Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – How Much Food is Wasted Every Day
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respected brothers and sisters Assalamu alaykum Warahmatullahi
Wabarakatuh.
It's very interesting that we're
We've convened this program for fundraising for Somalia.
Recently, I saw a little clip out of Saudi Arabia, maybe some of you
saw it as well.
It's about this restaurant, a Muslim restaurant where these
people they went to eat. And when they went to get their bill, they
were charged a bit extra. And the reason they were charged extra was
because
they hadn't finished the dish. They hadn't finished their plate
they serving that had been given to them, they've left some of it.
And thus they were charged the fine for that, which was they
didn't probably didn't notice it, that it was written but they were
happy to pay it. Essentially this restaurant owner mashallah nice
Muslim brother, he's started this
charge this, he's instigated this charge, that if you don't finish
your plate, then you pay and that money goes towards Somalia and
other places. Now the thing is that some of those brothers are
going in there to eat, they were quite happy about paying that. But
eventually what will happen is that inshallah it will go to some
length in stopping people from wasting things, what happens is
when you go to eat somewhere, especially when you have to feed
someone, or when you're all together, you end up buying too
much. And sometimes, it feels a bit embarrassing to maybe finish
your plate off or to ask for a bag or a container where you can take
it home. And regardless, even if you take the good stuff home,
right, you know, people enter their kabobs and their meat and
stuff like that, you know, they're addicted to that stuff. So they
may take some of that home. But when it comes to all of these
other things like the condiments, and the salad and things like
that, that goes to waste now this these are Muslim restaurants we're
talking about all over the world. I mean, you can observe this in
Saudi Arabia when you go for hydro hombre, you will notice that you
go to eat somewhere they give you this big standard plate of salad
this you know, this chutney this thing this and different
condiments, and eventually they just go to waste. Can you imagine
the amount of waste that is taking place? And that's just the tip of
the iceberg? We're speaking about donating, right? We're speaking
today about donating for the sake of Somalia, we're speaking about
good things insha Allah about Iman. It is just as miserliness
will be tackled today about why a person may not want to spend too
for their brothers and sisters in places that are not as privileged
as the place we live in. So just as we will be tackling the subject
of buccal or miserliness, stinginess, you know, tight
handedness just as we'll be speaking about that, I think it's
extremely important that we have a discourse and we speak about
we speak about a Seraph or wastefulness is a concept in Islam
called is rough, which Allah subhanho wa Taala speaks about
more than 20 times in the Quran uses the word is rough and Muslim,
Mr. Levine. And as bad as it may be, I mean, you can see how bad it
is Allah subhanho wa Taala calls this the bliss. I mean, Allah
subhanaw taala calls the pharaoh in the hookah liminal Musa riffin,
that he was off the most Seraphim, he was off those who are
extravagant, overly indulgent, and given to wastefulness. I'll give
you an example how much we'll do does each one of us use I mean,
how much we'll do does each one of us do in a day time? And in that
we'll do How much water do we use?
Personally, I think if you look around in this country, right or
any Western country, you'd probably find that Muslims
probably waste the most water
Right now that's that's the that's the theory I have that I think we
as Muslims, especially the practicing ones, right, the
practicing ones, I think we spend, we use more water than anybody
else. The reason is that we have to make wudu, four or five times a
day, minimum three times a day, two times a day, you know, we have
to have muscles, you know, it's obligatory for us as hosts and
when it's necessary. Now, the amount of water that we were using
when it comes to just wudu, I'll give you an example in the Sunnah
amount to use, right, which is literally like, you know, these
plastic disposable cups we have probably about two of those is
sufficient for will do. And if you think that you can't do it that
you don't know, what we'll do means you don't know what it means
to do with it, believe me, you can literally do with two of those
glasses of water. The reason is that it's not about bathing the
hand, that's what we do, we literally put put our hand under a
tap, and we just let it flow, we can wash our hands about 15 times
over, or other people can probably wash their hands 15 to 20 times
over in the amount of water that water we will use just to wash our
hands with. And that is not an exaggeration. And shall I'm gonna
actually do a demonstration of that, you know, some other times,
I'll show you because if you have a basin of water, you know, not in
the best shape. But at home, if you've got a basin of water, and
you just put it on from the beginning to the end with a
plugin, the amount of time it takes you to do will do leave the
water on for that amount of time, you will notice that you will
probably overflow. How many cups of water is in that basin, what is
it equivalent to is probably equivalent to about 50 or 20 cups.
