Love for the world - Purification of the heart!

“Rather, you prefer the worldly life.  And the Akhirah is better and Eternal” (Al-Aa’la)

The Materialistic World That We Live In

Allah swt has put us in this world and we all have our own relationship with the dunya. The world that we live in, especially in this day and age, it is a very materialistic world and this modern society is often described as being a society which is dominated by materialism, by capitalism, by consumerism and a lot of things. If you look at our cupboards, our wardrobes, our shoes, our food, our furniture, our decorations, we have a lot of the dunya.

We have lot of things in this world. And if you look at all the stuff a person can do in this world in terms of recreation, in terms of enjoyment, it is limitless. In Pakistan, you see there are restrictions sometimes but if you look in Europe and UK and in US there are always different types of new and more creative ways and different types of recreation and different types of ways to enjoy life, to enjoy the world. Our relationship with the world, sometimes we think it's just being materialistic, with someone who is in love with wealth or clothing or just in love with having fun.

 Basically love for the world can be manifested in different ways. One is through wealth, one is through beauty, another is of shehwat towards food, through different desires a person can have. So basically love for the dunya actually encompasses a lot of different things and it's like a net. Suppose if net is composed of different ropes. For somebody their main snare might be love for wealth, for somebody it might be love for fame and fortune, love for respect, love for praise, to have love for a certain person. So we all have our different nets that catch us in this dunya. So basically today what we are talking about is hub e dunya.

 WHAT IS HUBB E DUNIYA?

It comes in a famous Hadith  

Hubbe duniya ra’su kulli khatiatin

‘The love of the world is the root of all sins.’

 If you look at it, if you look at all the bad things that go on in this world, all evil that exists, all the negativity, it all actually goes down, it boils down to love of the world. People who kill one another, people who are greedy, people who are unjust to one another, all of it goes down, the root cause is actually people having excessive love for the world, excessive attachment to the world. But we don’t know what it actually means, what are the Ahadith pertaining to love of dunya and the verses in the Quran.

Definition of Hubb e  Duniya

Most scholars have defined it as:

To love anything, because dunya includes a lot of things, includes people, things, etc, to love anything that gives you enjoyment AND makes you ghafil of Allah swt, makes you negligent of Allah swt, His commands and the akhirah. That is what hub e dunya is.

To love something that gives you enjoyment, it could be even your children, it could be your spouse, it could be your friends, but at the same time, it makes you heedless, it makes you negligent of Allah ta'ala , His commands, it makes you negligent of the Hereafter. That is why it comes in so many places in the Quran that the people who go to jahannum, they used to be happy with their families and in their happiness, excessive happiness with their families in their homes, it made them heedless of Allah swt. And the believer , the people who go to jannat, they also had families, they also were happy with their families but their happiness with their families did not obstruct their love for Allah ta'ala.

So if you try to understand hub e dunya, Islam is not against wealth, is not against having good relationships with people, is not against having good and pure recreational activities, it's basically having this excessive love in our heart, that it stops. The heart is actually reserved for Allah swt's love, is reserved for the love of Prophet (saw), is reserved for the remembrance of Allah. The things of this world are meant to be in the hands, not in the heart. So we, as Muslims, in Islam, if we look at our situation, we have hirs. Hirs is excessive desire. It is the disease of the heart. Wanting things of the dunya badly and that is what makes a person have this excessive attachment to the dunya.

We have to live in this dunya, this is also a commandment of Allah(swt), we can't separate our self, we can't live in a cave, and we can't live anti-social life. We have to interact with people; we have to be a part of this world and at the same time we can't let it affect us and take over our heart.

 There comes a very intense Hadith in which Prophet saw have said,

‘The World and everything it contains is accursed except the remembrance Allah swt( dhikr ullah), and what is near it (what brings you closer to remembrance of Allah swt) and  a student or a scholar(a person who is studying the deen or a person who is teaching it).’

