An American businessman was once standing on the jetty of a Mexican coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complemented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it had taken to catch them. The Mexican replied, ‘Only a little while.’ The American then inquired why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American then asked, ‘But what do you do with the rest of your time?’ The Mexican said, ‘I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll in the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, Senõr.’
The American scoffed, ‘I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York, where you would run your expanding enterprise.’
The Mexican fisherman asked, ‘But Senõr, how long would this all take?’ To which the American replied, ‘Fifteen to twenty years.’
‘But what then, Senõr?’
The American laughed and said that was the best part. ‘When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.’
‘Millions, Senõr? Then what?’
The American said, ‘Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.’1
More Fish Please, We’re British!
In his book Happiness, Richard Layard argues that, “once subsistence income is guaranteed, making people happier is not easy.”2 His central argument is that as Western societies have got richer, their citizens have not got any happier. In fact, all the indicators suggest that, despite the increase in living standards and material comforts, we are no happier today than we were fifty years ago.
Britain is only now waking up to the social ills that its “buy now, pay later” culture has brought about. Easy credit and borrowing beyond our means has plunged this country into a huge debt crisis. This, in turn, has caused untold angst and misery for the nation: what with mortgage arrears escalating, more homes being repossessed, bankruptcies increasing, and peoples’ personal debts spiralling out of control. Simple wisdoms such as ‘if you haven’t got the money, don’t spend it’ or ‘do you need to spend’ have, for the past decade or so, been sidelined and even bulldozed out of our collective sensibilities. Our culture of unbridled consumerism, rather than being a path to fulfilment, has become a national addiction. ‘Crack-consumerism’ is the collective substance abuse that we as a nation now indulge in.
How Britain moved from being a nation where thrift was a virtue and debt a vice, to owing a staggering trillion pounds (£1,000,000,000,000) on mortgages, credit cards and other loans, is the subject of some debate. It was less than a generation ago that borrowing money carried with it a severe social stigma. To borrow was to admit to living beyond one’s means. But that was then. Today’s Britain is one where the moral principles of thrift, foresight and responsibility have been substituted by greed and the cult of instant gratification. Today’s Britain is one where the social pressures and economic attitudes that surround us urge us to want more than we need; cajole us to mistake wants for needs. Our culture’s current measure of success make us crave for more possessions, more money, more status … more ‘fish’.
Yet the very happiness we are promised buy buying those designer jeans, that mobile phone or this latest car, is what the next product assures us we do not have until we buy something else. As consumers, then, we end up anxious; unfulfilled; and unhappy – yet consumers nonetheless! “The endless spiral of material acquisition,” says Stephan Law, “cannot in fact make us more content. Like a drug addict, we simply get accustomed to whatever we’re getting, cease to derive much pleasure from it, and so start demanding even more. As a result, explains the philosopher Peter Singer, ‘once we have satisfied our basic needs, there is no level of material comfort at which we are likely to find significantly greater long-term fulfilment than any other level.’”3
More Fish Please, We’re Modern!
It was Gandhi who once said: “The world caters for everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.” Although it has become something of a cliche, I’ll say it regardless: If everyone on this earth were to live and consume like the average Briton, we would need three more earths to service this consumerist lifestyle; six more if we all wanted to live like the average American. In his latest book Affluenza, Oliver James speaks of an ‘affluenza virus’ that is sweeping through the English-speaking world. This virus, he says, is a set of values which make us extremely prone to anxiety, depression and emotional stress, because of placing to high a value on consumerism and wanting to look good in the eyes of others. Whatsmore, he insists, we are now infecting the rest of the world with this virulent virus.4
A consumer-addicted society demands the quick and careless use of materials, and is built on the myth that human happiness can be found on the material plane alone. It also relies on its citizens being detached from, and blind to, the global havoc such a worldview spawns. Here, then, is a gentle reminder of just what we are currently doing to our planet, let alone its people, so as to keep the ‘fish’ coming in:
Half the world’s natural forests are being destroyed, whilst the remainder is being lost by an area half the size of Norway every year. Nearly a third of all the world’s cultivable land for growing food has been degraded because of intensive and unsustainable agricultural practices. Although still somewhat contentious, most scientists believe that greenhouse gases and the resultant climate changes have increased weather-related disasters such as droughts, floods and storms, and threatens to raise sea levels, submerge low-lying lands and reduce the world’s habitable areas. Seventy per-cent of the world’s fresh water is now being used for agriculture; in fact, one in five people around the globe survive on less water per day than is used to flush a toilet. And then, of course, there are the fish. Half of the world’s fisheries are now depleted, while another quarter is currently being over-fished. The human tragedy of all this modern greed and consumption is even more grotesque.