So where you should be able to do it with with two cups, you're
literally using 10 times the amount, right and this is no
exaggeration, you could be using even more than those people who
have some obsessive disorder where they think they haven't washed
properly, they'll probably use double that amount even right. But
generally speaking, we're all using more than we're supposed to,
you know, although in the earlier times was never done in the way
where you just opened the tap and just relaxed and spoke and did
other things while you washed in Washington, you know, just just
let the water flow, it was never done like that. Right, we need to
we need to be able to do this in a way where we preserve the water,
the minimum we can do is we open it, we get some water. And if you
I mean if you have those twisting taps, they're a bit more
difficult. But if you've got a tap where you just pull the lever up
and down, they work much better for wudu. So if you've got one of
those at home or get one of those things installed, because don't
open it too much, just open it enough, do you know wash your hand
wash it wash your face when you're washing your face, because it
takes a bit of time to make sure the water gets everywhere, close
the tap, you just have to get the water and then you just literally
bang down on it. You just push down on it you will close and then
it will come off and then you just you just wash wash your face.
Likewise, when you're doing your muscle, you're wiping off the
head, the ears and so on closed the tub. Believe me this is
extremely important. The other thing is don't have the water on
full blast. Now you wonder what what is what is what is a scholar
speaking about these things we hear about this, this stuff from
you know environmental green campaigners? I mean, this the
shakes gone green. You know, what, what's the problem with that?
Really, it is it is something that we have to be it's an injunction
in the Quran. It's an injunction in the Quran. And maybe you don't
know it. But you're paying for this. At the end of the day, every
bit of water you're using. And every bit of water you're
disposing, you pay for both, you pay half the price for disposing
to Thames Water if you're living in London, right, and you pay
double that for using the water and as Muslims, we're wasting a
lot of our water. At the end of the day, we need to do our parts
as well. This is extremely important. That's just about
water. Right? That is just about water when it comes to foods food.
It's amazing, right? It is amazing. The amount of wastage
that even we do. I mean in terms of the dunya in terms of the way
it works in the world. It's quite crazy because firstly, there's a
wastage problem in most in most industrialized, progressive first
world countries, there's more of a wastage than there is in other
places.
First, we've got the restaurant problem. When you stay at a hotel
as well. It's the same thing. What happens normally is that you use a
bit of the shampoo, the rest of it has to be thrown away. Right use a
bit of the soap, you get a bar, the rest of it has to be thrown
away. There is just so much more wastage that is happening in all
of these places. And this is just, this is just the tip of the
iceberg. I remember once I went into the supermarket while I was
in America, I went into the supermarket and I was and I showed
this really nice olive bread. Right, you know, olives in bread.
It's kind of very interesting kind of loaf. So I said, you know, how
much is this? He said, Would you like a taste? I said I don't mind.
I said maybe he's got some, you know, small pieces cut that
they're giving out to tissue and you go to some, some stores,
shops, shops, supermarkets, they give you a bit to taste. What he
did was he took that whole loaf, there were about four or five
loaves in that in that tree. He took one loaf, took a big knife,
he cut the end, slice off, threw it in the bin, cut another slice
and then he handed that one slice to me. So okay, I looked at it
What I was looking at that he took the rest of that whole loaf of
bread and that bread, believe me cost about six or $7. Because it's
an olive bread, it's a delicacy. It's a speciality bread. And he
dumped it into the bill. Right? He trashed it. He literally went bang
into it. And I just looked at him and said, What are you doing?
I said, What are you doing? I felt so guilty. I felt so bad that for
me, because I said, Yes, I don't mind tasting it. He had dumped
that whole loaf of bread. Right, you know, people will kill for
just a slice of bread anywhere else. I'll give you another
example.