Basically if you look at this Hadith that the world is maloon( something which has been done laanat upon), what does laanat means? Laanat means to make something deprived of the mercy of Allah(swt) so nothing has the rehmat of Allah swt except remembering Allah ta'ala, something that brings you closer to Allah ta'ala, a person who is a scholar of Islam, a scholar of Allah and His Commandments and fourth, the person who is a student and is pursuing this knowledge. If you look at this Hadith, it seems like the world is a really bad place to be in but let us look at another Hadith and then we will come back to this one. There is another Hadith, total opposite, the Prophet saw said,

 "Don’t curse the world"

In the first Hadith the Prophet saw Himself is cursing the world. He is saying the world is accursed. But in this one, he is saying that you don’t curse the world because Allah swt created it. And it is a means of reaching Allah ta'ala!

Putting the 2 Ahadith Together

So if you look at it, the world, we have a dual relationship with it. At one way we are not supposed to let it enter into our heart and we are supposed to keep it at a distance from our heart but at the same time we have to realize that this is the means that makes us closer to Allah swt. So dhikrUllah, remembering Allah ta'ala is done in the world, bringing yourself closer to Allah swt by doing good acts, good deeds, by helping people in this world, this is also a thing that you have to do in this world.

 If you look around sometimes, you look at nature, you look at things around you, you look at the climate change, these things makes a person feel happier, makes a person feel more closer to Allah ta'ala, makes the person ponder at the rehmat, ponder at the beauty of Allah Ta'Ala, ponder at the qudrat of Allah Ta'Ala. So these things do make you closer. All the things that make you closer to Allah, those are the things which are exempted from this curse. Those are the things which are okay to love. Those are the things that are okay to be a part of in this world and everything else, we should consider that as the lower dunya, the lower world.

 Infact if you look in the Arabic language, dunya comes from the same root words as adnaa. So adnaa means something that is haqeer, inferior and worthless. This is something many Ahadith attest to. Prophet( saw) said in a Hadith :

 ‘In eyes of Allah, this world and everything in it is not even worth the fly of a mosquito.’

 It is not worth even a fly. So this shows you that in eyes of Allah this world is nothing but actually the things that make us closer to Him, that is what makes our life in this world worthwhile. That’s what going to make our life in this world acceptable to Allah ta'ala.

Qur’anic Verses

We often translate  al hayat tud dunya  as the life of the world, that’s wrong, it's actually the ‘worldly life’  life which is full of the world, full of hub e dunya. So in Quran, Allah swt

 ●“The worldly life is just a place of deception” (Al-Noor, 22)

It’s a place of dar ul ghuroor.             This is why Prophet saw warns that fear the dunya , stay away from it. It's just like giving people warnings when they go to a new place, you give them warnings that how can they live there, how can they stay there without getting hurt. It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t go there but just taking care to heed the precautions, heed these warnings so here the Prophet saw is doing the same thing that live in the world, you have to live in the world but just fear, heed the precautions, heed these instructions and if you heed them then this world will not affect your heart, you can come and live in this world, be a part of this world but your heart will be unscathed, will not be affected.

Difference between working in the World and loving the World

Maulana Rumi, famous Sufi poet, he has written, given a tashbeeh, an analogy describing how our relationship with the world should be .He gives the example that world is like an ocean and our hearts are like boats, as long as the boat is above the ocean, the water does not enter the boat, the boat would stay afloat, the minute the water enters the boat what happens? The boat starts sinking. So this is actually our relationship with the dunya. We can live in the dunya, we can have it in our hand as much as we want, but as long it does not affect our heart. One who just has this functional relationship with the world, he

▪ is concerned about halal and haram.

▪ spends money without grief.

● “The worldly life is just play and futile act.  And the home of the akhirah is better for those who have taqwa.  Do you not understand?” (Al-Anaam: 4)  