“And of course,” says Law, “ever-rising levels of consumption are impossible to maintain, for the resources we are drawing are finite. Not only are we damaging ourselves by pursuing our addiction to acquisitive materialism, we are also damaging the environment, eventually to the point where it will be beyond repair. Singer argues that we need fundamentally to rethink our attitudes to contentment, and to reject the consumerist model of happiness that is dragging us all to our doom.”5
More Fish Please, We’re Muslims!
Islam too has many significant things to say to us about our modern dilemma of consumerism – though this may not immediately be apparent if one were to look at Muslim attitudes toward consumption. Even those outside our faith tradition are starting to point out that we Muslims consume more food during the month of fasting, than we do outside of it! Our craving for more fish, it would appear, is little different than anyone else’s.
Yet for a faith that has as one of its cardinal virtues zuhd – asceticism; a worldly detachment where luxury and opulence is shunned in favour of a simple and pious life – one would expect Muslims to be among the least afflicted by what is essentially an atheistic, materialistic, consumerist ideology. Sad, then, that many of us seem only to want to live the migrant’s dream and to sit back on our leather sofas; our four or five remote controls at hand for the plasma TV and home-entertainment system; mercedes parked outside the door; mulling over what improvements to make to our homes next, and to feel pleased with ourselves because we’ve made it.
Such attitudes don’t quite square with the teachings of the Prophet, peace be upon him, who said: “Successful is he who accepts Islam, whose provisions are sufficient for him, and who is content with what God has bestowed on him.”6 Nor does it accord with the spirit of the prayer he would make: “O God, make the provisions of Muhammad’s family suffice their basic needs.”7 As for zuhd, he once remarked: “Renounce the world, and God will love you; renounce what others possess, and people will love you.”8 In fact, “Whoever loves this worldly life,” asserts one prophetic saying, “does damage to his Afterlife; and whoever loves the Afterlife, does damage to his present life. So prefer what is eternal to what is ephemeral.”9
Less there be some confusion here, Islam does not ask its adherents to forsake the material world and to live a monastic life. It does, however, stricture that the material world not become of greater concern to a believer than God and the Afterlife. Such an attitude is culled from the following verse of the Qur’an: “But seek the abode of the Afterlife in that which God has given you, and forget not your portion of the world, and be kind even as God has been kind to you, and seek not corruption in the earth; for God loves not the corrupters.”10
Islam is the great dissident force in today’s world. If we are all being dragged to our environmental doom, we need to be the ones applying the brakes. But this is not the place for mere pious sentiments, or being an armchair critic. We need to live the change we want to see in others and in society. This involves sacrifice; of instating the prophetic virtue of zuhd in our lives. We must show, as individuals and as communities, that Muslims have a real alternative to today’s consumer madness and the suffering it causes. As Muslims, we must live for the poor and with the poor. We must emancipate ourselves from being enslaved to this deceptive consumerist ideology. In essence, we need nothing short of what Abdul Hakim Murad calls “a prophetic uprising”.
One place to start would be with rethinking our attitudes towards wealth and consumerism. Layard explains in his book how social comparisons; the desire to keep up with the Smiths and the Jones, is an interminable source of stress for most people. He says that studies show that people are concerned about their income and wealth relative to that of others, and how “they would be willing to accept a significant fall in living standards if they could move up compared to other people.”11 “So one secret of happiness,” he unveils to the reader, “is to ignore comparisons with people who are more successful than you are: always compare downwards, not upwards.”12
Informed Muslims will, no doubt, be quick to recall the Prophet’s words, peace be upon him: “Look at those who are below you [in wealth and status], do not look at those who are above you, so as not to belittle the favours that God has conferred on you.”13 And that’s precisely the point. Our happiness and our being content depend profoundly on our attitudes. For believers, the Prophet’s life is the finest example of how to live simply and be content, even when the world is thrown at your feet. His teachings are a treasure-trove of practical wisdoms on how to educate the spirit, yet live functionally in today’s material world. And the guidance he brought can help to distinguish between the ‘fish’ we need and those we merely want. It has the power to direct us towards a life of being content and sufficed, instead of being selfish.
