Getting rid of stinginess - Purification of the heart!

“He who is being miserly (bukhl) is being miserly only to himself” (Surah Muhammad: 38)

“and in his love for wealth, he is very intense.” (surah ‘Aadiyat, verse 8)

The next disease of the heart we are going to discuss is Bukhl. Bakheel, in Urdu you call him kanjus, and in English it is translated as miser, stingy. A bakheel is not really a greedy person but a person who doesn’t like to spend.

It comes in Quran:

‘He who is Bakheel is only being bakheel to himself’ (Surah Muhammad, verse 38)

Meaning, his bukhl, it is only hurting himself.

Definition of Bukhl

Feeling a pinch in one’s heart, tightness of the heart, when a person is about to spend. So bukhl is basically a feeling of the heart.

Now this spending can be of 2 types. Spending on:

i)                    Those one is commanded by Allah to do so. This covers both HaquqUllah(rights of Allah) and Haququl Ibaad(rights of people) upon us. Example:

Ø   Giving Zakat.

Ø   Spending on one’s dependents. Like a husband, a father is commanded to spend on his family, it is mandatory upon him to spend on them.

ii)                  Those one is encouraged in Islam to spend upon. Example:

Ø  Spending on other needy people.

Ø  Spending for religious causes like on Madaris( Religious institutions) and Masajid etc.

Stinginess VS Generosity

The opposite of Bukhl is Generosity. The word for generous in Arabic is Kareem. One of Allah Ta’Ala’s names is also Al-Kareem. Kareem comes from the same root words as karam. Kaaf, Raa, Meem. Kareem means noble. So actually a person who is Kareem, generous, it’s a noble trait. Actually it is one of the noble and best traits. Also if you see Prophet (saw)’s life, his sunnah, he was very noble, very kareem, very generous! Also if you read about those ahadith that how much Sahaba Karam(ra) used to spend in Sadqah, you would realize that there was no concept of bukhl in them. They were exact opposite, they were extremely generous.

Different Levels of Generosity

There are different levels of being generous.

Ø   Spending some money and keeping some money. By spending some, it means spending some on other people. This is the normal level generosity.

Ø  Spending more and keeping little. Giving away more of your earnings and keeping little. This is the higher level of generosity.

 Types of Bukhl

Bukhl has types as well. Being Bakheel:

Ø  In terms of wealth, and money. Being stingy with wealth.

Ø  In terms of obedience to Allah (swt). Being stingy in terms of Salah, in terms of following Allah’s Commands. Like a ‘minimal muslim’ who just wants to the bare minimum requirements of Islam.

However, our focus will just be on bukhl in terms of wealth.

Wealth_not bad in itself

If you look at the concept of money and wealth, fi nafsihi, within itself, there is nothing wrong with money, there is nothing wrong with wealth. In Quran, 2 words are used for maal/wealth.

·         Wa innahu li hubbil khayri lashadeed.

‘and in his love for wealth, he is very intense.’ (surah ‘Aadiyat, verse 8)

The word used here for wealth is khayr. If you look at the word khayr, it has a positive connotation. So wealth/maal has some goodness in it, it has many positive attributes in it too, it’s only wrong when the love of it is shaded (intense).

And some scholars say that everyone is supposed to have a normal healthy degree of love for wealth. A normal healthy degree of attachment to money is necessary, otherwise we wouldn’t care if our things are getting stolen and the money is getting wasted! That’s not healthy, that’s not normal either. You have to have a little attachment to wealth so that there isn’t too much extravagance and we aren’t neglectful of our belongings. So there is some khayr in wealth and that is why Allah Ta’Ala has used the word khayr for maal.

·         And do not give the weak-minded your property, which Allah has made a means of sustenance (qiyam) for you….(Surah Al Nisa, verse 5)

So the other word that has been mentioned in the Quran for maal is qiyam. Interestingly in surah baqarah, the word qiyam has also been used for baitUllah/Khana Kaabah.

 So Allah Ta’Ala Commnds us not to give our wealth to weak-minded people, that wealth and property which Allah Has mad qiyam for us. Meaning the wealth can be also used to lead a good life.

