Why we need a to raise a lot of money to do good

Let's take a moment to think.

I recently came across this scholarship advertisement. It is looking for 50 students from low-incomes homes to study finance and accounting at UTAR.

Each student will get RM20,000 to cover their expenses for the first year of study until they get a PTPTN loan.

And there's the deal: the students do not have to pay back the money, but they must promise to help other poor students once they are doing well financially.

How much money are we talking here? 50 X RM20,000. That's RM1mil.

That's how much money is needed for this very important cause.

I don't know about you, but I can think of many ways how to spend this much money, if I ever get this much money anyway. But that's another story. What's important here is that we need to realise how much it takes to help others, as opposed to helping ourselves. Remeber, Islam is not against helping ourself to a nice home, a (few) good car(s) and vacations to exotic locales, if we earned it the right way.

RM1mil is still a lot of money, high inflation or not. If we believe in akhirah and are looking for reward that never run out, then we Muslims need to seriously reconsider where we put our money.

We need to think differently. We need a lot of money to sent our students to local and international learning institutions. It's time we look at ourselves, instead of others, to bring forward this positive change. We have to work hard to earn halal money to help causes like this. Even a little help given with sincere intention can do wonders insya Allah. Let's not wait until we actually become millionaires, shall we?

The parable of those who spend of their substance in the way of Allah is that of a grain of corn: It grows seven ears, and each ear has a hundred grains. Allah gives manifold increase to whom He pleases; And Allah cares for all and He knows all things.

Qur'an (2:261)