SURKHEEL (ABU AALIYAH) SHARIF
Notes
- 1. Cited in Zohar & Marshal, Spiritual Intelligence (London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001), p.282.
- 2. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (England: Penguin Books, 2006), 4.
- 3. The Xmas Files (Great Britain: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), 68.
- 4. Affluenza (Great Britain: Vermilion, 2007).
- 5. The Xmas Files, 68-9.
- 6. Muslim, Sahih, no.1054.
- 7. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, no.6460; Muslim, no.1055.
- 8. Ibn Majah, Sunan, no.4102.
- 9. Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 4:412.
- 10. Qur’an 28:77.
- 11. Happiness, 42.
- 12. ibid., 47.
- 13. Al-Bukhari, no.6490; Muslim, no.2963.
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Salaam & thank you Abu Aaliyah for your musings. Few points:
1. ‘Crack-consumerism’ is the collective substance abuse that we as a nation now indulge in.
- Do u mind if i quote that? ; )
2. Re. Gandhi’s famous statement: “The world caters for everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.”
- This is no longer true, as you elude to in a later quote from Law: “And of course,ever-rising levels of consumption are impossible to maintain, for the resources we are drawing are finite.
- With a current world population of 6bn, set to reach 9bn by 2050, many would argue -without denying the problem of western consumerism- that control of population growth is a more pressing issue. It will contribute 35% of the increase in carbon emissions! Are contemporary fuqahaa addressing this reality?
3. Re. hadith “Whoever loves this worldly life does damage to his Afterlife; and whoever loves the Afterlife, does damage to his present life. So prefer what is eternal to what is ephemeral.”
- How do we reconcile this with hadith concerning obtaining dunya through working for aakhira?
Ashkuruk.
Assalaamu-Alaikum
Well written and researched article – made for interesting reading.
Ashamedly, what you say about mass consumerism and that quick fix of spending and buying is absolutely true and applies to most of us living in this society today. Where adverts hard sell you products “that you simply cannot do without” temptation is thrown at us from every which way and you’d have to have a will of iron to resist.
But I agree, if we were to look at this from an Islamic perspective and from a common sense perspective “live within your means” “don’t touch what you can’t afford” “don’t spend what you haven’t got” – these are all sensible words to live by and practice – Islam teaches us “all things in moderation” but we seem to have forgotten that and it’s about time we start practising what we preach in order to set an example for the next generation and for generations to come – Inshallah!
Jazakallah Abu Aaliyah, an excellent reminder – as someone who was born and brought up here, and quite young, its scary how ingrained materialism is in our psyche. Instant gratification means that we fail to recognise the value of the things we seek. Use of credit cards and now online shopping makes buying so easy that one does not realise how much they have spent until they get their bank statement next month!
Jazakallah again
As-salamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullah, and thank you for your comments.
Ameen: “Crack consumerism”: please feel free do quote it. As for the issue of need and greed, perhaps Gandhi’s saying still holds. Despite the world’s population set to rise to 9 billion by 2050, is it not still a case that scarcity of resources is because we have, for too long, been consuming beyond our means. More than 80% of the world’s resources are consumed by less than 20% of the world’s population (mostly us living in the West). Unless the GREED factor is reduced, it seems like it’s going to be extremely difficult to cope with the predicted population increase. And Allah knows best.
The censure of dunya is, as I mentioned, when it becomes of greater priority than fulfilling our higher reason of being created, as well as if it is obtained through unlawful means. As for when material goods are acquired (i) because it is the responsible thing to do (basic food, shelter, food, etc), (ii) out of enjoying God’s blessings and being grateful to Him for them, (iii) that such enjoyment is balanced with the seriousness of working for the religion and for the welfare of others – then such worldly acquisitions become, by God’s grace, assets for our Hereafter. May Allah make us among those for whom this proves to be true.
Lubna ul-Hasan: Mashallah, your comment were an excellent summary of what I was trying to say. If someone is going to print out my blog, they’d be advised to print out your comments on it: it’ll save extra consumption of paper!
Sharif Hussain: I agree, it is very scary. But, as you said, we must all “recognise the value of the things we seek,” and also how preciously scarce many of these things are becoming.