Both the words that are used for maal in Quran are actually the words that can be used in a good context. One is Khayr and other Qiyaam, something you need to survive, something you need to be estabilished! So if look at these verses, maal is something that we need to survive, so there is some khayr(goodness)in it, it is also a blessing and rehmah from Allah Ta’Ala.

 It also comes in Hadith.

·         ‘ that time is near when faqr/poverty would lead a person to kufr/disbelief’

So this shows that poverty can lead a person to kufr (disbelief), hence some healthy degree of wealth is necessary in order for a person to stay away from disbelief.

There is another famous hadith in which the Prophet (saw) said that value 5 things before 5 things. And in them one is to value wealth before poverty.

So if you look at these verses and ahadith, wealth is something that helps a person! If used wisely, healthily and within the dictates of Islam and realm of Shariah , wealth becomes a blessing, mercy and actually helps a person against kufr and helps them do good deeds. So in Islamic philosophy money isn’t bad fi nafsihi, its actually the shadeed/intense muhabbat/love for money that makes it bad!

Islam teaches Moderation

There can be 2 extremes in terms of one’s relation with wealth.

i)                     People who have extreme, intense love for wealth, excessive attachment to wealth which also makes one miserly/bakheel.

ii)                  People who are anti wealth, this maybe a small minority in this day and age. People who neither want to earn wealth, nor want to save or spend it, basically they don’t want to do anything with wealth. They want to become faqeer to the extent that they are cut off from the world, a monk or raahib/ascetic type of person. 

In Islam, there is moderation. Neither should there be intense love for world nor this intense hatred for wealth.

Ahadith e Mubarak regarding Bukhl

Ø  “A miser is far from Jannat, far from people, and close to the fire” (Tirmidhi)

This is a very strong hadith, it’s not that it’s just a small problem people have, it is actually a spiritual disease! Interestingly even if you look in other cultures, universally miserliness is regarded as wrong. It is considered a very bad trait cross culturally. Nobody likes a miser. Even misers themselves don’t like one another! Miserliness is not considered a good trait at any socio economic level or any background. And it has spiritual repercussions as well.

Sometimes a person who is a miser thinks miserliness is good, they disguise their miserliness in the garb of ‘it’s good, I am not being extravagant/fuzul kharch’. So it does happen then that people don’t like such a miser person because of this trait of his and this miserliness is the habit of people who will go to Jahannum!

Ø   “A miser will not enter Jannat” (Tirmidhi)

Ø  “Be careful of miserliness.  Indeed, it has ruined those before you.  It caused them to shed blood and make haram things halal”

When a person is extremely stingy, extremely miserly which happens because of hubbe duniya/ love for the world, then they will do things that are haram, that are impermissible because they are so much in love with the wealth. They don’t love to spend it, they just want to keep it, hoard it.

Ø  “Miserliness and Iman are not gathered together in any heart” (Nisaa’i)

So bukhl and Imaan are 2 things which cannot be there at the same time. Either there is miserliness in the heart or Imaan!

So if we see all these ahadith, bukhl has a lot of spiritual problems. A person who has this problem is going to have a lot of spiritual issues, far from Allah, far from people and far from Jannah!

Ø  Prophet (saw) said, ‘Do you know of any disease worse than bukhl?’!

We see that takabbur/pride is really bad and etc but in here the Prohet (saw) is saying ‘ Do you know of any disease worse than bukhl?’!

 Hadrat Ali (ra) said,

 ‘the worst person is the Bakheel , he is wretched in this world and is punished in the next world’

CHECK YOURSELF……

So how can a person check if they have bukhl? Because this is something which has levels and degrees.  So how to check to which degree we have bukhl in our hearts?

Ask yourselves. Do you…..

·         Find it difficult to spend on others? Or to spend even on your own self?

You know those who are stingy, they neither want to spend on others and sometimes not even on themselves. Some they do spend on themselves but don’t want to spend on others. Some don’t want to spend on anybody whether it be their wives, their families or they themselves! So there are different levels! So do you find it difficult to spend?

·         Feel tightness in your heart when giving zakat or sadqa?

Because actually bukhjl is the feeling of the heart!

