Wealth, fame and worldly “success” can be a trap for us believers. The sad reality is that the lure and temptation of the dunya (material world) consumes many Muslims. This brief khutbah is a moving reminder to be on guard against this, and to remember that Allah values a sound heart more than anything else!
CHAPTERS:
Be Careful That The Dunya Doesn’t Allure You
How Muslims Can Get Rich
Does Material Wealth and Success Mean God is Pleased With Us?
What Does Allah Want From Us in This Life?
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
A few years ago, I was watching the Super Bowl, and the halftime show came on. Personally speaking, I can’t watch the halftime show. I can watch the game, but I can’t watch the halftime show. And the reason for that is because, for me, the halftime show is a kind of parade of dunya. Usually it’s somebody singing, dancing, not dressed very appropriately, showing all kinds of body parts, I don’t have to describe the details, but I’m very uncomfortable watching it.
And so, for this particular Super Bowl, I decided to be productive during that time. I got up and I started doing the dishes. I was washing the dishes, and the TV was on off to the side, but I wasn’t watching it. I could kind of see it out of the corner of my eye. And as I was doing the dishes during the halftime, I saw a lot of flashing lights in the corner of my eye. I couldn’t help but glance. And when I glanced at the screen, I saw something that I had never seen before. That was these people dancing on a stage, and the stage itself was made of these LCD TV screens. And so, the stage, which was one giant screen essentially, or maybe a bunch of smaller screens put together to make it look like it was one screen, it was constantly changing the lights and the background and the sparkles and all these special effects, and it was mesmerizing.
I had to catch myself because I was looking at it for a very long time and I was like, “This is amazing!” and the people were dancing on top of it. Then I said, “Wait a second, I can’t watch this,” because I was seeing the people dancing, and it was bothering me. We know as Muslims that we should be lowering our gaze and we shouldn’t be looking at things; ideally, we shouldn’t be looking at things that would stir up the desires, and that’s exactly what it was doing. But the problem with this particular halftime show was it was implementing this technology that I had never seen before, and it was alluring to me. And so, I had to make an extra effort to say, “No, I’m not going to look at it.”
This is a danger that I want to talk about in this cookbook: that the dunya is so alluring sometimes that it tempts us and it invites us, and sometimes we feel weak, and we have to make extra efforts to either lower our gaze or to restrain ourselves and to really put into practice our Islamic principles. I want to say in general that we have to be very, very cautious and careful on two fronts.
1. Do Not Equate Worldly Gain with Success
Number one, we have to be careful that we don’t assume that the things that we’re seeing in the dunya equals success. Because we look at celebrities, we look at their homes and their cars, we look at the people who may not be so godly, may not be so righteous in our eyes (whether they are or not, we don’t know, or maybe they even say, “We’re disbelievers, we don’t believe in God, we’re atheists”), and yet they have so much success quote unquote, they have so much wealth and so many riches. And sometimes we think to ourselves, “Wow, they’ve achieved a type of success.” And so what we have to do is we have to be careful and be on guard that we don’t fall into that trap of thinking, “This is success.”
In the Hadith related by Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Plenty of provision or abundance do not make a person rich and wealthy. Real richness is the benevolence of the heart.”
2. Do Not Equate Worldly Success with Allah’s Favor
The second thing that we have to be careful about when it comes to the dunya is we have to be careful that we don’t equate the success of this world with Allah’s favor. In other words, we see that there are so many people who say, “We don’t believe in God,” and yet they have so much material wealth, so much material success. And in fact, when I have conversations sometimes with people online on social media, they kind of throw that in our face. They say, “Look at you Muslims, you claim to have the right way, you claim to have the right religion, you claim that God’s favor is upon you, and yet look at the situation of Muslims all over the world.” Generally speaking, yes, we know that there are some Muslims, and many Muslims, who are living in opulence wherever they are, we see that. But in general, we see that many, many Muslims are living in very deprived situations. In fact, you go to conferences and you go to Islamic lectures or khutbahs and you hear Imams all the time saying that Muslims are the most persecuted people in the world, they’re the most oppressed people in the world. And these people online say, “Look at this, if God’s favor is upon you, why is this happening? Why would God, why would your Allah allow this to happen?”
