Bismillah, alhamdulillah wa-salaatu wa-salaamu 'ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa 'ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salaam tasleeman katheerah. Amma ba'd...
What would make us to understand and make severe the issue of allowing the preoccupation of this world, where the dhikr (remembrance) of Allah is not involved, to distract us from our purpose? Is it not clear that it is mainly the love and attachment of this world that has weakened this Ummah and subjugated us to calamities, oppression and all sorts of evil? Ya Muslimeen, this world belongs not in our hearts, but in our hands.
Our beloved and illustrious Prophet 'alayhi salaatu wa salaam told us:
"The whole of this world is cursed and cursed is all it contains except the remembrance of Allah and what is connected to it."
Fulfilling our purpose, observing the rights Allah has upon us and securing ourselves an excellent Akhirah are the only items of any worth and blessing in this world. But how loosely and how soon do the sincerely intended righteous acts creep their way to the bottom of our list of priorities? This path bares a simple formula: lose your deen, lose yourself, lose your Akhirah. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guide us and grant us istiqamah that we may remain distant from the path of the losers. Ameen.
Rasulullah salallahu 'alayhi wa salaam told us if this world were worth a single wing of a mosquito, Allah would not allow even a sip of water to the disbeliever. In so many ways and words, not to mention the countless supportive adillah from Qur'an and Sunnah, could the appropriate manner for the believer to view and handle this world be illustrated. But it is the statement of one of our classical scholars, Sheikh ul-Islam ibn Taymiyyah rahimahullah that frames it in one of the finest perspectives. He, Ibn Taymiyyah, said: "Treat this world as you would a lavatory, you only enter to clear your body and you leave it."
Likewise, we find in at-Tirmidhi the famous story related about the Prophet salallahu 'alayhi wa salaam walking through a marketplace and stumbling upon the carcass of a sheep. Muhammad salallahu 'alayhi wa salaam asked his Companions: "Who of you would take this for one coin (dinar)?" One of them pointed out that the ears of the carcass were cut off and so it was said: "Even if you offered us this carcass for free we would refuse it." Muhammad salallahu 'alayhi wa 'ala alihi wa salaam said: "This world is MORE worthless to Allah than this rotting carcass is to you." May Allah increase our taqwa and consciousness to take our Akhirah more serious than our hayyat ad-dunya (life in this world). May this world be removed from our hearts and placed in our hands where it belongs. Allahumma ameen!
And what is there to emphasize the point that it is the love and attachment to this world that thrust us into this poor and humiliating state besides what Muhammad 'alayhi salaatu wa salaam told us about wahn (weakness)? He, salallahu 'alayhi wa salaam, warned the Ummah through saying to his Companions:
"The nations will one day invite one another and come upon you just like the eating invite others to their dish." He, 'alayhi salaatu wa salaam, was asked: "Ya Rasulullah, will it be because we are little in numbers?" He, 'alayhi salaatu wa salaam, said: "No, the Muslims will be numerous, but they will be like the froth on the sea overtaken by the current. And so Allah will remove from the hearts of your enemies, fear, and place into the hearts of our Ummah, wahn." They asked: "Ya Rasulullah, what is wahn?" And he, salallahu 'alayhi wa salaam, said: "It is love for this world and the hatred of death."
Verily, the destroyer of pleasures is ever afoot, so may we and please make dua that I too make use of this world only to prepare and secure for ourselves an easy and blissful Akhirah. Ameen ya Rabb ul 'alameen!
