Money

You know, money is strange stuff.

Everybody seems to want it, but if you were stranded alone on a desert island it wouldn't be of very much use.

You can't eat it or drink it, or wear it or build a shelter with it,

though if it's made of paper it might be useful to make a fire.

So what use is it?

Well, humans have found ways to measure different things.

They use different units to measure how long things are, or how much they weigh,

so they don't have to see someone to know how tall they are

because someone else can measure them and tell them.

And that's OK with length or weight, because you can measure those things exactly.

But there are certain things that are much harder to measure,

like what something is worth to you.

If you are a carpenter you may be good at making chairs, and have lots of them in your workshop.

But you can't eat a chair.

And a farmer may grow lots of oats to make porridge,

but oats aren't so comfortable to sit on.

But they can agree to swap so many bags of oats for a chair,

and both get something they need in exchange for something they don't want.

But how do they know how much oats is worth a chair?

And what if the farmer doesn't want a chair, but wants a sheep,

and the shepherd doesn't want oats but wants a chair?

How much oats is worth a sheep, and how does that compare to a chair?

That is why people use money,

to measure what people think things are worth,

to measure their value.

And people have used all sorts of things for money,

like different kinds of shells or beads,

But mostly they ended up using coins made out of metal, which is tough and lasts a very long time.

And they used gold and silver because they were hard to find,

so one small coin could be traded for a lot because it was so rare.

But after a while, people found that it was easier to keep the gold in banks,

and the banks would print pieces of paper promising that they would treat those pieces of paper as if they were worth a certain amount of gold,

and for things that were worth less than the notes that they printed, they made coins out of cheap common metals.

And that is the way that money is today,

a measure of value, of what something is worth,

though what something is worth will always be different for different people.

What we need is always more valuable than what we only want,

just like the farmer's oats were more valuable to the hungry carpenter than a wooden chair.

And since the invention of money, that is how people have traded amongst themselves,

with people buying cheaply from people who have more than they need,

and then selling at a profit to people who want to buy.

And muslims see this as an honourable way of living,

as long as traders don't cheat those they trade with.

You know, for many years of his life, the Messenger was known as an excellent and honest trader.

In fact, he was held in such high regard that the business woman who employed him asked him to marry her.

And with that Muhammad and Khadija lived happily together for many years,

as she went from being his employer to being his wife, his closest companion, and the love of his life.

And love is worth so much more than money.