O Abū Isḥāq, whenever a servant devotes himself wholly to the worship of Allah, Allah shoulders for him the worries of this world.

Kaʿb said, “For in the revealed Book of Allah it is written: Whoever gathers all his anxieties into a single concern—making that concern obedience to Allah—Allah will relieve him of whatever troubles him and will enlist the heavens and the earth on his behalf. His provision is then guaranteed by Allah, while his deeds are for his own soul. But whoever scatters his worries, placing an anxiety in every valley, Allah will not care in which of those valleys he perishes.”

I say: Part of freeing oneself for worship is to seek lawful means of livelihood, especially for one who has dependents.

The Prophet ﷺ said, “The best thing a man can eat is what he earns with his own hand.” (1)

As for the one who is unable to earn because of weakness or lack of skill, Allah has allotted him a share in the zakat.

Ibn Abī ʿĀṣim said: ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān narrated to us; my father narrated to us; Khālid ibn Muḥammad al-Kindī—who is the father of Aḥmad ibn Khālid al-Wahbī—narrated to us; he heard Abū al-Zāhiriyyah say, “I heard Abū Thaʿlabah say:

‘I hope that Allah will not make me die by strangulation as I see you dying by strangulation.’

While he was praying in the depths of the night, he was taken—passing away in prostration. His daughter sensed that her father had died, so she awoke in alarm and called to her mother, ‘Where is my father?’

She replied, ‘He is in—’ ”