I was in South Africa, what I was studying there I went, we went to
eat somewhere. Right? Just quickly, you know, there was a we
were at university, we have to quickly eat. And after it
finished, and you know, I don't normally leave food around, you
know, I tried to order only as much as, as I need generally. So,
you know, the only the only time you'd even leave something as if
you didn't really like it or something like that. I ate as much
as possible, me and my friend. Then we went and dumped the, the
package, you know, the container with chicken or whatever it was
the bones, when put it into the bin straightaway, this young young
man, he comes along, he goes into the bin, he grabs that out. And he
opens it. I know what he would have found on there. But he
started, he started doing something with it. I felt really
embarrassed. Another guy comes along to me. And he thanks me. So
what are you thanking before, he said, I thank you that you left
something on it for that person. Like I didn't leave anything. You
know, I was just so embarrassed. I didn't leave anything on there.
But that is the level we're speaking on South Africa is not
the poorest of the African nations. Right? South Africa is
actually probably the most progressive, which is very
interesting. But these are the experiences that we've had, I sat
with another group of people I went, I was invited somewhere to
his brother's house. And as we sit sitting there eating in a very
traditional way on the floor with a big platter of rice of money
style, big platter of rice in the middle, and we're all eating from
that. Right. So this is the first time I'm being invited to the
house and I'm eating. So as soon as we start eating, I see that
they're dropping food in front of the meals, it was myself, him and
his son. And as we're eating, they're taking you know, they're
taking the rice, they're mixing, you know, the Korean to whatever.
And then as they're eating, they're dropping, so between them
and the platter there was there was an amount of space on which
there was the Duster Han you know, the, the piece of leather or
something you put on the on the floor. By the end, they had enough
rice in front of them right outside the plate, enough to feed
one person. Both of them had one plate each like that. And
seriously, it was embarrassing, but I said it very nicely. I said
mashallah, you know, look, we're so rich today, you know, we have
so much food that we're wasting so much, you can literally feed
somebody with the amount of rice that you've been dropping. But the
hamdulillah some months afterwards, when I went to the
house again, now hamdulillah they weren't producing an extra plate,
right in front of them. They had been disciplined Alhamdulillah.
But these are certain things that come from culture. Another one is,
I go somewhere, and the person did not finish his cup of tea off. He
leaves a small amount of the bottom, I said, What are you
doing? He said, You know, it's considered greedy. It's considered
greedy to finish off everything. It's like you're so hungry, You're
so greedy, you're so poor, the main thing is not about greed,
it's actually the use of poor that you leave that you don't leave
anything. It's it's a sign of, you know, it's a sign of richness,
it's a sign of being prosperous that you actually leave something
that you know, you're very quaint and everything and you know, you
don't you don't drink everything. It's kind of interesting. Right?
So these are some habits and customs that are even within the
Muslim community which is really sad. If you look around the world
we've got a major problem
we've got a major problem, right? I mean, I'm not even going to
start on brilliant.
When it comes to bread for example, they say that about half
of the bread that will be sold in the shops that will leave the
bread factories will eventually be disposed and not eaten in this
country. Half of the bread that is produced in this country will be
disposed nearly up to half of the bread will be disposed and not
eaten because you know you've bought too much buy one get one
free you know two for two pounds, or whatever the case is half of it
will be disposed of and you will need to because it will become fun
guide you know it'll become dry and become stale or whatever the
case is. Even though the bread these days last for so long. You
know the kind of bread I'm speaking about, you know, the
cheap white stuff that you buy that is softer than anything else.
You know that that's a bitter in Islam. Right. The other mentioned
I mean, this is very interesting. The ruler mentioned the Hadith
scholars mentioned that the first bidder in Islam is the use of
civs.