There are some people who do spend but later they will remind you of their favor again and again or they will spend and rest of the day they will do sorrow. So actually this is the feeling of heart. So ask ‘Do I feel tightness of heart when I give Zakaat, when I give sadqah, when I spend on someone? Do I feel that pinch?’

·          Do you suddenly remember your own expenses when you have to spend on others?

Ask ‘Is it that when I am going somewhere, thinking i need to give this much sadqah, zakaat, or when somebody asks me for something, all of a sudden do I remember my own expenses, that I need to buy that, I myself need money for this and that? There is children’s tution to pay and what not?’

For example:

‘ first I did niyyah to give X amount let us say 1000 ruppees, and as I walk to get my purse, I think why not give 500 ruppees only?’

And in that process we start thinking about other needs and expenditureswe have!

·         Get upset when someone needy asks you for something? Or someone asks for money for a righteous cause?

This can be for anybody, you know even for parent, when child comes and asks for money for something and parents don’t like it, so that can also be a sign of bukhl for a person. Or your younger brother or sister or friend or somebody asks you for money and you don’t like it and you get upset.

 CAUSES OF BUKHL

These are some general causes.

1)      Love of the world/Hubb e Duniya.

This is a general problem for lot of spiritual diseases! It comes in Hadith

Hubbe Duniya ra’su kulli khateea

 ‘Love of the World is the root cause of all sins’

It’s the root of pride, it’s the root of ostentation, and it’s the root problem for envy. So for bukhl as well, hubbe duniya is the cause! Because when a person loves the things of this world, the temptations, the sweetness of the world, then they are attached, they are clinging to their wealth!

Actually, interestingly, by studying this hadith, scholars have written that if the love of the world is the root of all sins, so if you twist the hadith otherway round, actually leaving the love of the world is the key to all fadheelat (goodness, virtue). Then in Arabic, it would have continued as

Wa tarkuha miftaahu kulli fadheelah

And leaving the love of the world, love of the world, not the world (itself), is the key to all good.

One who doesn’t has this love for the world then he doesn’t have any obstacles either. And the person who has love of the world, it doesn’t matter how much knowledge he has, it doesn’t matter how much suhbat he has, it doesn’t matter how good a company he has, how many talks/bayans he listens to, so when they have love of this world, none of the good things they do in this world will help them because the love of the world will wipe it all off.

2)      Love of wealth.

 Love of the world and love of wealth go together. So this also causes bukhl.

In old times, people used to make dua that ‘O Allah Ta’Ala save us from the love of this world, save us from the love of wealth’

Hadrat Ibrahim (a.s) made a dua that ‘Save me and my children from the worship of the idols’

This is strange, that a Prophet (a.s) is making this dua that ‘O Allah save me and my children away from the worship of idols!’  So actually, Scholars say he didn’t mean the idols in the normal sense of the word, he meant idols of gold and silver, idol of love of money! So in reality his dua to Allah Ta’Ala was to save him and his children from the love of this world and wealth!

Hazrat Ali (ra)’s dua

It is also famous about Hadrat Ali(r.a), that he used to make this dua at the time of Tahajjud, he would actually address gold and silver, he used to say, ‘ O gold, o silver, go and deceive someone else besides me!’

That’s what this world is!  The world is the place of deception! What we call ‘Daar-ul-ghurur’ in Arabic. So people fall into deception in loving this world and when they love this world, it leads to all these other problems!

Excellence of Sahaba Karam (ra)

In Sahaba Karam(r.a), this attribute of abstaining from the pleasure and love of this world was at a very high level!

Prophet (s.a.w) said in a hadith , meaning of which is that I don’t fear for you that you are going to do shirk, but I fear love of wealth.

 He (s.a.w) feared hubbe duniya for his Ummah!

Sahaba Karam(r.a) in the time of victories, when they were going through Persia etc, one of the generals of the Muslim Army, he wrote back to Hadrat Umar(r.a), Khalifah of the time, that if I were to tell you all the things that I have seen, because they went to the palaces  of the Persian emperors and all these royal places, and if I were to write to you what I found and have seen, you would not believe me! You would not believe the richness, the beauty, the houses, and the wealth that we have come across!

