Recently, I came across a profound reflection shared by a preacher named Ustaz Izzhar. It wasn’t just an ordinary reminder, it was something that truly made me stop, pause, and reflect deeply about life. He said something so simple, yet incredibly powerful:
“The lowest level of sustenance, or rizq, is money.”

At first, I found that hard to accept. After all, in today’s world, money seems to determine everything our comfort, our security, even our sense of success. But the more I thought about it, the more the truth of his words began to unfold in my heart.

Money is temporary. It comes and goes. It can be earned, but it can also be lost in an instant. It can bring convenience, yes but it can also bring anxiety, greed, comparison, and pressure. In many cases, the very thing we chase the most ends up becoming the biggest source of our stress. It’s fragile. It’s uncertain. It’s never truly enough.

Yes, we need money to live, but money alone is not life. And that’s why Ustaz Izzhar shared something even more meaningful, something we often overlook:
“The highest level of sustenance is health.”

And when I reflected on that, it hit me deeply. Health is the foundation of everything. Without it, all the wealth in the world becomes meaningless. With good health, we are capable. We are strong. We are free. We can rise in the morning with energy. We can walk, think, breathe, move, and love. We can bow in prayer and raise our hands in supplication. We can hug our children, visit our parents, help others, and pursue our goals. We can feel joy, and we can share it.

Imagine this; a man owns millions, but he lies in a hospital room with tubes attached to his body. He cannot eat on his own. He cannot speak freely. His days are filled with pain, his nights with fear. All the money in the world cannot give him back the ability to sit with his family, to walk barefoot on the grass, to breathe deeply without pain. And then imagine someone else someone who lives simply, has no luxury, but wakes up each day with a healthy body, a peaceful heart, and the ability to move through life with ease. In truth, the second person is far richer.

That’s when I realised:
We chase money endlessly, yet we neglect the treasures we already have.

We forget that rizq is more than numbers in a bank account. It is time the kind that allows you to sit quietly with someone you love. It is peace of mind the calm that money can never buy. It is family the people who stand by you not because of what you have, but because of who you are. It is loyal friends those who lift you when you are low. It is a calm heart, a clear mind, a soul at rest. And above all, it is the blessing of good health the unseen gift that carries us through every part of our day.

And yet, health is the one thing we often take for granted. We walk, breathe, move, and think without even pausing to be grateful. We only realise its value when it is gone when a sudden illness disrupts our routine, when we lie awake in discomfort, or when we can no longer do what once came easily.

Now, I try to remind myself every single day:
If I am still healthy, if I can stand, breathe, and pray then Allah is still blessing me with the highest form of rizq.

Let’s not wait until sickness arrives before we start appreciating our health. Let’s not measure our worth by how much we own, but by how present, peaceful, and purposeful our lives are. Because while money may buy comfort, it is health that gives us the ability to live fully, to love sincerely, to serve with strength, and to worship with our whole being.

True rizq is not just found in our hands, but in our hearts, our time, our relationships, and in the strength of our bodies. It is not always visible, but it is always present if we choose to see it.