Explaining ayah with an example

You know when little kids, they go to the toy store, and buy a toy they badly want and they will play with it , but eventually they will outgrow it. We say that the child is going to outgrow something. Rather there is a story of a buzurg that one time when his child, when his son became older like 18, 19, 20 years of age, then onece in front of his whole friends, he addresses his son, it was some special occasion and he said I am going to give you something really special, you really wanted it for so long and I kept it safely and today I thought to give this thing to you, so he went and everyone is in anticipation that what it would be. He went and he came back with a small ball, like a red rubber ball and he said that when you were little, you cried and you cried and cried to have it and I didn’t buy it for you and now I am giving it to you. You wanted it so badly. The child got upset with his father. The young man at that point, he said that what are you doing, you are making me embarrassed in front of my friends. You make me really look bad in front of my friends. And the father made a point, that when you were little, you wanted it so badly, you cried and you cried and you cried and now you don’t want it. Giving them an example this is our love for the dunya. So sometimes you want something so badly, on the Day of Judgment, you are going to be embarrassed that did I want this, this little worthless thing! Our teachers, the Scholars in the old time, this is the way they used to do tarbiyat of their children. They used to give examples. You know how you feel embarrassed in front of your friends now; imagine feeling this type of embarrassment in front of the whole of creation, in front of all of humanity on the Day of Judgment when Allah swt would say that these are the things you used to ask for in this world. So sometimes, we are like children asking for little play things, for toy things and this is what Allah swt is saying. That this is worldly life is just like a child trying to play; it's a life of play and the home of the akhirah is better for those who have taqwa. Actually this world is not for play and futile activity, it's to work on our level, our relationship with Allah Ta'ala and if the person develops their taqwa, develops his relationship with Allah, the akhirah is better and then Allah Ta'ala says that do you not understand. These are the examples; they are analogies to make us understand.

Ahadithe Mubarakah regarding Duniya

●“The world is a prison for the believer and a heaven for the disbeliever”

Why? Because when a person is living in the prison, they don’t live according to their own will, they don’t eat what they want, they don’t sleep when they want, they can't make up their own rules, they have to follow the rules of the prison. Just like that a moumin, a Muslim lives their life according to the rules of Allah Ta'ala, they can't change the rules, they can't bend the rules, they can't do things they want, they have to go according to the rules of Allah, so they are living in a prison. And just like a prisoner when they leave that prison, you can imagine the state of happiness, the freedom. Just like that when a moumin dies, it comes in Hadith that for a ‘moumin death is just a bridge’, it's just a bridge uniting the lover with his Beloved. Now they have the freedom to do whatever they wanted. So this is a person that is a moumin. And on the other hand a kafir, a disbeliever, a person who doesn’t believe in Allah ta'ala, the Prophet saw said that for them dunya is a jannat, a heaven. And this is what we see, the world around us, the people who are distant from Allah Ta'ala, the people who don’t believe in Allah Ta'ala, their whole life is trying to make their life good, better, the best, trying to make their life a jannat, trying to make their society, their home a small little heaven, a small little paradise. And this is something that you see in the West or any really developed country that a person can get whatever they want to eat. You can go to the grocery store , take an example of ice cream , you can get every single ice cream you can imagine, different combinations, different companies, some is natural, some is organic, some is skim, some is diet, some is 80% fat, some is reduced fat, some is fat free, you can get anything you want and all this here is a little jannat. You can actually get whatever your heart desires. You can get whatever mixture of fruit juices you want, pine apple, orange, strawberry, banana, a mix, cocktail. This is how people in the disbelieving world, in Dar ul harb, in other places in this world, have actually created a small little jannat for themselves. So this shows that the dunya can be made into a jannat. But if you look, Allah Ta'ala says, it's not a very well known Hadith, the meaning of which is:

 Dunya is not something that we should aim for.

We should not aim so low, in other words. The dunya is worthless,why are you keeping your aim so low?

● “The dunya is a corpse/dead body.  And those who want it are like dogs”

Those who desire it are like dogs. Now regarding this Hadith,  Muhaddiseen, the people who are scholars of Hadith, have actually went into the depths, to look at the dunya, it's like a corpse and those who want it are like dogs. So what does it means? Why didn’t Allah swt say or why didn’t the Prophet (saw) say that the people who want the dunya are like crows, or they are like vultures? Why word dog used specifically? So here scholars have actually come up with different reasons. The people who desire the world and search the world, what are their traits? What makes them like dogs? One is if you compare dogs and crows, because otherwise crows also eat murdar, crows also eat corpses, vultures also eat, but what makes a dog and a crow different;

·         When a crow eats something that is dead like a dead animal or dead something it would actually crow, call out loudly, it would make noise and invite the other crows to eat with it. We are so distant from nature nowadays that we don’t observe animals much. There was a time when people who were close to nature, those who looked at world, they looked at animals, they looked at ants, they looked at the vegetation around them, they looked at the sunrise and the sunset, you know these things came naturally to them. This is the way our fitrat is but unfortunately the material world, the dunyawi zindagi that we are living in, it cuts us off from these things, it just makes us materialistic, and not really using the world as it is meant to be used. So going back to the example that when a crow occurs, they come together. Something would be dead, one would crow out, one would call out and then all the other crows would come. Whereas a dog, when a dog sees something dead and it eats, it eats alone. It doesn’t call out to the other dogs that hey there is free food, it eats alone!