The first bidder, they said in Islam, not bitter in the
reprehensible term where it's like
haram. This is not a fifth key point. This is in the time of
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, they didn't use sieves to
sift the flour. Literally when the Sahaba was asked, and how did you
deal with your flour? How did you make it into dough? He said, Well,
we got the grain, we ground it. And then after that, we just went
off, he says, literally says of like, you just blow on it, and
whatever flew away, flew away, whatever disappeared, disappeared,
the rest of it will just make that into into bread. And there was
barley bread, generally the prophesy that was him hardly ever
had wheat bread. It was mainly barley bread, which is more
refined than barley, barley. There wasn't any wheat in Madina
Munawwara hardly any wheat around at the time. So they never used
the sieve. But what the scholars say afterwards is that the use of
the spoon and the use of the served these were the use of the
sieve is definitely the first bid in Islam. But again, not bid on
any reprehensible bidder in terms of haram, we're not speaking about
that. We're speaking about the first innovation that came from
outside and that messed up messed up the Muslim community and made
them focus more on the dunya. That's what they're speaking
about. We're not saying It's haram to have white bread, that the
crazy thing today is that it costs more to more to buy non white
bread, unrefined bread, seeded batch, right, something with the
Greens inside the brown stuff, it's more expensive to buy that
even though it's better for you, the white stuff, there's a problem
with it. And England was the pioneer in that regard, England
innovated a system for making bread, which made bread very
cheap, it made it very easy to make and manufacture in less than
half the time. Or in 1/10 of the time of the fermentation process,
and so on. It's called the Charley wood flour milling, and bakery
Research Association laboratory. They in 1961, they researched and
came up with this way of producing bread, making the average loaf in
Britain 40% softer, right for him isn't softer, reducing its cost
and more than doubling its life. And every slice was uniform. It
just looked like you know, something that you manufactured,
you know, by hand or something like that. But literally, it's
like cotton wool, that the cheap white stuff. It's like cotton
wool. You know, in America, I remember used to get this Wonder
Bread, I could just never eat it. It just seems so fake. Right?
Literally, it just seems so fake. This is not bread, right. And
this is generally much of the bread that you will buy. That's
the mainstream bread that you just pick up, right, the general the
white stuff, it's bad for your stomach, there's a lot of problems
with it in the bleached flour, it's processed, there's a lot of
problems with it. Essentially, what they discovered is Charley
would process in the story would process is that by adding hard
fats, extra yeast and a number of other chemicals, then mixing it at
high speed, that you were able to bake it in a fraction of the time
that it normally took. But at the end of the day, there's there's a
compromise on taste and digestion, ability to digest that is is much
less than the normal breath because that's just much more
natural.
When it comes to global food problems, right? We've got another
literally it's like a major ISAF problem a major the VI problem,
which means a major squandering problem. And what that is, is
the Institute of mechanical engineering, are saying that the
waste that is being caused today is is mostly due to poor storage,
strict sell by dates, where after which many people they won't even
smell the product, they won't examine it, or it's out of date,
they will literally throw it away. There's a lot of people who are
very obsessed by that they will literally for free throw away
anything that is that's had its sell by date. Right? Then you've
got
what they're saying is that the amount of food waste is up to 2
billion tons worth
2 billion tons worth is being wasted. Every year.
study claims that up to 30% of the vegetables in the UK were not
harvested. Right? They were just wasted. They were just disposed of
because of their physical appearance. Tell me something Have
you ever been into Tesco and I thought about this some time ago?
Have you ever been into Tesco Sainsbury's or as the and found
an apple that was slightly out of shape? An orange that just looked
a bit out of shape, they're all perfect. The reason is that they
have to be sifted. They have to be sifted, they have to be sorted and
up to 30% is wasted.
It's some of it is fed to animals. The other is just literally
disposed of. Why? Because the supermarket's who are the major
purchases, it's easier to deal with the major purchases just have
the big accounts, right? They only want those now this talks by
Morrison's and others of accommodating some of the more
deformed stuff, right it's still healthy to eat. It just looks
different. You know, like if you've got an apple tree or plum
tree in your backyard, you know that you'll you'll get some
deformed ones. It's just like
That is completely fine to eat. But this is where we are with this
extravagance in the country that we live in, or in the area that we
live in.
It's, it says that it's actually a normal practice for farmers to
assume that 20 to 40% of the fruits and vegetable crops won't
go to market, because it's just not the right shape, or the size,
it's too small, they all have to be the same. Have you noticed that
every banana you buy is the exact same space, same same size, and
shape, they all look the same, just about every punch that you
buy.
between 30 to 50%, of the 4 billion tonnes of food that is
produced around the world each year goes to waste.