There are further comments to this particular blog piece by Abu Aaliyah (as well as to previous blogs written by him) on the Muslim Matters blogsite, address below.
http://muslimmatters.org/2008/05/20/more-fish-please/
Mashallah a brilliant article. I particularly like the first section of the article about the Mexican fisherman. As far as I know luxury is not encouraged in islam and in the west I think many people’s lifestyles can be described as luxurious as compared to Pakistan and other countries, where some families live and sleep in just one room.
Mashallah very well written. An excellent read. Jazakallahokhairan.
Alhumdullilah, an excellent reminder to the ummah of the western world that we really don’t need every species of every fish especially when we only need a few mouthfuls to sustain us. The article gave me food for thought, no pun intended! Well done.
Jazaka’Allahu Khayr! What an excellent reminder which deep down we all know but for one reason or another concince ourselves that we genuinly need more and more and more. I know for myself this was a great not just reminder but a wake up call.
I strongly think that perhaps al of us should have the hadith you quoted at the end, “Look at those who are below you [in wealth and status], do not look at those who are above you, so as not to belittle the favours that God has conferred on you.” printed out on a large paper or board and have it hung in our door ways so that each time we are about o go out shopping or to check out the latest gadget etc its a great reminder and perhaps would get us to rethink the size of our shopping list or if infact we need to go out at all!!!
I also think that in todays society a huge problem we face is the expectation we have made ourselves believe that others have of us. So for example, if someone is coming over for dinner, we no longer follow the examples set by the Prophet (saw) and the pious people before us by having a simple table spread with just 1 maybe 2 dishes where we would all sit in a humble manner and share from the same plate. Now its all about making sure we have the main dishes (main dishes meaning at least 2-3) aswell as the side smaller things like salads, numerous dips or chutneys as well as yogarts and a selection fo drinks etc. So this places a hardship on the host which in effect weakens our closeness as no longer can we call friends or family over on a regular basis to share food as ‘the expectation’ has made it too expensive. However it doesnt have to be like this and I could go on and on but Ill stop here. Its sad that this disease and it is a disease of wanting more than we need doesnt just stop there it continues to infect into other areas of society too!
So once again Abu Aliyah Jazaka’Allahu Khayr for a great wake up call!
p.s. sorry this is the 1st time I am commenting so im not sure how to leave my name. The above comment is from Umber.
Swim with the fish!
Ethical sustainable development theories such as those proposed by Singer involve certain material sacrifices being made by the affluent in terms of how they live their lives and (ultimately) how much they consume. Sustainable economic development involves continued profit increase by a corporation or a country over time. Both theories should take into account sustainable resource management as a part of their calculations, but in reality only the former does.
Some philosophers have argued that economic sustainable development that lacks provision for long term sustainability is simply not sustainable development per se, yet it is precisely this model that the world seems hell bent on following: Oil is running out, land is over-farmed, fish stocks are depleted and the very air that we breathe is being polluted and damaged at a faster and faster rate, due to over foresting and (ever increasing) carbon emissions. On paper this just looks to be illogical! Why would anyone knowingly destroy the planet for the sake of short term profit? Even the economists will have to concede that such “enterprise” is a little short sighted! But short sighted we are, knowingly or unknowingly. (I’m reminded of the father character in Mary Poppins who was unable to see past the end of his own nose, or rather chose not to.)
The situation is so environmentally dire now that some scientists say that we have past a point whereby we are plundering the Earth’s resources at a faster rate than She can regenerate (forgive me for not citing sources), yet still we continue to do. Consumerism has become like a psychosis for large portions of the global populous, the effects of which are being felt now in terms of debt, famine, war etc. (some of which you have touched upon) and which will be felt in years to come by the environmental legacy inherited by future generations. The obvious question is why?
You have also touched upon some symptoms of the problem by describing us as ‘selfish’, ‘competitive’, ‘greedy’ etc, but the root cause (I believe) is disconnection: We are in fact so disconnected from our spiritual centre that we have almost entirely lost the will to care. People individually aren’t stupid, so it doesn’t follow that collectively they should be, yet how we are behaving is inconsistent with the behaviour one would expect of a sentient being capable of rational thought. Put simply, we are acting irrationally!
Our behaviour (at least collectively) is more akin to a parasite than a sentient mammal! We take without giving anything back and without any real thought for the consequences of our actions. This is the danger of free will. All of the other animals are busy doing what they have been instinctually programmed to do, whilst we on the other hand have had our ‘instinct radar’ disconnected. We are on our own (so to speak) in a (seemingly) infinite universe and we are hopelessly lost and floundering.
