The Soul of the believer after he's died inside the grave is being
held back tied to the debt that was outstanding
That he had to pay off somebody else until somebody pays it off on his behalf.
Now that debt is going to follow you into the grave,
and you're going to suffer as a consequence.
'On the topic of debt'
What did the prophet (Pbuh) say about being in debt?
This is particularly important for us living in this
modern era, where we live in a debt based economy, the country
that we live in is massively in debt.
In fact, the economy itself moves based on buying and selling debt.
So as a Muslim living in this world, what should we know about this?
Now, There's many things that we can learn and we can relate in
terms of Hadith from the prophet (Pbuh), I'm going to share with you just one.
And this hadith is a short hadith found in the Sunan of Imam at-Tirmidhi
wherein the Prophet (Pbuh) said, is that the soul of the believer
after he's died inside the grave is
being held back, tied to the debt that was outstanding, that
he had to pay off somebody else until somebody pays it off on his behalf.
Now this Hadith is authentic and the meaning of it is actually quite alarming,
Because what does that mean tied to?
the scholars, they say it can mean that the soul of the believer will be
deprived from the rewards and the bliss that they were going
to encounter inside the grave.
Other scholars say, no, it's actually worse than that.
It means that the soul itself will be suspended in limbo
where the person will not know;
Am I going to be punished? Am I going to be rewarded?
Am I going to the hell fire?
Am I going to Paradise?
And that state of uncertainty is enough to become a source of torture for that person.
We ask Allah to preserve and protect us all from ever having
to experience something like that.
It means that, you know that you aren't in a good position, you're in trouble,
and something needs to be done for you in order to release
you from that hold.
And that is why the prophet (Pbuh) said, Until somebody then settles
that for you, who does he refer to?
does it refer to a person who may have taken a halal mortgage,
and was paying it off And then they died?
Does it refer to a person, maybe who has a student loan and
they were paying it off and then they died?
What type of debt does it refer to?
Well, it refers to a debt that was outstanding and was not
going to be written off in the eventuality of your death.
That's important because sometimes if you take a loan
from an Institute, Halal loan in sha Allah from a Bank or from the
government, or maybe somebody else, and they say in the eventuality
that you die, then your debt is written off.
That soul is not subjected to this type of trouble.
The debt then they refers to is where you owe someone's money
and they still expect it to be paid off even if you died
meaning they expect that from your estate, money is given
to pay off the debt,
And if it's not in that situation, that is the person referred
to in the hadith. The scholars they say that
if the person was genuinely trying to pay off his debt,
and not being reckless in spending, trying to save to pay off the debt,
and it was due and that person didn't write it off in the
eventuality of their debt, then that person would be forgiven by Allah.
and will not be placed into difficulty inside their grave
because they were trying their best to pay it off,
and the Angel of death came at at that time
and took their soul and so they were unable to pay it off
and there wasn't enough money in the state to pay it off
after they died as well.
That person is not going to be placed into this category.
So therefore it's now referring to a person who neglected
to pay off a debt that they could have paid off,
and on top of that, they didn't make or take means to ensure
that it would be paid off if they died,
And that's where we learn a few lessons.
This hadith first to teaching us that, look,
don't borrow money that you know, you can't pay off,
And I think a lot of people need to hear that message.
Look, live within your means and don't let greed get the better of you
so that you're taking out loans, maxing out credit cards.
You know, asking before money when you know that most
probably will struggle to pay back that money
because if you did and then you died, now that debt is going to follow
you into the grave and you're going to suffer as a consequence.
So don't spend what you don't have and live within your means,
then don't borrow if you really in really don't need to borrow that money.
But the other thing is that if you are in a situation where
you've taken money and you owe it to people and you're trying
to pay it off, then you should should stipulate that in your will (a legal document).
A lot of Muslims, they neglect to help themselves and
their families out by not writing up a will.
And if they did write up a will, they didn't put in the will that
I owe somebody 10,000 pounds.
This is the person I owe.
This is how much money I have to pay him off and you should
pay it off from my estate. Because if you didn't do that and
you died and then you had a debt and that person came knocking
on your door and said, Listen, your father owed me 10,000 pounds.
Firstly, how are you going to be able to verify that?
And Secondly, you don't want to be the son or the daughter that says,
no, my father didn't owe you that.
And I actually he did owe him that money.