·         Another difference is that when a crow finds a dead body, a dead animal, crow would eat every other thing that is dead except its own kind, a crow will not eat another crow, will not eat a dead crow. Whereas a dog would also eat another dead dog!

In all these analogies what's happening is that all those people who want the dunya how are they being compared to dogs. One is that the person who craves the dunya, they just worry about themselves. They will eat even their own, they will backstab their own brothers and sisters to get the dunya.

·          The third difference is that when a crow, when one of its own, when a fellow crow is killed in a certain area, like a crow dies, all the other crows might come near it and they all make swanking noise, but they will not go there, they will not go by that dead crow because they take admonishment, that this crow was killed here, it somehow died here, so we will not go there. Whereas a dog, even if a dog is killed at that place, it would still got to that place.

·         Another example and difference is that a crow would only eat in the daylight hours. When there is daylight. Whereas a dog would eat in the mornings, daylight, night, noon anytime.

·         The last difference is that a crow would only eat the soft meat because it is a crow, it cannot eat the bones and stuff whereas a dog will eat everything, the meat, the bones, the cartilage, everything.

So if you look, those people who want the dunya, who have talab for the dunya, who seek out the dunya, why and how are they being compared to dogs? They are being compared to dogs because dogs have all these attributes. They have this more worry about themselves. They don’t care about others. They will attack their own kind. They are like being compared in this way. So when you see this that the Prophet saw, when He used the word dogs, He meant that these type of traits.

 And if you look, interestingly, people who are scholars, Hazrat Hasan Basri (ra), famous scholar of the taabaein, he has written actually that different animals have different traits and the dog has a lot of these bad traits. But at the same time, dog also  has some good traits and he mentions some of these good traits and says that if a human being was to imbue or adopt one of these traits in them self, then Allah Ta'ala would make them a wali of Allah. Allah Ta'ala has put both shar and khair in everything. Now dogs have lot of shar but they also have some khair we can learn from.

Good Traits of a Dog

We will mention some of the good traits of a dog that Hazrat Hasan al Bari(ra) wrote about;

·          The dog always accepts what it gets. It has qana’at(contentment), and sabr.

          You'll throw the bone, it will take the bone. You throw it something else to eat, it will eat it. It has quality of sabar.

·         If another dog overcomes its territory, its area, if it fights it and overcomes it then the first dog would leave. This is the sign of being razi.

          That ok it’s not in my control, I can't have it then I'll go, I'll leave it. So being razi.

·         If the owner hits the dog, he abuses it, still it won't leave the owner. It is loyal.

          This shows that they are aashiq e sadiq(true lover)of their malik.

·         Whenever something is being eaten in front of the dog, if the malik, the owner is eating something in front of the dog, the dog can see that he is having a juicy hamburger, juicy something or eating something good and the dog has the ability to go and to try to get it but the dog will control its desire. They will not just grab and take it, it is miskeen. This is the sign of being miskeen.

·         Whenever a dog sits, it always picks the most lowest place, the most adnaa place to sit. It will sit where the shoes are. It will sit where the trash is. It is the sign of the humility of the dog.

·          Dog has no place to stay. It doesn’t have a home. No home is made for it. So a dog is mutawakkil, it has tawakkul in Allah Ta'ala that I'll find a place to stay at night.

·         A dog sleeps little. Even if there is a little noise, the dog is the first one to start barking. So the dog sleeps less and wakes up easily. This is the sign of a lover, those who love, they sleep less. Their love, their loyalty does not let them sleep.

So Hazrat Hasan Basri (ra) writes that if any person can have even one of these traits in them, that person will become a wali of Allah!

