“Remember, rights are of two kinds; the rights of Allah and the rights of fellow human beings. The affluent often face difficulty fulfilling Allah’s rights due to their pride and self-admiration. For instance, they find it distasteful to stand next to a poor person during prayer. They cannot bear to have them sit close by, and thus they fall short of fulfilling Allah’s rights. Mosques are essentially sanctuaries for the impoverished, yet the wealthy consider it beneath their dignity to attend them. Similarly, when it comes to the rights of human beings, they are unable to engage in certain acts of service. A poor person is always ready to serve in various capacities; they are willing to massage feet, fetch water, wash clothes, and even handle filth if needed, without any reluctance. In contrast, the affluent view these tasks as demeaning and disgraceful, thus depriving themselves of these opportunities for virtue. Hence, wealth can often be a barrier to performing numerous good deeds. This is the reason a hadith states that the impoverished will enter Paradise five hundred years before the wealthy.”
(Al Hakam, 17 July 1903; Malfuzat, Vol. 3, p. 368)