They saw all the wealth they had, they saw all the gold they had, they saw these luxuries they had but still they remained unaffected by it. Some Scholars, like Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi(r.a) actually wrote that people find different karamaat to be the most amazing ones in the Sahaba Karam (r.a) but in the eyes of ahle ilm/ people of knowledge, the biggest karamat that the Sahab Karam(r.a) had was that they saw all this wealth and they were not affected by it! They were not drowned by it! This is something that is very rare, it’s very hard!

 How our Relationship with the World and Wealth should be_ Explained with analogies and examples

Ø  Maulana Rumi (ra): This world is like an ocean and our heart is like a boat.

As long as the love of the world doesn’t come into your heart like the water doesn’t get into the boat, your boat, our heart will be fine and the minute the water comes into the boat, the boat will drown! So the minute, love of the world enters our heart, our spiritual heart will also drown!

Ø  We can have wealth in our hands and in our pockets as long as it is not in our hearts!

Ø   Our relationship with world should be like the combination of oil and water. If you add oil in water, it doesn’t get mixed with it, but stays separated, on the surface so just like that person can have wealth without being drowned by it, without being permeated by it.

There are different birds like ducks etc, they have the ability to go in water, they can sit over the surface of water and yet their feathers don’t get wet, the feathers stay dry! So people who can live in the world without getting wet by its love, like ducks they are going in and out of water all the time but still they can stay dry! So in a same way, a person can have millions and millions of money, but as it comes and it goes, it comes and goes, their hearts don’t get affected by it.

So this is something that Sahaba Karam(r.a) had to the highest degree that despite lots and lots of wealth coming their way through the victories , they were not affected by it!

Effect of Company

It also comes that in Hadrat Umar(r.a)’ period, when people started conquering these very rich places and these cities, Hadrat Umar(r.a) then commanded that soldiers are not allowed to live in cities, separate army towns should be made for them, lest hubbe duniya comes into their hearts by interacting with the civilians, by meeting with these people and seeing all their riches!

So this is something that we can also learn, that this love of the world, this gets transferred through company. That’s something we see in ourselves. When we interact or hang out with someone who is into clothes, then all of a sudden we also start getting interested in clothes. We hang out with someone who is into make up or fashion, that also rubs on us (not to say that these things are not jaiz(permissible) but extreme love for them is certainly not good!)

So if you are with somebody who has love of wealth in their heart, with somebody who has love of Duniya in their heart, that’s also going to get transferred into you. So suhbat/ company has a lot of effect even in these things, things like bukhl, and things like love of the World.

3)      Heedlessness of death.

When a person is headless about their death, then they just think about hoarding money, hoarding money, they forget that this is all going to be left behind; it’s not going to go with them to their grave! So who are they keeping it for?

Lot of times you hear these stories(especially in America), like that there was an old man ,he was living in a small house and when he dies people find out that he had millions and millions of dollars in his bank account, and they didn’t know it before! So then they will donate it to some educational institute or something!

They were so stingy with it themselves, what use was it for them then, later it was used for someone else anyhow.

It comes in a hadith, Prophet (s.a.w) said,(meaning)

When a person dies, 3 things follow the dead person to his grave, his family, his wealth and his actions. And 2 things return and 1 stays with him. His family and wealth returns and his actions stay with him.

So that’s something that when a person dies, none of it goes with you. So a person who is stingy, what is it that he is saving for? The whole purpose of having wealth in life is to spend it. If we spend it rightly, we will get reward too.

Imam Ghazali (ra) wrote some text on the potential harms and problems of wealth. 6 from amongst those problems will be mentioned here.

i)                    Acts of disobedience and sins become easier.

Why? Because when a person has money, the door to sin becomes open, wide open! Money is something that attracts the attention of shaytaan more, plus it attracts the attention of wrong types of friends. One way to test your friendship is that when you have money, is it only then that that person is with you or is he with you even when you don’t have money?

This happens. Many of us might know about some friend, that when the treat is due on us, he/she is our friend and when the treat is due on them then he is no one’s friend!

So when you have money, everyone wants to be your friend, especially people who are insincere, people who are into bad type of activities.

This is often seen that children who grow up in wealthier homes, they tend to be involved in more sin. Why? Because they actually have this open door to commit sin. They have the access to the cars, they have access to the money, and they have access to friends with money. They can go to another town, they can buy tickets, stay in a hotel, all these things, they become much much easier and then obviously it’s easier to commit sin.

ii)                  One gets use to ease and comfort, and mujahada becomes difficult.

