The Student of Knowledge is the Furthest From Chasing After Money

With regards to the student of knowledge knowing the true status of money, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al ‘Uthaymeen rahimahullaah comments:

Then indeed I say to you – if you were to say to your brother asSalaamu alaikum how much (reward) would you attain? Ten good deeds – along with friendship and love and affection and an opening up of the chest and a smile on the face.

What is your opinion about if it were said to one of you, “If you give salaam to your brother, we will give you one dirham?” Would you give the salaam?

The answer: yes, you would give the salaam and maybe you would return in order to give salaam a second time – for the sake of (another) one dirham. Yet what is its (the money’s) end destination?

Indeed its end destination is the toilet – for the greatest pleasure which the person takes delight in is food and drink. And what is the end destination of the food and drink? The toilet.

Therefore Shaykh ul Islaam ibn Taymiyyah rahimahullaah said:

It is befitting for the person who has intellect that he deems wealth to have the station of a donkey which he rides on or the station of the toilet in which he answers his call of nature.

 
And this is the position (adopted) by those who have awareness and knowledge.

Quoted in Wasaayaa wa tawjeehaat li tullaab il ‘ilm pages 183 to 184, translated by Nasser ibn Najam.