Adab al-Mufrad

Benefits and Issues:
When a person possesses measured and counted wealth, he should spend it on his own and his family's basic needs. However, this absolutely does not mean that he should squander his wealth through extravagance, while Allah’s creation is distressed even for basic necessities, and the person claims, “Even my own expenses are not being met,” because the extravagant are brothers of the devils. In the present age, we have unnecessarily increased our expenditures, and we spend all our income on clothing and food, and whatever remains is spent on the earth, meaning it is spent on houses, and even until the grave the house does not get completed, and when it is finally built, the person departs to the next world empty-handed. Hazrat Abu Darda radi Allahu anhu said that whoever does not spend wealth in the way of Allah, Allah imposes dust upon him, so he spends it on the earth. (Az-Zuhd by Hanad as-Sari) And according to an authentic hadith, there is no reward for what is spent on dust, that is, on buildings. (Jami‘ at-Tirmidhi, Description of the Resurrection, Hadith: 2482)

The amount of money we spend on building a temporary house in this world, some portion of it should certainly be spent for the eternal house of the Hereafter as well, so that it too may be made good. May Allah grant us the ability to spend in His way.