Israf literally means to waste money. What is the meaning of wasting money? You can spend money in two ways. First, you can spend on your need. Second, you can spend on your desires. Spending money on basic needs is not israf or wastage. When you seek fulfilment of your desires, that is a case of wastage of money. Such wastage is condemned in the Hadith in very strong language. The Quran says: إِنَّ الْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوا إِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاطِينِ (17:27) Those who waste money are called the brothers of Satan.

We can't exactly identify the difference between basic needs and desires. This is very difficult. A person can understand this on his own.  There is no set measure for basic needs. Every person should think that he is going to stand before God. According to a hadith, a person's feet won't move before God until he answers two questions: مِنْ أَيْنَ اكْتَسَبَهُ وَفِيمَ أَنْفَقَهُ (Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2416). How he earned money and where he spent it. You must think: I have to answer to God how I earned money and where I spent it.

When a person thinks in this way, he will very well know his basic needs and his desires. We can’t tell exactly, as 2+2=4, what our basic need is and what our desire is. Every person has to think for himself and be cautious about standing before God. My father used to say, 'We have to stand before God'. He was a very pious man. He would utter this statement in every matter. We must remember that we have to stand before God, and based on this decide for ourselves what our basic needs are and what our desires are. Spending money on desires is wastage, and spending on basic needs is permissible in God's eyes.