanistic characteristic such as evilness. Many people associate money with something that is negative because they see the actions of people who have become obsessed with it. When a person attributes evil to a dollar bill it’s almost as if they are contributing confusion to a lava lamp.

My husband and I had an argument (as we always do) about money. His argument was that money was wrong in general and that as Muslims we don’t need it. He continued to say that money should have no importance to a Muslim and we should live like the prophets and the people before us did without that significant want of dollar bills. These comments were becoming abundant. This is not the first time I have heard a Muslim associate holiness with poverty and evil with financial success. When I say this, I hope it penetrates through people’s thought processes: Just because your poor, live in a house on its last leg or ride the bus does not mean you’re any closer to Allah than a person with a big house in a nice neighborhood with a great job. Allah blesses whom he wills with financial success or plagues with poverty as a punishment or test. It is what you do with what with you have got that you should be concerned with.   

To get back to the story…I asked my husband some questions and raised a few arguments about why that statement he had made earlier wasn’t logical. What do you use to clothe yourself? What do you give the poor and the needy? How did you get back and forth to the hospital to see your loved ones? The grace of Allah and his sustenance, which happened to be cash to afford these things in this time and age. The point I brought up was that human beings value money, and that is where the evil arises, not in the object but in the eye of the beholder. If people want to kill, murder, deceive, steal or otherwise for profit or money, that’s a personal issue. Money is not making these individuals go mad and greed when they touch it. It could be just as well that they may have been this way before the money even got to them. Perhaps it was the thought or the idea of money that made them go against their religion and values.

 I addressed his previous comment of why we couldn’t live like back in the prophet times where they had no need for cash like we do, where they bartered and traded for the items they needed. First off, unlike our current economic status, most of us do not own acres of land where we grow our own fruits, vegetables, cotton, and coffee beans we could trade. We do not own livestock or, for most of us, our own homes. Plus, even during those times, they had issues with people putting value and pride in currency (gold and silver). 

From experience, most people my age don’t own anything: we live in rented apartments, leased cars and work to get all the bills paid. Instead of focusing on how much wealth, beauty, stamina, land and vehicles we own and how much somebody else has (a whole different yet important topic to be discussed) we should be turning our attentions to the pillars of Islam and the oneness of Allah. Instead of worrying about what somebody else has got and telling them they are wrong for having it, something that Allah has given them, you should be focusing on getting yourself right and ready for the next go around, the hereafter.

I’m a new writer here on YRAC, so leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Check back next week for my next article!