When we have money, we get used to nice life, luxurious items, we have AC, climate control, soft beds, good food, and everything becomes easier. And mujahida (struggling against your nafs) becomes difficult. Struggling for the sake of Islam, any type of spiritual struggle becomes difficult!

So a person, let us say they wanted to go on a trip to Europe , a trip to Malaysia or Singapore, they are ready to do that very easily but when it comes to Hajj and Umrah, that becomes difficult on them because that requires some effort and physical struggle.

These problems we are mentioning, it doesn’t mean every wealthy person has these problem, but these are the problems that money can bring along.

And that’s the whole point of Hajj and Umrah, it doesn’t matter how rich you are, some or other mujahida you will have to face in these. Hajj especially, is a very equalizing factor. Same clothes, same time, the whole idea being to bring us to some level of mujahida in one way or other!

Strange stories we hear, that even those who do 5 star Hajj and Umrah and they want an easy Umrah, easy Hajj, but even for them it’s not completely easy, at some point or another, they also go through some mujahida.

An interesting episode

Some man, he said that I want to go to Hajj (or Umrah) but I want everything to be easy, no difficulty at all. So they stayed in a 5 star place, got 5 start ticket and package, group etc. One day there, his wife said to his mother that ‘ Ammi I am going to make tawaf, I will come back shortly’, so she went and she didn’t come back. And they kept waiting and waiting for her and she had none of her documents or stuff with her. So then he spent 3 days, looking for her, going to different hospitals, to this and that, and poor man couldn’t even eat or drink or do anything properly for 3 days. They went for a 5 star Hajj but Allah Ta’Ala has His plans, we have to overtake some mujahida, some difficulty or another. Eventually he found his wife. She had become unconscious and had been taken to a Hospital, but she had no documents. So finally when she gained consciousness, she contacted her family.

So this is something that person tries to avoid mujahida but it will be there in Hajj and Umrah. Sometimes it gets easier when you accept whatever mujahida you have to do, and those who try to escape it then they get involved in it in unexpected ways.

Hence, when a person is used to living easy and comfortable life, then doing this mujahida becomes very tough on them.

In old times, people who were wealthy, especially self made, they didn’t want to let their kids develop into the habit of getting pampered. They wanted to make them try and taste different lifestyles, they would take them to villages etc.

You hear these stories even in your own families that the father would sit in the 1^st class and he would make his son sit in 3^rd class, so that the son knows how the common people travel.

This was more common in Muslim Ummah in old times, but now what happens is that usually those who are rich, they want their kids to just enjoy luxurious lives. The children then, when they get into just 30s or so, they are getting weak, having back pains, finding it difficult to sit on floor. So many problems at an age of 25! Because they had become so used to living easy and comfortable lives.

Surprisingly, you will find in Western Culture that some of these very rich people, the ones you find in magazines as top 10 richest families etc, you see their lives, some of them have very austere lives! They don’t pamper their children so much.

 Like it comes about Bill Gates, he is not giving anything to his children. He is like that I have earned myself so you too earn yourselves! He’s giving it to charitable organizations.

People who are not even Muslims, even they put this jazba/passion to do mujahida in their children. And Muslims today, they earn so that they can give it to their children! These people are then Bakheel! This is also Bukhl. It comes in a hadith, the Prophet (s.a.w) once picked up one of his grandchildren, kissed him and then said, ‘ The children are the flowers of Jannah, but they make a person Bakheel(stingy), coward and make him fear death’

A person becomes bakheel because of his children that I have to save money for my kids, I have to pay for their studies and colleges and then I have to undertake their marriage expenditures etc. So that makes a person Bakheel.

iii)                Fear of death.

When a person becomes very wealthy, and they have made for themselves a comfortable life, then they don’t want to die, they are scared of death. Why? Because they had made for themselves a small Jannah on Earth, then why would they want to leave it?

iv)                Love of status and fame.

Often one of the problems of wealth is that a person wants some type of position. That’s why, often, the wealthy people are going out and seeking Politics. So when a person is wealthy, they want to be in some lime light, they want to be in some position or power.

v)                  Heart and mind always thinking about it.

