In Prosperity and Adversity

Assalam aleikum,

I have a very vivid memory of watching a specific episode of Qalby Etmaan that shifted my understanding of charity. Qalby Etmaan is a freely-published production by a charity based in the Emirates. Every year, they travel the world knocking on the doors of people who appear to be at — or fast approaching — their breaking point. Ghaith, a hooded figure whose face we never see and whose voice is modulated, arrives at exactly that moment, delivering aid in the form of cash, paid medical bills, settled school fees, cleared debts, and occasionally, capital for a business. The show chronicles these encounters and, through Ghaith's anonymity, challenges every viewer to imagine themselves in his place.

Once you start watching, it becomes easy to get carried away wondering about the next episode's beneficiary. Are they overwhelmed by medical bills? On the verge of eviction? Lying awake at night, worrying about what to feed their children next day? What strikes you as you listen to their stories, though, is that you rarely end up feeling simple sympathy. More often, you find yourself moved by the resilience they have shown to get this far. Their reactions when Ghaith delivers the news brings the episodes to a well-earned cathartic end, and those reactions vary wildly. From total bewilderment, to uncontrollable sobs, to complete breakdown.

Heart-melting as those reactions, ultimately, tend to be, my focus has always been on the story behind each beneficiary's reactions and what stage of adversity those reactions tell us they are in. Some members of our team grew up in similarly difficult circumstances. We know how quickly the scale of what you need can shift — from "I wish we had a million bucks, it sure would solve all our problems right now," to "I wish we had any stew to go with the rice today," to "Alhamdulillah, I had clean water today. I couldn't ask for more." Some of the people featured on Qalby Etmaan have lived that contraction, one day after the next, sometimes for years. Adversity has a way of sapping away all the energy and confidence from you and stripping you of your dignity and hope, to the point where all that's left is acceptance. Acceptance that this is how things are meant to be. Which is why some of the reactions on the show have been, at least on face value, very muted. A less attentive viewer might mistake that reaction for ingratitude.

The reaction from the episode I want to describe wasn't dramatically different from others I had seen, on the surface, at least. The beneficiary, known in the episode as the "bean vendor," falls toward the quieter end of the spectrum. It was what she did immediately afterwards that stopped me.

As is the show's style, Ghaith approaches her as a potential customer. They talk. He asks about her family, her situation. Then, in exchange for a small bag of beans, he hands over a wad of cash — clearly far beyond the price of anything she's selling — and her loss for words tells the whole story. But it doesn't end there. As Ghaith walks away, she picks up a few of the notes, walks over to the vendors beside her, and begins sharing the donation she has just received. Not after a moment of deliberation. Not as a performance. She simply walked over, without hesitation, and gave.

The casual ease of that gesture was the rawest and most unmediated display of human generosity I had ever seen. I wasn't prepared for it. And I wasn't prepared for what it would quietly dismantle in me over the weeks that followed.

We have come to associate charity almost entirely with money — and by extension, with scale. We admire billionaire philanthropists and their foundations precisely because they operate at a magnitude we feel we cannot. And so we wait. We tell ourselves that once we reach a certain threshold, once we are finally in a position, then we will give. The lady in the video made that logic feel very small.

Charity has never been fundamentally about the money. The Prophet ﷺ said that a smile is charity (Sunan At-Tirmidhi). Allah ﷻ warns against those who withhold Al-Ma'un — the small, ordinary kindnesses: water, salt, a moment of help (Surah Al-Ma'un, 107:7). These are words many of us grew up hearing. But there is a difference between hearing something and seeing it walk across a dusty market and press a few notes into a neighbour's hand. The bean vendor showed me what those words look like when they are lived rather than recited.

At Zakatek, we are seeing it too.

When we launched in 2025, our first charity partner, Saba Sanaabil, joined the platform and we got straight to work. What that first year taught us — beyond the very real frustrations of early fundraising — was this: the donations that stay with you are rarely the largest ones. There are one or two donors whose contributions are easy to overlook, easy to scroll past. Until you see the same name on a second campaign. Then a third. Then a fourth. And now, more recently, appearing with quiet consistency on our Silsila subscription programme.

You know yourselves, whoever you are. We know you too, and so does Allah ﷻ. Every time your name appears, we make dua for you, because you understand something that is easy to forget. That while a large sum might solve one person's immediate crisis, what someone often needs is far simpler: a glass of clean water, and the dignity of knowing that someone thought of them. You offer that, again and again, without waiting for the right moment or the right amount.

"And hasten towards forgiveness from your Lord and a Paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, prepared for those mindful of Allah. They are those who donate in prosperity and adversity, control their anger, and pardon others. And Allah loves the good-doers."

May Allah accept it from you, and multiply it in ways you cannot yet see.