ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه) once sat with his companions and said: make a wish. It was not idle. He wanted to see what their hearts reached for when handed the freedom to want anything at all.
One said: I wish this house were filled with gold, so I could spend every coin in the way of Allah. A fine wish. Umar said: wish again. Another said: I wish it were filled with pearls and jewels, to give all of it in charity. A finer wish. Umar said: wish again.
They ran dry. "We do not know what else to wish for, Amīr al-Muʾminīn." So he told them what he would have wished:
«ولكني أتمنى رجالاً مثل أبي عبيدة بن الجراح، ومعاذ بن جبل، وسالم مولى أبي حذيفة، فأستعملهم في طاعة الله»
"But I wish for men like Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāḥ, Muʿadh ibn Jabal, and Salim the freedman of Abū Hudhayfah, so that I could put them to work in the obedience of Allah."
Sit with the contrast. His companions did not even wish treasure for themselves; they wished it to give away for Allah. And still it did not satisfy him. The man governing an expanding state knew what they had missed: gold is spent once and it is gone. A single man of īmān keeps giving long after he is buried.
This was always the real wealth of Islam. The Prophet ﷺ died owning no treasure; his shield was pledged to a man for a measure of barley. What he left behind was not money. It was Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, a whole generation he had raised by hand.
We spend our lives trying to fund the Ummah's problems. ʿUmar would tell us to raise its people. So whether you are bringing up a child or building an institution, his question is the one to keep: not how much can I gather, but who am I cultivating. Gold runs out. A person of īmān does not.
Fadāʾil al-Ṣaḥāba of Imam Ahmad; al-Mustadrak of al-Hakim