Even if one saves them self from all the other problems, like if someone has lot of wealth yet they are able to stay safe from the other 4 problems mentioned, still it will be very hard to stay away from this problem.

When a person has wealth, then you have to think, ‘ok what should I do with this?’, ‘where should I spend it?’, ‘where should I keep it?’, ‘how should I protect it?’ So you are always worried about it.

Those who don’t have wealth to begin with, they are like Allah Allah, khayr se Allah. They depend on Allah.

They are not worried about protecting it, because they have nothing to protect!

So when a person has wealth, this is probably the worst thing, that you are always worried, all your mind and thoughts are focused on it that where should I invest, who to take it from, who to give it to. And people who do investments then this is an addiction, sometimes for a man, this is an addiction! Always checking the stock market, always checking their stocks, always checking their money whether it’s going in profit or loss. Their investments and their businesses become what they dream about, what they think, what they eat and what they talk about with their friends!

vi)                More hisaab in the Akhirah.

It is a saying of Scholars, ‘Haraamuha ‘azaabun wa halaluha hisaban’

That what is haram of your wealth, on that will come the Punishment of Allah Ta’Ala, and even for that which is halal, you will be taken to account to in the Next world.

That is why it comes in a Hadith that poor people will enter Jannah 500 years before the rich ones.

It doesn’t mean that rich would not enter Jannah, but that they will have more to give account for so that will take more time then!

These are some problems that Imam Ghazali(r.a) mentions of wealth. Wealth in itself is not wrong, a person shouldn’t think that I don’t want wealth because I don’t want all these problems but if we have wealth, we have to be careful to get rid of these problems that come with wealth.

REMEDIES

How to fight Bukhl?

There is a verse in Quran

‘Those who safeguard themselves from the hirs of the nafs, they are the ones who are successful’

1)      Fighting this hirs(greed) of the nafs, by forcing ourselves to:

i)                     Spend for the sake of Allah Ta’Ala.

This has both spiritual and psychological effects. Because wherever you invest money, you have more attachment to that place.

A simple thing, this is something we have all experienced. When we get something for free, we don’t value it so much, like kids, when parents give them something, it gets malfunctioned, or gets wasted, it doesn’t affect them much. But when they buy something themselves, with their own hard earned money, then they would take so much care of it!

The father gets his child a pair of shoes, the kid tears them out by playing and running and can’t care less, and when he buys his own shoes, he would polish it daily.

When we earn something with our effort, we value it more. So wherever we spend money, we have more attachment to it. If you spend your money for the sake of Allah Ta’Ala, and if you spend your money for giving it to poor people, then you get more interested in poor people.

Say you give your money to educate a child, now you are interested in how is that child doing in education to make sure that your money is not getting wasted. You become interested in his progress, that now he has done primary, now he should do secondary school as well.

Interesting Episode

Once there was a buzurg(old spiritual personality), one day a young man came to him and complained that I fear death a lot, that buzurg advised him to spend more in sadaqah(charity) fi sabilIlla(in the path of Allah), then that young man came back to him after some time and the buzurg inquired that how is your state now? And the young man replied that now I am not scared of death at all but I don’t understand the wisdom behind your advice, how did that ‘amal cure my fear for death. So the buzurg explained to him that actually when you spend money for your Aakhira, then your heart will start getting attached to Aakhira. Where you make your house, that is where your heart is. Now that you are making for yourself a home in Aakhira, now your heart is more interested in Afterlife, more interested in what comes after death and so you would not be so scared of death anymore.

 Now, there is this natural, qudrati fear of death, but that excessive fear of death, that would not be there. So this is something that the more you spend wealth for the sake of Allah Ta’Ala, it actually has a spiritual effect that your heart would get detached from the world and psychological effect that it will get attached to what you are spending it on i.e Aakhira. So automatically, a person’s heart will change in direction when you spend more for the sake of Allah (swt).

ii)                  Spend on Family.

Lot of times, people have this problem, their husbands, or their fathers don’t spend on them. Wife will complain that my husband doesn’t spend on me or the people of the house will complain. The more the husband spends on his wife and children, the love between them also then increases.