 But despite this, despite all these good traits that a dog can have, if the dog has talab of the dunya, that would ruin everything. So in the same way, a human, if you look at the analogy, I should take human being, that a human being can have a lot and lot of good traits, they can be razi, they can be miskeen, they can be humble, but if they have hub e dunya in their heart, that hubb e dunya will overcome, will override everything else, it will erase everything else. That's why it's so important to stay away from it. The world is a wild place and just like a wild animal, if you want to derive benefit from the wild animal, you have to tame it. You have to learn how to tame it. It doesn’t happen automatically. It takes time. When a person is trying to overpower a bull or horse, a wild horse, they jump on its top and after a while they fall off. But they don’t give up, they jump again and they try to hold on to the reins and then they are kicked off again. But they try the third time, fourth time, multiple times,and finally they are able to control that horse. Once it's controlled, it's controlled for life. So this is something that our relationship with the dunya is like a wild animal, wild beast that we are trying to control. When we learn how to control it, then we can ride. That same dunya that is wild and it is uncontrollable in our heart, when we learn to tame it, when we learn to control it, that same dunya can then be used for the things that bring us closer to Allah (swt)

SIGNS OF HUBBE DUNYA

How do we know if we have hubb e dunya? Everyone has what you call a Kellies tendon, something that is their weakness. How do we decide how much hub e dunya do we have?

1.      Slave to Desires

Do we have this nafs e ammara? Does our nafs own us? If our nafs wants something, am I unable to say ‘NO’ to it? Do I have to give in?

Nafs_like a 3 year old child!

 Many scholars have described nafs that it is like a child. Like a three year old child. Anyone who has dealt with children, especially a spoiled brat, they would know that the more you listen, the more you give in to that child, the more that child will rule your world. He/She would be more stubborn, would do more tantrums. So sometimes you see a mother who has like this one child and its two or three years old and the child would be like "I want this!" and she doesn’t get it, the whole house would know, the child would be screaming and throwing tantrums. And now her mother is worried and she is like "ok ok we have to give her what she wants". So this is like that the nafs is like this child who has tantrums. And this is like child psychology, more you give into the child, the more tantrums they have, the more you give into them, the next time they are going to have a bigger tantrum, a longer tantrum because they know it works. The more you are like ‘ok I'll give him this time so he gets quiet , the next time child knows that ‘I just have to cry a bit louder and scream a bit stronger and then mama would listen’. So the nafs is like a child, the nafs, the more you give in to it the stronger it becomes, it becomes an uncontrollable temper tantrum child, that just have to scream louder and longer for the next time. So this is something when you are a slave of your desire that whatever your nafs says, you are always giving in, you are always giving in. This is the sign of hub e dunya.

2.      Always want to enjoy and have fun.

Another sign of hub e dunya is that a person is always interested, is always concerned with how to have fun, how to enjoy, always trying to find a way to enjoy, always avoiding any type of serious discussion, always avoiding any type of thing that would make them a bit more serious or make them down, any mention of death, they would escape it because they are just interested in enjoying the life around them.

3.       Always thinking of how to earn more.

Always thinking how can I get more money? How can I get more this or more that? Or how can I increase my qualifications? How can I increase my GPA? Increasing your GPA is also part of the dunya!  Always thinking how you can get more and more?

4.      Makes long-term Plans.

 Sometimes we don’t realize one side of being very attached to world is making long term plans. To some extent we should have a general idea that by 30 I want this in life, by 40 I need that. General rules, general things should be there but when we make really detailed, very long term plans then that means our heart is so attached to the dunya that it becomes our be all and end all.

There comes a Hadith that Prophet (saw) was once sitting with the Companions, He took His walking stick and He made a line, He actually made a box on the ground and in that box he made some lines and the lines were actually exceeding the lines of the box and then He said that this(box) is your life, on one side is your death and these lines are your desires and the desires were exceeding even the box line, line of life , meaning that desires never end!

In another Hadith Prophet saw said that in human being the hirs of the money would never end, if he has one mountain of money, he would want another mountain of money, the only thing that fills his stomach is the dirt of the grave.

So this shows that to have hirs, having desires of the world never ends, it will just increase, increase and increase. A person would say that I just need to make 1 lac a month and then I would be fine but when they make 1 lac a month, he would be like No, No I just need to make a little bit more and the desired amount would just keep on increasing and increasing. A person will never be content, always looking for more and more and more.