So we're talking about between 30 to 50% of all the food that is
prepared, produced in the world goes to waste and doesn't go to
feed people, then we wonder why this happens? There will be some
Allah, why do some spoke about 2.5% of your wealth given from the
rich to the poor, and that will serve the metro. That's a really
magical number. That's an extremely that's a miracle number,
just 2.5% that's occurred, that will sort our poverty situation
out if the people who have the money faithfully and fairly give
2.5% of their wealth, it is more than sufficient to deal with the
with the problems in the world. Right. Now, I don't say here that
we're not giving our cuts. We may be giving circuits we may be
donating huge amounts, but we are not doing something that is good,
which is we're doing a lot of wastefulness. It is against the
Quran. shaytaan wants us to do it. Allah subhanho wa Taala says in
the mobile arena, can we one a Shayateen Verily, the squander is
the wasters those who are given to wastefulness, they are the
brothers of the Shavon. shaytaan is the worst enemy of Allah
subhanaw taala. If Allah subhanaw taala is quoting somebody, the
brother of shaytaan, that is a major curse, and we want to be we
want to avoid that.
Another problem, there's a there's an individual whose name is
Tristram Stuart, he wrote a book, very interesting book where he
studied all of these things where he looked, and he researched this
the world over how much waste is taking place at different levels.
So in his book called waste uncovering the global food
scandal, he speaks about a number of things he gives this chart,
which is very interesting to look at. There's a median line on it,
that line represents and he's got countries over this chart above
it, and above it, and below it, most of the countries that he's
mentioned, and he's researched, they're above it, very few are
below that line. That line represents those countries where
people value their food and don't waste. So that's like, given a
tolerant spectrum of natural, inevitable waste that may take
place on that line are very few countries India is on there.
People don't waste much apparently, in India, right.
Pakistan was just slightly above that. There were very few
countries under it.
There were very few countries under it, the only country that
was under it was Kenya and Eritrea, he may have not done
Somalia, but Eritrean Kenya, they were underneath that, which means
that they're doing very well in terms of managing their food and
using every aspect of it, right, using every aspect of it. Then
above it, you've then got Japan, and then New Zealand and then UK
goes up. And one of the highest, then you got Norway, Denmark, and
one of the highest is is USA, where the amount of waste that's
taking place is a huge proportion. It's a huge proportion,
essentially what what he said a night and I guarantee you this,
this is probably a case in England as well. You know, if all of our
supermarkets you know, the amount of food that is stocked in every
one of our supermarkets, it says that the US has about twice the
amount of foods on its shops, shelves, on supermarket shelves,
and its restaurants, then what then what the people need
double the amount twice the amount of food is available, you don't
even need that much half would suffice you. Why do they keep
extra, they keep it just so that they don't lose money. If there's
suddenly a need for somebody to come in and buy extra.
You know, you will never see at the end of the day that
something's needed finished just about maybe the milk or something,
some of these perishable goods, but otherwise they've got
everything stocked up more than you would ever want to buy. If you
went in there unless you know you're, you know, you're from a
certain background and there's a buy one, get one free and you go
in and fill the house, you know, trolley up, you know, the buses
cheap in Asda, you know, go go and fill up the trolleys as people do.
He explains I mean, he puts this in perspective. Imagine you
imagine he says that you the entire amount of food that is
produced in the world is represented by nine parts. So you
know the entire amount of food a year that is produced in the
world. Imagine that it is represented by nine parts. You
split it into nine parts. He's explaining how much of that is
actually going to
be used for people. Right? How much comes back for use of human
consumption? Right? Because you know, that's what we do this stuff
for we do it for human consumption. He's saying that,
first and foremost after the, within the 931 part one part. So
that's the eighth part. That's the nice part, that just you just get
a loss because in the production process, there's an inevitable
loss because of, you know, just something going wrong with others.
So 1% One, one part is going to go straight, before it even leaves
the fields before it leaves the production. One part one, one of
the nine parts is going to be is going to be wasted anyway, right?
That's inevitable, it's very difficult to to govern that and to
preserve that. However, then he says that
three parts out of the nine, we've we've lost one, so we've got eight
out of the eight, three parts are fed to animals. Why they said to
animals, so because we're going to eat the animals, people have an
addiction to meat. There's a hadith in Mapa of Imam Malik,
which in which also allah sallallahu Sallam spoke about
meat. He says meat meat has
a power. What that means this meat has an addiction.
Right? Tell me who's not addicted to meat here
is people who cannot survive one dish without meat, even if it's a
vegetable dish that their wife wives Cook, why didn't you put
some chicken in there? When you put some, you know, some lamb in
there, there has to even if it's a vegetarian dish, there has to be
pieces of meat in there, or a beef stock or something of that nature.
