During a year of difficulty–during the reign of Abu Bakr as-Siddique (radiAllahu ‘an), when the Muslims needed food–this HUGE caravan rolls into town. Everyone clamers around, they want to buy stuff, and it goes straight to the house of ‘Uthman (radiAllahu ‘an). He owned the caravans.
So they went to ‘Uthman and said “We want to buy it from you, we’ll give you double the price”–that is, double the cost, for food. They needed it that much. Subhanallah.
‘Uthman (radiAllahu ‘an) said “I can get a better deal then that.”
They said “we’ll give you triple the price”.
‘Uthman (radiAllahu ‘an) said “I can get a better deal then that.”
They’re like ohhh man. “We’ll give you quadruple the price”, like 300% pure profit. For every dollar he spent, he’d get four.
‘Uthman (radiAllahu ‘an) said “Can you give me a better price then ten to one?”
…
And that’s when they realized what he was talking about: Doing business with Allah. When you do business with Allah, the profit is ten to one.
Then ‘Uthman (radiAllahu ‘an) gave away the caravan as charity. He said “take the whole caravan, I’ve donated it for the sake of Allah.”
Subhanallah. That was the generosity of ‘Uthman (radiAllahu ‘an). And it didn’t cripple him financially to do that–he did similar things over and over and over.
How? The answer to that is coming soon inshaAllah!
Muhammad Alshareef. Lecture. AlMaghrib. Conquest: History of the Khulafa. University of Toronto, Toronto. November 2005.