5.       Having an abundant supply of entertainment goods.

There was actually a book that was written in the US a couple of years ago "Entertaining Our Self to Death". Sitting in front of the TV, going to movies, eating out, having a whole entertainment culture and living a sedentary life. You make yourself spiritually dead by all this. So having a lot of entertainment also shows a large degree of hub e dunya.

6.      Becomes depressed and down due to loss of wealth/business.

What is your reaction when money comes and money goes? When things come and things go? Getting depressed on worldly loss is also a major indication of Hubbe Duniya.

Episode of some Buzurg

One time there was a scholar who owned some ships, he had some ships so this was his business, type of merchandising and commerce. And somebody once ran to him while he was sitting with his students, and said that "Shaykh! Shaykh! We have this news that your ship that carried all this cargo in it, it was coming and it sank and you lost your ship, you lost your cargo, you lost your crew" and that person who was Allahwala, he was like an old man, he became quiet, he looked down and he quietly just said "Alhamdulillah" and then that person went away. A little bit later, sometime later, that person came back and he said that "O we have some other news for you. Actually it wasn’t your ship; it was somebody else's ship that sank. We got the wrong news and your ship has come to the dock and everything is fine and your stuff is fine." Then again, the buzurg looked down, he did the same thing and quietly said "Alhamdulillah." So the man who brought him the news, he said, "I don’t understand. First time bad news was given to you and you said Alhamdulillah. Second time good news was given to you, the same way you said “Alhamdulillah." He said, ‘Actually when you came with the bad news, first I looked in my heart and I checked does my heart feel any type of sadness? And I found that I don’t have any sadness in my heart so I said Alhamdulillah.

.And Second time when you came with the good news, again I looked down in my heart to see if my heart got happy and I found that it was not affected so again I said Alhamdulillah.’

This is very high level imaan. Our level is infant, kinder garden imaan. We are overly grieved by worldly loss and overly excited by worldly gains. Someone gives us good news our eyes, our body, our demeanor shows it. But these awliyaUllah, they are istaghna of the dunya. Istaghna means self sufficient, to be not emotionally needy, emotionally attached. One is that yes I need money in my purse and in my pocket so I can pay my fees, so that I can pay the bills and one is having it in your heart. So parting with money, if a person can easily part with money then this shows a type of istighna of the dunya, shows the lack of love for the dunya. But when you feel like hoarding money, when you feel like not giving away money. When you feel like okay let me give some sadqa and first you think okay I'll give a 1000 and then you are like ‘no no 500 is enough.’ So this is a sign that the person is attached to the dunya.

7.      Always talking about Worldly matters.

What you talk about shows what is in your heart. Always talking about worldly affairs, fashion, job, career, entertainment, movies etc.

8.      Prefers Worldly gains over Spiritual gains.

When you have choice, do you prefer duniya over Deen? When it comes to sacrificing something for another, do you give away your deen for your duniya? For example , there are job opportunities. In one place you can get more salary but that job involves indulging in something makruh and in the other place, you are offered less salary but the environment is more Shariah compliant, so which one would you chose?

9.      Hoarding wealth.

Becoming bakheel, miserly and stingy.

10.  Does not have regard for the rights of others.

11.  Regards others as inferior.

So one who has love of the world, he judges other people accordingly. He will respect one who has wealth and regard someone with less duniya as inferior. So hubbe duniya also leads to takabbur.

                         

                              REMEDIES

How to cure this disease of hubbe duniya?

1.      Reflect on the reality of the World.

The dunya is the place of deception. The dunya is temporary. That whatever we get of this dunya is just going to help us in our life here. When we go to our graves, when a person goes, first of all the person goes alone. No one will go with you. No one is going to answer for you. You can't say I did this and did that for my parents, I did it for my spouse, I did it for my children. They are not there with you in the grave. You have to account for your own deeds on your own. Secondly you are not going to have your wealth. Money won't go with you. Whatever you work for in this world, will not go with you. The only thing that would help you is what you work for Aakhira in this world, your good deeds, what you spend. Actually what you spent will help you and what you saved will not help you. That will all go to your wurasa, it will all go to the people who are inherent.