And so, how are we to answer them? The way I would answer them is with this Hadith where the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, “If the world was worth even the wing of a mosquito, then Allah or God would not give a disbeliever even a drop of water.” Now, understand this Hadith: “If the world were worth the wing of a mosquito,” if it were worth, meaning it’s not even worth the wing of a mosquito, then Allah would not give the disbeliever a drop of water. Now, ask yourself the question: How much does Allah give the disbelievers? We just talked about it, the disbelievers get so much wealth: mansions, palaces, power, cars, fame, fortune, whatever, so much, and yet they disbelieve. Because this world is not worth the wing of a mosquito. Doesn’t mean anything to Allah, so go ahead, take it, doesn’t matter. Doesn’t mean anything in Allah’s eyes.
And then listen to what the Qur’an says, in surah 7, Ayah 50: “The companions of the Fire will call on the companions of Paradise, and they will say, ‘Pour upon us some water or whatever Allah has provided you.'” And what will the people of Paradise say? “They say, ‘Indeed, Allah has forbidden them both for the disbelievers.'” So in this world, go ahead, take your wealth, take all you want, that’s the dunya, that means nothing to Allah. But in the Hereafter, a drop of water is forbidden to the disbelievers. Just a drop, because now is when it really matters. Sustenance that you get in the Hereafter, that’s what really matters.
And so, another answer we can give to these people who criticize us and say, “Well, you don’t have the right religion because look at your situation,” is to look at the Prophets’ situations, look at all the Prophets throughout all of time, whether it be Jesus (Isa, may Allah be pleased with him) or Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Most of the Prophets, and yes, some of them did achieve some material success, but most of them did not. Most of them were outcast by their people, most of them lived a very poor, meager life. What about them? They were the most righteous of people. Shouldn’t they have been living like kings? No, because again, this world means very little to Allah. The real value is the Hereafter. So even the Prophets, peace be upon them all, lived in a way that was not of opulence and not of great wealth, and yet they were the most righteous and yet they were the closest to Allah.
In another Hadith, we read that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, he slept on a straw mat to the point that it left marks on his face. And Ibn Masood, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “O Messenger of Allah, would you like me to spread out a soft bedding for you?” And the Prophet, peace be upon him, replied, “What have I to do with this world? I am like the rider who sits under a tree for its shade and then goes along his way.” In other words, he’s just in this world—we’re just in this world for a brief moment, if you look at it. If you have the right perspective, how long are we in this life for? We live 80, 100 years maybe. Compare that to existence, compare that to the universe, which means that we’re here for just a split second.
And so, the Prophet, peace be upon him, is telling us in another Hadith, “Be in this world like a stranger.” That for the believer, this world is not your comfort, this world is not your destination. You should be thinking about the Hereafter, you should be thinking about the end goal, which hopefully, inshallah, is Jannah.
Now, with all of that said, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m not saying that we should live as poor people. I’m not saying that we should hate wealth, that we should hate money; I’m not saying that at all. I would love millions of dollars, in fact, if you want to donate some to me, I’ll take it, because I believe that I would do the right things with it. And on top of that, we have obligations, we have expenses, we have to pay the bills and take care of our families. But what I’m saying is that we should not be attached to this world, and we should realize what this world is. In the end, it’s a mechanism, it’s a means to achieve the ultimate success which is the Hereafter. And so, if we do achieve some kind of wealth, if we do achieve success in this life in terms of our jobs, in terms of our career, our money, our family, whatever, we need to use it in the right way. We need to have the right perspective, we need to make sure that we fulfill our responsibilities, giving in sadaqah whatever we can and according to our means. And we cannot become consumed by it, and we cannot become too attached to it, that we get allured by it and thinking that this is going to bring us happiness, ultimate and permanent happiness.
So, if the world means essentially nothing to Allah, then what is it that Allah wants? What is it that means something to Allah? We look at the Qur’an, in surah 22, ayah 37: “It is not their meat nor their blood that reaches Allah; it is your piety that reaches Him.” In a Sahih Muslim Hadith, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Verily, Allah does not look at your appearances or your wealth, but rather He looks at your hearts and your actions.” In another Hadith, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Wealth is in the heart, and poverty is in the heart. Whoever is wealthy in his heart will not be harmed no matter what happens in this world, and whoever is impoverished in his heart will not be satisfied no matter how much he has in this world. Verily, he will only be harmed by the greed of his own soul.”
