What Is Good for You May Not Be What You Ask For

No one knows what is truly good, khayr, for himself; a person cannot simply beg Allah (swt) to be made rich and expect this to be automatically good for him. Where someone persists in asking Allah (swt) for wealth, the reward for the prayer itself — a vast credit of good deeds — is recorded to that person's account regardless of whether the wealth itself is given, because what is asked for may not, in Allah's (swt) knowledge, be good for the one asking; the very thing a person is most anxious to obtain may be exactly what is not good for him.

There was a companion of the Prophet (peace be upon him) who, in the end, lost his way. He had been known as the bulbul, the nightingale, of the mosque — never absent from it, praying behind the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) five times a day — but he had, in a sense, simply had enough of being poor, and came to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) saying that he was so poor, and asking him to pray to Allah (swt) that he be made rich. He was told to ask instead for what was good for him, not to wish for what might not be good, to accept things as they were and work hard regardless — and that if wealth did not come, it simply did not come. He persisted and insisted until the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) finally made the prayer for him and gave him a single ewe.

The flock multiplied — lambs come three or four times before very long — until he had a flock of his own, and he began, in caring for it, to miss the dawn prayer, since he had to leave early each morning for the valley where the sheep could graze. In time he began to miss the night prayer as well, and after a year he had stopped attending the mosque altogether, absorbed entirely in his new wealth. A year to the day after the prayer had been made for him, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) sent his officer to collect zakāh from him, since it had by then become obligatory upon his wealth. His reply was that no one had any right to ask anything of him — this was his own sweat and blood, earned through his own hard work, and no zakāh would be given to anyone. He was lost. No one knows what is truly good for them; only Allah (swt) knows.

None of this means sitting idle and doing nothing: a person must work hard, to the best of his ability, and seek rizq only through lawful means, without becoming anxious, without losing hope, and without abandoning Allah's (swt) promise. This is a matter of ʿaqīdah. What will happen will happen, whether or not it is welcome; the duty remains to work, and to seek rizq lawfully — and where nothing comes despite every effort, it may simply not be meant for a person at that time, since no one knows what is truly good for himself. The proper prayer is this: O Lord, if it is good for me, in this world and the next, then give it to me; and if it is not good for my worldly life or my hereafter, then be gentle with me, and spare me the anxiety of it.

The original rizq assigned to a person by Allah (swt) is fixed and cannot be changed; only Allah (swt) may increase or decrease it, as He wills, though it is believed to be fixed — and where He does increase it, this too was already written beforehand, since He already knows.