 There is a hadith, a very beautiful hadith, Prophet saw once had a goat slaughtered and He told Hazrat Ayesha(ra) to distribute the meat and to keep some. So when He came home, He asked Hazrat Ayesha (ra) did you distribute. What's left? And Hazrat Ayesha (ra) replied that  ‘all has been given, only this thigh is left’ Prophet saw twisted the words and He said that ‘actually only this thigh is not baqi, all the rest is baqi, this thigh is something that would finish’  meaning what you gave to other people for the sake of Allah swt, that will be baqi, baqi means eternal. That sawab would be there for you finished after eating, that would be digested and it won't be a source of sawab and hence this is not baqi, it’s a fani thing. This shows the way of thinking. Once a person realizes the reality of this world, their way of thinking changes. The heart changes, the orientation changes. A person has to reflect that this dunya, what actually I do here, this money that I spend here that’s actually from where I'll get benefit and the stuff that I leave behind, there is no benefit for me in it. In it, the people who are left behind have benefit.

2.      Remember death.

Remembering death because it comes in a Hadith that Prophet (saw) said,

"Remember death abundantly"

The word of kathrat(in abundance) is used. In Quran, Allah (swt) uses the word kathrat with dhikr .All these other ibadats that we have, salah , fasting,Sadqa , zakat,  the word kathrat is never ever used. It's never said ‘pray in abundance’, ‘fast abundantly’, ‘make dua in abundance’. The only word that is being used with kasrat is remembrance. Remember Allah abundantly. Remember death abundantly. Why? Because this is something we can do 24 hours a day technically. Because remembering doesn’t require to do wuddu, to offer prayers or doesn’t require any type of restrictions and conditions. So this is something that a person should do abundantly; remembering death. Our grave remembers us 100 times a day. 100 times a day our grave remembers us and how much do we remember our grave?

It happens that some people are like ‘let's not talk about it, it gives me the creeps’. A person who does not like to talk about death or a person who avoids talking about death, flees from talking about death that is also a disease of the heart; avoiding talking about the death. So remembering death because death remembers us, our grave remembers us. We don’t know where, we don’t know when but it's there, our grave is there, waiting. It remembers us. So we have to remember death. It comes in a hadith that:

Remember death in abundance because this is something that is the breaker of desire.

 It’s a breaker of hirs. It’s a breaker of hub e dunya. Our heart is not a vacuum, you take something out, you have to put something in its place. You take out hub e dunya, you have to put hubbullah(love of Allah swt). You take out the remembrance of the dunya, you have put in the remembrance of death.So this is something that when you take something out, you have to put the opposite in.

3.       Work on those matters that will help you after death.

One time a young man came to a buzurg and he asked him that I'm really scared of death. I'm scared of dying, what should I do? So the buzurg told him togive more sadqa. So he started doing that and then sometime later he came back and he said, "I did this and now I'm not scared of death rather I'm interested in, I'm almost like looking forward to dying.But I don’t understand why?" so then that buzurg explained to him that look! First you were working in this dunya, all your efforts were for this dunya so that's why naturally your heart was attached to the world. So when you started putting your goods, your efforts for the akhirah, now your heart naturally is more attached to the akhirah, so now death will not be a scary thing for you.

Everyone naturally fears death but there are two reasons why a person may fear death;

i)        You fear it because it will make you end this world, you have to leave this world, you have to leave the pleasures and the enjoyments of this world, you have to leave your friends, you have to leave the things of this world. That is the wrong reason to fear death.

ii)       Fear a mo’min has of death: that I'm not ready to die. My deeds are not good enough. I haven't done tauba, I haven't repented for this deed I did. I haven't changed my life. I'm not presentable. I'm not ready to be presented. It is okay to have this type of fear.

 Sometimes it happens when you have to go somewhere and someone is like ‘we have to leave right now’ and we say ‘no no I'm not ready. Let me go wash out, I have to immediately take a shower, I need to put my make up on, I need to press my clothes.’ Then you are just like ‘I need time, I need 10 minutes’. When death comes, a person who is ready, embraces it happily, like a person who has a habit that they get up eight in the morning and then they get ready and then somebody comes and tells them lets go and they are like okay I'm ready to go, they are ready, they don’t need to get ready. So a mo’min's shaan is that they are always ready. They are ready and they want to be ready, to be prepared for death before it comes.

