The Richest Muslim in the World

On this Veteran’s Day, I’m grateful for Muslim Connect readers who’ve served our country, perhaps even amongst Muslims. Thank you.

One of my favorite things to say is, “I had no idea.” Not only does this honor the person you say it to: They were, after all, trying to tell you something novel, it also shows a bit of humility and helps cultivate a delight in the world God has created.

I had no idea that the richest person in history was a Muslim guy named Mansa Musa who lived from 1280 to 1337. He inherited his kingdom from his dad (Still the best way to be super rich!) then multiplied his holdings with gold and salt. It has been said that he had so much wealth, it couldn’t really be assessed. When Musa led his entourage of 60,000 people on Hajj to Mecca in 1324, he gave away so much gold along the way that he crashed the economic system of a good portion of North Africa!

Some of the currently richest Muslims in the world are ones who own countries or who married into the royal family. For instance, Princess Lalla Salma, the former wife of the king of Morocco is reportedly worth $2.5 billion. Many others have made their fortunes in finance and business. Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, a 67 year old Emerati, took over his uncle’s bank and now is said to have $2.7 billion, well, in the bank.

After his dad’s death in 1966, 21 year old Azim Premji left Stanford, mid-way through his engineering studies, to return to India and take over the family business. He did ok with it, expanding into the tech world and eventually being dubbed, Czar of the Indian IT Industry.  In 2013, Premji signed the Giving Pledge, the first Indian to do so, and agreed to give away at least half of his $11 billion fortune, including over $2 billion to education causes in India.

Jesus said, “it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Let’s pray that these and many others would be the camels who could!

 

PS: Got any thing you’d like to see addressed in Muslim Connect? Questions you’re wondering about? I’d love to give them some thought and maybe write about them in coming weeks. Shoot me an email. Thank you.

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