ʿUmar and the Men Who Called Themselves People of Tawakkul

ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) came out of his office one day and saw some people sitting on the ground, lazing about in the heat. He asked them who they were — young, healthy, with nothing wrong with them — what was wrong with them, sitting there like that. They answered: naḥnu mutawakkilūn, we are the people of tawakkul; we put our trust in Allah (swt) to look after us; we do not have to do anything; Allah will feed us; Allah is al-Razzāq, we believe and affirm this, Allah is al-Razzāq of everything. But Allah (swt) puts a condition: it is farḍ to go and seek that bread, that food, that rizq. A person needs to make the effort, to leave in the morning, spend an hour and a half on the train to reach work, and whatever Allah (swt) has apportioned as that day's rizq is taken home — that is rizq, and that is tawakkul in Allah (swt). To stay at home relying on nothing but being a parasite on the community, living off the system, absolutely lazy, and when asked what is wrong to answer tawakkaltu ʿalā Allāh — this is rubbish. A person needs to work hard first, and leave the rest to Allah (swt). If everything is done right and yet nothing comes of it, then that is the taqdīr of Allah (swt): a person with two or three diplomas and degrees may not earn as much as a butcher who does nothing all day but cut meat, yet the butcher makes more money than the man who did a doctorate twice over and applied to every job going. Allah is the one who gives.

So when ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) saw these people sitting there lazing about, he told them: you are not ahl al-mutawakkilīn, you are not the people who rely on Allah (swt); you are mutaʾakkilīn, parasites on society, lazy people — a familiar Australian term of abuse for a person living off the system fits them, though it goes unused here — and he got them up and struck them, telling them to go and work, and then put their trust in Allah (swt).