In short, our natural desire to be led, coupled with the desire to have purpose and meaning in our lives is what drives consumerism. It is the reason people smoke, drink, fornicate, dedicate endless hours to the pursuit of wealth, shopping and idle pursuits in general – We need to feel connected to something and without being grounded in our spiritual centre, we are compelled to latch on to anything and everything that we can.
The Quran is full of references that allude to the fact Allah (SWT) wants us to willingly switch our radars back on, in order that He might guide us back onto the straight path, but He is not willing do it for us. That is the test and we have no one to blame but ourselves, for we chose it willingly. I will then summarise my main premises before concluding this thought process…
1. Human beings (though not all) are consuming the world’s resources at an alarming and excessive rate, despite the following:
i) An understanding (at least on a basic level) of what they are doing and the consequences thereof.
ii) Having the choice to continue or to cease doing this (free will).
2. Humans naturally seek to identify with particular trends, cultures, ideologies etc and form (quite naturally) communities with shared philosophies, ideals and goals.
3. Humans want to be happy, but increasingly seem to be failing to achieve this goal or at least sustain it for long periods of time.
4. Our ‘laissez-faire’ attitude towards environmental and ethical dilemmas is indicative of many peoples apathetic attitude to non-immediate local, national and global issues, and gratifying instead their own short-term objectives. (Look at how fewer people voted in the last general election than voted in the Big Brother final.)
5. The Quran tells us that people were ‘designed’ for ‘…naught but to worship God’ and that ‘Allah will not change the state of a people until they first change themselves.’
To conclude, if you accept premise one then you accept that what we are doing, we are doing willingly. Moreover you must also therefore accept responsibility for what you do. Morality aside, there is an awareness of the consequences of your actions and so an intention.
If you accept premise two, then you agree that humans naturally tend to herd together (for whatever reason) and so are often quite easily led and influenced.
To accept premise three is to accept that our motivation for action is often driven by a desire to be happy (whatever that may mean), but that our choice of endeavours typically lead to only transitory pleasures and comforts at best. Ultimately death will rob you of even these anyway.
Apathy and a lack of real empathy for others suffering is indicative in our short-term and predominantly self-motivated pursuits. We often favour instant gratification over more involved solutions, if we bother to get involved at all. To accept this is to accept premise four.
If we can accept these premises then we are forced to concede that:
• We knowingly contribute to the destruction of the planet and the misery of those less fortunate than ourselves, despite being aware of what we do and the consequences thereof.
• We are easily led into the downward spiral of unethical consumerism, though we are led willingly.
• Despite the short-term gratification that such a materialistic lifestyle may bring us periodically, it is (on the whole) generally unsatisfying. It is also certainly transitory.
So what are we really saying?
‘We know that what we do is damaging, selfish and unsatisfying and we accept that we continue to do it willingly.’
This is not an unsupported conclusion and it is the reason that I personally turned my back on philosophy and logic as a solution to my own and the world’s problems.
If we know that what we do is illogical (I hesitate to use the word wrong), but we still do it willingly, then what use is logic and reason on such a person?
One would expect to make such a statement about a mental patient, not a large portion of the civilised world!
We don’t need to be told that what we are doing is improper (still not going to use the word wrong), we already know that! We need to be made to care!
Premise five offers not only an answer to the purpose of our existence, but solutions to the four other premises. It is in submission to our Creator (SWT) that we will find right guidance, peace, happiness and a desire to live in a balanced and infinitely more beneficial way. This though is not a solution that can be appreciated philosophically or logically. It is an experiential endeavour, not an intellectual one. Just as one cannot understand the concept of wetness simply by observing a puddle of water, Man cannot know what is missing from his life if he has no experience of that which is missing. Intellect and reason only work on people who are capable and willing to be reasonable… If you are not such a person, then it’s time to get wet!
So simple and obvious. Well written and well explained Saleel.
Allahu Akbar! our deen is a deen of balance.
Im not sure of the subtle differences in definition of happiness and contentment, but it seems to me as a muslim, with contentness comes spiritual happiness.
Also i think, it has a lot to do with the view of the individual being greater than the sum, leading to a breakdown in families and communities, and an unleashing of desire and greed. with this in mind why can i not be better than the Jones? is the attitude. When people look out for their own only, they find themselves in a life characterised by anxiety, depression and emotional stress as mentioned; and people struggle to ‘live functionally’, whether rich or poor, as living functionally isnt merely having the material necessities to live in a society, but to also have that support network. Its sad because lately i have found this to be the case regarding some issues in many communities.