4.      When feel attachment/ love towards something, give it away for the sake of Allah (swt)

Everyone is attached to different things. When you feel excessive attachment to something and you feel that it makes you ghafil, makes you heedless of Allah swt, give it away. And this is very difficult to do, but still give it away.

Waqiah of Hazrat Ka’ab bin Malik(ra) on staying back from Batle of Tabuk

There is a famous story about three sahaba karaam who basically stayed behind in this one battle when everyone was supposed to go and Hazrat Ka’ab bin Malik(ra) was one of them who stayed behind and it comes in his own hadith(his own words)that I stayed behind because I had a lot of wealth and I became very attached to the wealth. So when he stayed behind and the Prophet saw found out and he basically confessed to the Prophet saw. He was punished for some time that no one was allowed to talk to him for fifty days and a very long hadith, a very beautiful hadith that how he spent those fifty days and then at the end when Allah swt accepted his tauba, he said as a part of my tauba I  gave away all my wealth. This wealth made me ghafil, it was because of this wealth that I was heedless of Allah swt and now I want to give it away.

When you fell that something makes you heedless of Allah swt, some love, some attachment, some excessive attachment to something, leave it, give it away. It also comes in the Quran that we cannot obtain taqwa, we cannot attain love of Allah swt, pure love of Allah swt until we spend of that which we love. So spend such that it gives a pinch in your heart. And this is very hard. You feel you are excessively attached to one outfit; you love that outfit, that piece of jewelry, love it too much, give that away. Once you give it away, you will experience the joy , the love that comes from sacrificing something for Allah Swt and that’s much greater than the pleasure you took from that item. Allah swt fills your heart with His muhabbat. When you do something for the sake of Allah ta'ala, whether you give something away, whether you sacrifice something, Allah swt puts something in your heart which will fulfill, will compensate for that loss to such an extent that you would feel like I actually enjoyed doing this more then I enjoyed that thing. You will get to taste the sweetness of Imaan, the sweetness of this Deen. This deen Allah swt has made it sweet; Allah swt has made it enjoyable. When you taste the sweetness of the enjoyment of listening to Allah swt's commands, following Allah swt's commands, developing a relationship with Allah swt's commands then now those same things in the dunya, the things that you used to enjoy in the world, they won't give you that enjoyment. You know a person who does not what true love is, when all of a sudden they know what true love is then they feel like that oh! Those little crushes that I had in my eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade they are nothing. They are nothing when compared to this one true love. So this is when Allah swt gives you taste of His muhabbat, a taste of what real love is, what hubbUllah is, then hub e dunya would become worthless.

5.      Work against the nafs through mujahidah.

The nafs is something that’s from the material world. It will try to bring you down to the material world and the ruh, Allah swt has given everyone ruh , the ruh is made from aalim e amar, made from the spiritual realm, is made from the spiritual substance. And the ruh tries to bring you up. Allah Ta'ala has put both khayr and shar in everyone .Our ruh brings us towards khayr, closer to Allah swt and our naf, it tries to bring us to the base desires of this world. So we have to work against our nafs with mujahida.

Duniya is like a shadow

The duniya the more you run after it, the more it will escape your grasp, just like a shadow. One time a scholar said that this world, running after this world is like running after your shadow. You can run and run and run and you will never catch your shadow. But the minute you turned around and you said ‘forget it, I can't catch it’ and you start walking the opposite direction, the shadow would start following you. So this is our relationship with the dunya. When we ignore it, when we show that this dunya is a haqeer thing, I'm not attached to it, Allah swt Himself Fills your pockets.The more we show the istighna from dunya, the more we turn our face, our tawajjuh, our heart towards Allah Ta'ala , Allah Ta'ala Himself Grants us duniya to make us comfortable, to make our life in this world enjoyable, to fulfill our needs so that we can easily focus on attaining  His pleasure without having to worry about our worldly needs.

 May Allah ta'ala grant us the ability to have His love and to decrease this hub e dunya that we have in our heart and have that ability to control this hub e dunya, the love of the world that we have in our hearts and have the ability to tame this wild beast which is only getting wilder in this day and age with new and new opportunities and ways of chasing base pleasures.