And so, what we find here is that what is important to Allah is your heart. This is what matters to Allah. This is what Allah wants. Allah wants a benevolent, good, faithful, soft, humble heart. When you have a sound heart, out of that sprouts action, out of that sprouts true faith, out of that sprouts a true practice of Islam, which is surrender to the Creator of the Worlds. And this is why we need to make efforts to protect our hearts and not be completely oblivious to the things that go on around us and how they affect our hearts.
When I was teaching my children a few months ago, I was telling them, I said, “You know, my goal when you grow up, inshallah, if you make it to the age of 18, you make it to the age where you’re going to leave our home and go off on your own, whenever that is, my goal is not to get you to pray, my goal is not to get you to fast, my goal is not to get you to give in sadaqah—that’s not my goal. My goal is to build up the faith in your heart.” That’s my goal. “I want you to truly believe in your heart in Allah. I want you to truly love Allah in your heart. I want you to truly love the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in your heart. I want you to truly love Islam in your heart. If you really have that in your heart, then you’ll be praying, you’ll be fasting, you’ll be giving in sadaqah, you’ll be doing what Allah expects you to do as much as you possibly can, to the best of your ability.”
I think this is the problem with many of us, is that we put the cart before the horse. We teach our kids, “You have to pray, you have to fast, you have to give in sadaqah, you have to do all these things,” and we make a very long list for them, but we don’t put enough emphasis, in my opinion, on having iman and taqwa. And then when they leave our home and they leave our presence, they don’t do those things. That’s because, in many cases, they’re praying and they’re doing all these good things to please us, because the fear and respect for Allah has not been instilled deep in their hearts. And by the way, I have this concern right now with my own children, I’m struggling in this effort, but we have to try. And one big thing we can do to help, in my opinion, is we need to set the example in our own selves. We need to focus on our heart. The heart is the key to success.
That is the Meccan phase. If you look at the history, the Seerah, that’s the lesson for us. The message that came down focused not on all the rules, not on prayer and fasting and all these long list of things that the Muslims and the believers had to do. It focused on faith. The first 13 years, look at the ayahs that were revealed, most of it had to do with believing in the Hereafter, believing truly in Allah, believing that the angels are watching you, believing that there’s going to be a Day of Judgment, believing that you’re going to die and you’re going to be accountable. And so, once the faith was ingrained in the early community’s hearts, then the rules came in the Medina phase mostly. The rules of prayer came, the rules of giving up alcohol came, and it was so easy for them to give up. They could give up the dunya because they had the faith in their hearts. It was easy for them to pray, to do the requirements because they had the faith in their hearts.
Now, am I saying that we neglect or downplay the rules and that we shouldn’t teach our children to pray, fast, or do the practices? Of course I’m not saying that at all. All I’m saying is that we need to give equal importance, if not more importance, to building sincere faith in the hearts, and that we cannot only be concerned with rules, rituals, and practices. We need both: both faith and practice. We need to teach and implement both, with the understanding that at the end of the day, it’s all about the heart.
I’ve said this many times before, and I’ll say it again, and I firmly believe this (and I’m not a scholar, so I don’t know if I’m right on this, this is my opinion): that every single teaching in Islam and every single practice can somehow be connected back to the heart. That it has something to do with your heart, with getting your heart to be sound, getting your heart to be softened, getting your heart to move closer to Allah, somehow or some way.
And finally, we read in the Qur’an, in surah 26, Ayah 88 and 89 (and this is actually my favorite verse in the entire Qur’an), and it says: “On the Day of Judgment there will not benefit anyone wealth or children, but only one who comes to Allah with a sound heart.”
So we ask you, O Allah, please grant us a sound heart. Ameen. Forgive us for all of our sins and our shortcomings, and bless us with the best of this life and the best of the Hereafter, and shower Your mercy and Your blessings upon Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his companions until the end of time. Ameen.