How did the Prophet ﷺ and the companions relate to money?

By Mehdi, Senior Sukuk Fund Manager · Updated May 2026

When we look for our model, we do not find men who despised money or men enslaved to it. We find something far more balanced, and far more useful to us.

The short answer: Not by rejecting wealth, but by mastering it. They earned honestly through trade and work, lived without excess, gave with a generosity that still astonishes, and — the heart of it — held money in their hands but never let it into their hearts. Wealth served them; it never owned them.

The Prophet ﷺ was a trader before prophethood, known for honesty in his dealings. Among the companions were some of the wealthy merchants of their age — Uthman, Abdurrahman ibn Awf, and others, may Allah be pleased with them — whose riches became legendary not for what they hoarded but for what they gave: funding armies, freeing slaves, digging wells, feeding cities. Others lived with very little and bore it with contentment. The common thread was never the amount; it was the relationship — wealth as a tool gripped lightly, used generously, and never allowed to become the master of the heart.

Where we stand: this is precisely the balance we are built around. We are not here to help you renounce money or to worship it — but to hold it the way they did: earned cleanly, spent wisely, given freely, and never confused with your worth or your security. That is the whole of healthy Islamic wealth in one sentence.

They understood something we keep forgetting: this world's wealth is a passing tool for an eternal purpose. They used it to buy what lasts. Follow them — hold it lightly, give it freely, and let it carry you toward Allah rather than away from Him.