It comes in a hadith

‘Tahaadu tahaabu’, ‘Give gifts(to one another), and (this will increase) love’

If a husband spends on his wife and children or any one in charge spends on his dependants, this is like sadaqah, and also the mutual love would increase.

2)      Remember Death.

The more you remember death, the more you realize that this wealth is a temporary thing; it comes and goes, so I should spend it before I die.

(very loose translation)There is a hadith where the Prophet (s.a.w) took a stick and made a square on the ground(sand) and then he made lines in that square. Some lines were within the square whereas some stretched out of the square. So he gave this analogy that this square is your life and these lines are you desires i.e your desires even exceed your lifespan and then there was a line that cut through other lines, the line of death which will put an end to it all.

 So when a person thinks about their death, then these desires of his will end and this bukhl will also end.

There is another hadith

Meaning/mafhoom: Nothing can satiate Bani Adam(his greed for wealth) , only the mitti(dirt) of his grave will fill his stomach!’

So the more a person remembers death, the more will this greed for wealth, love for the world, this bukhl be controlled.

3)      Reflect on the Verses and Ahadith-e-Mubarakah regarding bukhl.

There are many verses that the rizq/ sustenance, this is something that has been decreed and distributed amongst His slaves by Allah (swt). The person who is being miserly, they think they control their rizq, they think they can hoard their rizq.

Also to think that in all these Ahadith, there is so much hatred shown for the Bakheel. Even in Urdu, they say ‘kanjus makhi chus’ so people look at him with disregard.

There is hatred for miserliness cross culturally; even the bakheel people themselves don’t like bukhl.

4)      Reflect on the purpose of wealth.

 Wealth has been distributed amongst men by Allah Ta’Ala, to some He gave more, to some He gave less but the point is that we spend.

 And sometimes view yourself just as a messenger that whatever Allah (swt) has given me, I have to distribute it further. Don’t view your money as your own! To view that yes some is for me and my family, but the rest, maybe Allah Ta’Ala gave it for this very purpose that I spend it on others.

The more you spend on other people, this shows your shukr/gratitude and then Allah Ta’Ala also gives you more in return!

It’s interesting that if you look at the Arabic word for spending, it is ‘ Infaaq’, and the root words of that is nun, fa, qaaf, nafaqa. Nafaqa, if you look at it, it also forms the root form of Munaafiq/hypocrite. So nafaq means tunnel and is it used for hypocrites that they are hypocritical and they come up with an exit strategy thinking that when things get rough, I will wave out, basically a back door, back way, exit.  So nafaq means tunnel and infaaq also comes with same root words. Scholars have derived from this, that spending is like a tunnel, and when a person is bakheel it’s like the traffic jam in the tunnel. So whatever comes in tunnel, the more you spend it, more comes from the other side but if you don’t spend it then it will get jammed up and then more would not come from the other side!

Even in English, they say ‘Spend and God will send!’

So the more you actually spend, the more will come your way.

The say in Arabic, ‘Anfiq, unfiqa ‘alaika’, ‘Spend(on other people) and more will be spent on you!’

And ‘Infiq ma fil jaybi, ya’teeka fil ghaybi’ ‘Spend from what is in your pocket, and He will give you (more) from Ghayb (hidden means)’

Narrative of Hazrat Aisha (ra)

It comes about Hadrat Aisha (r.a) , that after the Prophet (s.a.w) passed away, she had a small bag of barley flour in the house, she says that I would take some out every day and make a chapati(bread/roti) out of it and eat, and a long time passed away like this and the bag of barley flour didn’t finish, and then I decided to measure it but when I measured it, afterwards the flour finished soon.

So this is an interesting narration of hers. When we spend after looking how much we have and how much we don’t, and when we think a lot then we are not able to spend. This is also related to the next remedy.

5)      When a thought of spending on a good cause comes to you, act immediately

Act immediately because the nafs and shaytaan will definitely attack you and try to convince you to not spend.

 Like we discussed before, when you make an intention that I will give this much amount (1000 ruppees), the minute you walk to go get your wallet, you may get this thought, that o maybe 500 is also enough. So then you have to force yourself to stick to the first, in fact go one step further and punish yourself for this bukhl that why did this thought even come ,now I will give even more than what I initially thought, I will give 1500 or maybe even 2000 now! So instead of going down, push it up a bit.

