﴿ يَسْـَٔلُونَكَ مَاذَا يُنفِقُونَ ۖ قُلْ مَآ أَنفَقْتُم مِّنْ خَيْرٍۢ فَلِلْوَٰلِدَيْنِ وَٱلْأَقْرَبِينَ وَٱلْيَتَٰمَىٰ وَٱلْمَسَٰكِينِ وَٱبْنِ ٱلسَّبِيلِ ۗ وَمَا تَفْعَلُوا۟ مِنْ خَيْرٍۢ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِهِۦ عَلِيمٌۭ ﴾

“THEY WILL ASK thee as to what they should spend on others. Say: "Whatever of your wealth you spend shall [first] be for your parents, and for the near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer; and whatever good you do, verily, God has full knowledge thereof."”

Man thinks that the best utilization of his life and wealth is for the benefit of his family. He is happy to expend his wealth for his own desires and ambitions. But Islam urges him to spend for the cause of God, which is quite a different form of expenditure, involving spending on others rather than just on oneself. Another tendency is to expend all one’s energy on attaining a high worldly position—something which meets the eye—while everlasting reward, which we as yet cannot see, should be one’s most important goal. What man may dislike might be pleasing to God. For that alone will benefit us in the next, infinitely vaster world. In God’s sight, evil lies in man giving preference to his own pleasure rather than the pleasure of his Creator. Evil may benefit a person in this temporal world; in the hereafter it will do him only harm.