Keep your resources open for the welfare of humanity.

Keep your resources open for the welfare of humanity

- Whatever material or intellectual resources Allah has bestowed upon you, keep them open for the physical, intellectual and spiritual development of others [2:254].

- You should do so both in times of prosperity as well as in times of adversity [3:134].

- Those who are rich should do so according to their means and those who are straitened should do so according to their means [65:7].

- As far as financial resources are concerned, whatever is beyond your needs, must be left open for the welfare of others [2:219].

- Those, for whom you should keep your resources open, include: your parents; family and relatives; orphans, widows, and those who are left helpless; those whose hard earned income is insufficient to meet their basic needs, those whose businesses have stalled, and those who have lost their jobs; the needy wayfarer, the homeless son of the street, and the one who has come to your town in a destitute condition; the needy who are suffering in the Cause of Allah and cannot emigrate; those who are unable to go about the earth in search of livelihood; those who are unaware of their condition, might think they are free from want, because they abstain from begging but you can recognize them by the marks on their faces because they do not ask people insistently [2:215, 2:273].

- Spend on others in the open or in secret [2:274, 13:22, 14:31, 35:29], in daylight or at night [2:274] but make sure you do not spend just to be seen or to show off [2:264, 4:38]. Spend on others from what is good and you like it for yourself [2:267]. Spend from things you love [3:92]. And, spend from what you have earned with your own hard work [2:267].

- Do not reproach those whom you give, for what you confer upon them; do not remind them of your generosity; do not recount your gifts to them; and, do not hurt them with any annoying remarks [2:262, 2:264].