Subhanllah i think when we are content with what we have and have a goal and direction then we will be happy and reach true happiness. but when we dont realise bani adams dream of an eternal kingdom (focus on the akhira), then we are sure, as humans, to feel constrained by our short-sightedness.
we dont have
JazaakAllah khair Abu Aaliyah! Fantastic article, and real food for thought for Muslims as well as non-Muslims.
Salam , Abu Aaliyah
Mashallah an intensely directive and thoughtful article leaving no room for excuses or ‘ Want s ’ to cloud the judgment of rationale and justice. May Allah SWT grant the Umma to wake to the reality of being custodians of an ammanah of whom the owner is none other than the ‘Lord of the Worlds ‘
When the earth is shaken by a mighty shaking, and the earth yields up her burdens, and man cries out ‘What ails her?’ On that day she will tell her tales, as thy Lord will have inspired her. On that day man will issue, separately , to be shown there deeds . Whosoever has done an atoms’ weight of good will see it then and whosoever has done an atoms weight of ill will see it then.
(Quran 99:1-8)
Jzk.k For such a sincere & unquestionable reminder
U.H
Salaam Brother,
May Allah reward you for writing such an interesting article.
It reminded me of conversations I’ve had with friends. A friend said to me once ‘Living life as a Muslim doesn’t mean I have to live like a pauper. If Allah has blessed me with a lot of money then surely I can live in luxury and comfort? Spending is proportional to income, so what I spend will be judged by God in proportion to what I earn. As long as I give my zakat and sadaqah, surely I can spend the rest of my money for my enjoyment as long as i’m spending on halaal things like a new car or decorating my home?’
Do you agree with these statements? If not how would you argue against them? From an Islamic point of view would you argue that my friend is potentially commiting sin in the way she chooses a ‘comfortable’ life?
Masalaam
AlhamdAllah, an interesting read. Makes you wonder what else consumerism says about us as a society, and whether it is a cause or an effect.
Maishallah an excellent reminder
ma sha Allah – this article is a wake up call, one of many such calls that we as muslims, and as people sharing the same blessings of Allah must pay heed to.
Often when we read such articles it is with grandiose intentions that we resolve to change our lives for the better. Yet over time we find these changes difficult to either implement or sustain. It is via baby steps that we can either raise ourselves to the heights or lower ourselves to the utter depths.
Consumerism attacks first with the small things (just have one more desert even thought we feel full because it looks so nice) then generally progresses upwards to the latest clothes and gadgets, then onto ever more expensive and non-essential things (did you really need the latest BMW fresh of the production line or would a more reasonably priced car have sufficed?).
The manner of combating such a slide is generally by similar baby steps in the other direction. Change your life starting with the small things; ask yourself whether you really need that extra coffee / cake / ice cream. Then challenge yourself by putting limits on your nafs, your lower self, with limits on your food intake, the amount of money you spend on recreation each month (go for a walk, the wonders of Allah are all around for us to enjoy). Through patient perseverance work for a sustainable improved state – remember Allah loves the small blessed tasks that are carried out consistently.
With pure intentions for the sake of Allah, with regular acts of self control and goodness, we train ourselves, our nafs, in order to become more balanced individuals who can be witnesses, calling for, and supporting balance in others – in order to sustain our dunya (world) and to draw a step closer to Jannah (heaven).
Assalamo alaikum
Dear Abu Aaliyah
May Allah reward you for the much needed reminder. Perhaps it is now time for some deep soul searching about the real principles we live by. Do we really need the new/latest xyz… etc. And ‘keeping up with jones’ is a new evil even amongst many ‘practising’ muslims these days.
It’s scary the message we are sending to future generations, who I fear are becoming more selfish, shallow and without substance.
That is, if we leave them anything of the earth anyway.
We pray to Allah to help us overcome our personal hurdles.
Wslm
Assalamu aleikum wa rahmat Allahi wa barakatu,
Jazak Allahu khairan for the article.
I would say that it is important to bear in mind that we do need Muslims who are wealthy and wise as this will help us to finance the important institutions and other important endeavours.
Further comments can be read at:
http://muslimmatters.org/2008/05/20/more-fish-please/