And so your father now suffers in the grave
because you couldn't be vigilant enough to try to trace whether or not
that person was speaking of truth and then to pay off that money on his behalf.
So you put your family in a difficult situation by not doing
something very simple, which is to write in your will;
I owe such and such person, this money should be paid off on my behalf.
So this is another lesson: in your will,
Clearly write down your debts and assign the job of
your children, your Heirs to chase up those debts and to pay them off on your behalf,
even if it means selling things from your debt.
And that is something that the children need to know as well.
That it's not an optional thing.
You know, dad left behind 100,000 pounds, he also owes on 50000 pounds.
But if we pay off that person, then we're gonna lose that on our inheritance.
So Let's just forget that, no. That person has a right over
that money before your right.
In fact, that 100000 pounds, 50000 of it is not actually your dad's.
It's actually that persons who he owed.
And so it's not even your inheritance in the first place.
So this is important.
Look, before you split the inheritance,
you must pay off your mom's or your dad's debt.
That's very important.
Thereafter, whatever's left on the estate, you share it according to the Islamic laws.
What else do we learn from this hadith?
Well, we learned that if you were to take out to debt,
if you were to borrow money from someone, then ask them, look,
in the eventuality of my death, would we make a stipulation
that debt is written off?
That would put you on the safe side, because in sha Allah that
person agrees to this condition and therefore releases you
from being in the situation where you've died and you yet
have to pay off your debt.
And you're hoping that your children will do the right thing
and pay it off for you,
Also, if you're in a situation where your someone has passed away
and you don't know whether they have a debt or not, then
it is a custom amongst some people that when the Janazah is being held,
that they make an open announce that my father,
if you owed you any money, then please come forward and
let us settle that debt.
So you make a public announcement.
You try to let as many people know as possible, and then
you try to figure out how much is owed to who and make a plan
to pay them off for the sake of your parents.
Imagine your parents lived for so many years.
They worked hard.
They tried the best to raise your well, gave you everything
that they could possibly give you what you wanted.
And then when their turn comes to be helped in the grave,
well, they need to be help more than ever before.
They need their children to do right by them.
And a lot of that is to do with tying up those loose ends
and figuring out where does my father need to pay his money off to,
who are those people that are owed money and
to make things right so that they fulfill the rights of people and
those rights to not then start to make them suffer in their graves.
We ask Allah (swt) that He makes us
of those who only spend what they have and live with in our means.
And when we do take money from others that He gives
us the ability to strive to pay that money back to people.
There's actually another hadith, the prophet (pbuh) said
that whoever borrowed money sincerely intending to
pay that money back and Allah would pay it back on his behalf,
meaning Allah would help him and put blessings his money
so that he could have enough money to pay that person back.
And also in the same Hadith the prophet (Pbuh) said,
whoever took money from someone, you know,
never really intending to pay that money back
then Allah (swt) will humiliate this person.
And so we must be very careful that when we deal with people,
we're not just dealing with people.
We're dealing with people and their master and their Lord, and Allah (swt),
And this is how we raise the level of morality and the level of ethics
in the way we do business with each other,
in the way we deal with one another.
Because many times people fall out over money issues,
people hold grudges and become bitter, and relationships are broken even
between husband and wife because of money.
And the Islamic law has come to put in so many safeguards to help us
to avoid falling into those types of relationship breakdowns because of money,
For example, the sharia says that if you were to loan someone's money,
even if it's a friend, someone you know, then have two witnesses.
So for example, your friend says, lend me 1,000 pounds,
Sure, no problem.
Best friend, you trust him.
But you say, actually the sharia should have two witnesses.
So you send an email to this friend of yours, you CC into of
your friends, to people that you know and trust to be a
witness to this loan that I have loaned a thousand pounds to Brother Ahmed.
He will pay me back in two years time,
is witnessed by those two people.
Now that makes the whole thing more official, protects you,
the lender, and also allows that person who took the loan
to be more committed to paying it back as well.
And it just creates that understanding
so things don't become awkward or weird?
you know, when
Maybe someone's situation turns for the worst, and they're
unable to pay back the money.
And then things start to maybe become awkward between you and your friend.
Because of the money, all of these things, the sharia knows;
and Allah (swt) put measures in place.
The problem is that we don't take advantage of them.
We don't use them.
We think we know better.
May Allah (swt) grant us understanding and protect us from having
money problems as well, Allahuma Ameen.