People love their meat, because there's an addiction, the promise
of loss and said there's an addiction to it. There's an
addiction that is in meat. And what's very interesting is that
another word for that meaning of addiction is serif or serif.
Right, which comes from a Seraph comes from that same root term,
which means excessive, it has an excessive addiction to meet people
have it. That's why the body cell allows him he ate meat. And he ate
it very hard to the the shoulder mediate different parts of the
meat when it came to be and he enjoyed it. But it wasn't normal
for him to do so. It wasn't the normal staple diet. Right? He just
about got a few dates a day. So when we're speaking about meat in
general, it came by very infrequently. And today, today,
we're eating some kind of the meat or other. I mean, tell me
something. How many of us actually have meat free days at home?
Who's even contemplate contemplated meat free? Mashallah.
Just one, right? Just one person here who has a meat free day,
right? I hope you're not a vegetarian, because that's another
problem.
Because in Islam, there's no such thing as vegetarianism. There's a
Sahabi he was sitting there with some chicken and a person was
there was there with him. And he said, Come and eat. He said, No, I
can't eat because I've seen this chicken, eat some eat some dirty
stuff. He said, Just come along and eat it. Because that's maybe
one chicken, you've seen like that. Right? There's no such thing
as vegetarianism in Islam, right, you eat the meat, we're not we're
not calling for becoming vegetarians, we're just saying cut
out the meats. I've been trying for a very long time to have a
meat free week. Right? So we, you know, we what we're doing is we're
trying to develop a menu of just all you know, non meat products
that we will eat for that week. And just try it out, I would
suggest everybody do the same thing to just wean ourselves of
meats, right. And I think the men probably have a bigger problem
with that, I think then, then the women will long wire them. From
what I've seen, they want their meat three important, right, so So
really think about that. So three parts of these eight leftover
parts of these nine original nine parts, they go to feeding the
livestock, they go to feeding your cattle and you know, pigs, and
whatever else it is, that's out there not a problem is that you'd
expect those three parts to come back in them, you know, in the
form of food, but it doesn't. They're very inefficient
creatures, two thirds, two parts out of the three that is fed to
them changes into heat,
and pieces. So that's wasted. Only one pot out of the three comes
back. So meat is actually not a very profitable, very productive
and efficient form means of food really, because you only get one
out of the three that you put in. So now you've got one left, right.
So now we've got, we've got another we've got five, and then
we got this one that will come back from here. Now out of these
five
to two of these parts, they get thrown away. Well, actually, no,
we've got four left, we've got four and then we got five for the
fifth one from the meat because we gave three.
We gave three to the meat right to animals. So we're gonna get one
back from that, but we're not going to take that into
consideration right now. We got four left out of that to
two more gets wasted.
Right, that wastage now is in your homes, is from our houses. How
much food are we throwing away? Right? Are we looking at food? Are
we just looking at a sell by date? Are we buying too much and now we
can't eat it?
So we're not giving it to someone else. But we're actually going to
just throw it away the end slices of breads, right? Things of that
nature. These are things that we're speaking about.
Give you an example how many of us don't waste how many of us eat
those end slices of a loaf of bread and don't waste it?
Right?
Okay, that's not a huge amount. That's not a huge amount, which is
really sad.
Which is really sad. Now, we've got half of us doing that half of
us are not wasting it, you can't waste that we use it for
something, you know, make some studied with it, which is sunnah
you get your leftover bread, the prophets Allah so we used to do
this all the time, you get your leftover bread, you mix it with
some leftover curry in, you know, in a pot, and mashallah, you know,
you've got what you call fried, which is, the promise of loss
instead is one of the best forms of food because it's so easy to
make leftover bread, leftover curry, leftover broth leftover
soup, you just mix it together, and mashallah maybe add a few
spices if you want, and eat that, really, we mustn't be wasting
everything, and we can't feed everything to the ducks, right, or
the pigeons, for that matter, right. So we need, we need not to
waste this, right. Now. Eventually, when you're just going
to be left with four of those nine parts that will come back to the
world for the people to eat as food out of nine parts, that's
less than 50% of what goes in comes back out. Which is really
sad. Now only one aspect of it is when we talk about supermarkets
and things like that. There are a huge amount of potatoes that will
be either fed to animals or totally dumped because they're not
the right shape. Maybe they've got a you know, a press in it. Maybe
they've got a product protrusion in it. And they're just not
completely around the potatoes ribeye. They're always perfectly
round generally, right? Parsnips, apples, Florida, oranges, bananas
in Ecuador, huge amounts of dumped every day because they're not
exportable quality. And they're not given to the poor. Right now,
in some cases, the problem is with the legislation. The problem is
with government legislation, that you can't just give certain foods
or nearly out of date foods or out of date foods to the homeless, you
know, because there's some health risks and things of that nature.
