Five Ways of Understanding Sustenance

People differ, in terms of understanding rizq and putting their trust in Allah's (swt) promise, into a small number of categories. The kāfir holds that rizq is entirely in his own hands: work, and something is received; do not work, and nothing at all is received. The mushrikūn go a step further — they say, yes, rizq is from Allah (swt); it is Allah (swt) who sends the rain, Allah (swt) who gives the sunshine — yet hold besides that real effort is needed on top of this, though not in the way a believer properly understands the matter. The munāfiqūn, the hypocrites, say that rizq comes from Allah (swt), yet are never quite sure whether He will actually give it to them — which is very much how a kāfir thinks as well, and how a munāfiq, a hypocrite, thinks too.

Among Muslims themselves there are several ranks named in the Qur'an, terminologies the Qur'an itself uses for categorising Muslims: the anbiyāʾ (peace be upon them), the best of Allah's (swt) creation; the ṣiddīqīn, the truthful; the shuhadāʾ, the martyrs; and the ṣāliḥīn, the pious Muslims. Below these, before the category of the hypocrites is reached, comes a further category, the fāsiqīn — sinful Muslims who believe in Allah (swt) and read the verses of the Qur'an, yet constantly transgress His laws where the acquiring of rizq is concerned. Such a person does not care whether that rizq comes from what is lawful or what is unlawful: knowing only that Allah (swt) is the one Provider, he asks for it regardless of its source, yā Rabbanā, yā Rabbanā — Our Lord, give it to me, for me. This is the fāsiq Muslim.

The true Muslim, the ṣāliḥ, believes, of course, that a person must indeed work. Allah (swt) created causes, asbāb; but Allah (swt) is Himself musabbib al-asbāb, the One who brings about the effect of those causes — He is the One who creates those causes for a person, and a person's duty is to work through them. But no matter how much a person works, that person must believe, and have a heart settled, that rizq is in the hands of Allah (swt): no one leaves this earthly life, not by a single inch, until his allotted rizq in it has completely run out.