When you do this ‘amal, then by the barakah of this ‘amal and pure intention, Allah Ta’Ala will cure you of this bad trait and disease of bukhl.

It comes in Quran Sharif;

Meaning> don’t think that by giving Sadaqah, your wealth decreases, instead it increases in fact! And by riba/ taking interest, don’t think that wealth increases, no but it instead decreases!

 These things we need to understand, because we don’t have this concept that how things happen in the court of Allah Ta’Ala.

This is what is called barakah, that the more you spend, the more barakah comes in what wealth you have behind.

Try it yourself!

Put some money without counting it in some envelope and then spend out of it whenever you need to without doing bukhl and you will see that that small envelope of money of yours will last you so long! But don’t count it, because the day you count it, the barakah will be uplifted and it will finish soon.

So have confidence in Allah Ta’Ala’s attribute of being Al-Razzaq, that Allah (swt) is the One who gives and provides and my job is to spend it.

And you get to hear these strange incidents of buzurg people/ righteous people. They will be giving 1000 ruppees from this side and within hours 1000 ruppees or even more will come from the other side, someone gifts them or by some other means.

So this nizam/ arrangement and planning of Allah Ta’Ala is ajeeb/strange, sometimes it can manifold by 700 times! It comes in hadith that one who gives for the sake of Allah Ta’Ala, Allah Ta’Ala can give him ten to 700 times or even more in reward and even give it back to him in this world!

 Magnanimity of Our Rabb

A person who might not himself be giving sadaqah, but is involved in that process of giving sadaqah, like it comes in hadith, that for example someone is a treasurer and his master tells him that take this amount from my treasure and give it to X,Y,Z , so even the treasurer will get reward of that deed(though it wasn’t  his own money) by giving that amount to X,Y,Z honestly!

So when a person is involved in giving sadaqah themselves, or involved in some institution etc and involved in helping out in collecting sadaqah and distributing sadaqah, then Allah Ta’Ala never leaves them empty handed themselves! They also end up having something in their hand!

6)      Do not make long, complicated plans!

We often start making plans that o I will get this much in future, then I will do this and this and save this much and so and so, long plans and often with the passing of time, something or other happens and we get back to Round Zero!

Some plans, rough plans, rough estimates are fine, lot of it is planning, planning something proper but making elaborate, complicated plans, that may sometimes be because you lack tawakkul/putting your trust in Allah(swt) and then things would not go as planned.

So in terms of bukhl in money, one remedy is to not make long, complicated plans. Because otherwise, you will plan that o I am saving to build ourselves a house and this and that etc and then you will not spend.

7)      Spend more time in worship and acts of obedience

This is a general remedy for everything. Do more ibadah and make dua that this spiritual disease gets out of our hearts.

An ending note…..

There is a verse in Quran that we will end with. Allah Ta’Ala says

‘Wa la yahsabann-allazeena yabkhaluna li-ma a’atahumUllahu min Fazlihi, huwa khayrun lahum, bal huwa sharrun lahum, sa yutawwakuna ma bakhilu bihi yaum-al-Qiyamah’

‘“And let not those who hoard up that which Allah has bestowed upon them of His bounty think that it is better for them.  It is worse for them. That which they hoard will be on their collar on the Day of Resurrection.  Allah’s is the inheritance of the heavens and the earth, and Allah is Aware of what you do”

                  (Aal Imran, 180)

                                     So we should think that this wealth is from Allah, it’s not even something of our  own, this is Allah Ta’Ala’s bounty, so we shouldn’t think that hoarding it up is good for us, instead this is worse for us. So hoarding something is much worse than spending it!        

So a person who does bukhl in this world, they would not get any benefit from the stuff they hoard in this world and instead it will be a wabal/musibat/problem in the Aakhirah. They will be carrying this on their necks and on their backs on the Day of Judgment.

So bukhl is something that is a manifestation of lot of other spiritual diseases namely love for the world, and love for the money.

May Allah Ta’Ala Grant us all the ability to fight this spiritual disease and may He (swt) Take out all type of bukhl from our heart.

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.