No Anxiety over One's Sustenance

The second level of maturity in tawakkul is that worry over rizq, sustenance, never enters such a person's heart, because of his confidence in the guarantee of Allah (swt). Allah (swt) says, in various places in the Qurʾān, that He is the one who controls the rizq of His creation; there is not a single living creature that crawls upon the earth whose rizq Allah (swt) has not guaranteed. Rizq is the domain of Allah (swt). So a person of full tawakkul, having fulfilled every condition — working hard, gaining a qualification, holding a proper job, avoiding laziness, living a disciplined, pure, wholesome life, seeking his rizq only through lawful means — relies on Allah (swt), saying: I have no worries, because I will never leave this world until everything I am meant to eat has been eaten, until the very last thing I am meant to eat or drink has been given to me. I will never be able to leave this world before that.

ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir (may Allah be pleased with him) was told once by the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), long years before: yā ʿAmmār, the last thing you will eat is two dates, fresh dates, and a glass of milk, before you become a shahīd. This was said long before it happened — ten, fifteen, twenty years — but one day, in a war, in the heat of the fighting and the heat of the day, exhausted, he sat down and asked for something to drink, something to eat. In the middle of the battle, they gave him two fresh dates and some milk. All at once he remembered what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had told him. He took a bite or two, drank a little of the milk, and said: that is it, khalāṣ, as-salāmu ʿalaykum to everyone. Asked where he was going, he said: I am going to become a shahīd — the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) promised me — and he became a shahīd. Who controls a person's rizq? What was the last thing he was meant to eat? Those dates and that milk — and until the very last piece of food enters the stomach, wallāhi, no one will leave this world. This is the guarantee of Allah (swt). Since belief in this promise is intact, so concrete, there is no cause for worry, for anxiety, for anguish, for stress — and where such worry does happen, it comes only from a weakness of īmān. Believing in the guarantee of Allah (swt), the heart becomes tranquil and at peace, whether in need or once that need has been met and more besides — all of it from Allah (swt).