But we need to get more wise about it. We spoke about end end slices
of bread. Have you ever been into a supermarket, a sandwich shop or
any places like that and found the sandwich made up the end slices?
How many sandwiches do you think are made each day just in the UK?
Every Tesco every place? You know every
every every shop has, you know sell sell sandwiches. What happens
at the end of the day? What happens to those end slices? What
this man discovered is that 13,000 slices from just one factory alone
per day were being dumped. These were the end slices, how many
13,000 End slices were being dumped every single day by just
one factory? Because they couldn't use it to make sandwiches.
That's 13,000 from one factory, can you imagine how many factories
are making this and how much I mean, somebody needs to come up
with an idea. Believe me, you'd get rich. If you came up with some
recipe on how to deal how to make some kind of pudding or something
with n slices. You probably get them for free from these come in
or something somebody should think of something to save the planet. I
mean, this is ridiculous. This is all a Seraph. And then we think we
have no Baraka in our lives. Because we're doing shaytani
actions, we're living within that kind of a system that is doing
this kind of thing. It's really something to think about. And then
we're actually concerned, we actually worried that there's
going to be less food in the world. If you've got more than if
you've got double the amount of food that anybody needs, you know
that the whole population needs to eat in the supermarket shelves
already. Right? How can you think that you're going to you're going
to, you know, starve Subhanallah In fact, one comment I read on one
of these articles was very interesting. He said, This is the
good thing about the western country. This is why we haven't
dealt with famine, because we have always had more. Otherwise, if we
just had enough to feed the population, then we would have run
into feminine when there is a shortage. The reason we have so
much is because it's like a buffer zone. It's like a barrier that
when there is a shortage that we can still deal with it. I mean,
that's they're saying that this wastage is is justified so that we
don't have to run into a famine once in a while. Subhanallah I'm
going to
just quickly go through one Scott is understanding of wastefulness
and his guidance and his solution to a problem if we have a problem
with wastefulness. I know I've been focusing on food all along.
But really, how many of you went and bought an iPhone five after
having an iPhone for within the first two weeks that he came out?
Right there's a there's a few people here, personally, I mean,
look, personally, I think that was wastefulness. Right? Unless you
had a bad phone and you just were waiting for that but
If you had a decent phone, he's just going to get another phone
that's wastefulness. Were enticed to getting the new thing. The new
you know, whatever it is the new updated model one needs to be
careful about, we don't make that into wastefulness. There's nothing
wrong with getting it if you really need something, that's what
we're speaking about. And I got nothing against Apple as such,
right? I got nothing against that. But this is just generally
speaking.
Hola. Hola. Hola me mean? Hola. Hola. Hola. We scholar from Syria.
You wrote this great book, on the halal and haram. And in that he
speaks about wastefulness. What he says
is that it's rough wastefulness, it means to consume wealth, to
squander it. And to spend it on that which gives you no real
benefits. Which gives you no real benefits, neither religious nor
worldly, of that which is permissible.
It means to spend your wealth, squander it, which means spend
huge amounts of it wasted spending in a way that you get no benefit
out of it. Neither religious benefit, no worldly benefits.
That's what you call squandering. Which means that if you're just
buying something extra, you're buying to have a mobile phone
case, for example, right? When you just need one, that squandering,
do you see what I'm saying? I'm just gonna order two, it's only
two pounds, it's only one pound. It's only this. It's only that,
you know, that kind of an attitude. That's what we're
speaking about.
He then says that when he talks about, he explains how people
squander and waste. So he's saying that there are two ways that this
happens. One is very clear, we don't need to mention it. He says,
it includes that which is very plain and obvious, like casting
your money into the sea, into the fire into a well or the like,
which provides no benefit to anybody. I mean, nobody does that.
But he's just trying to logically speak about what people might do
with their wealth isn't that's obviously wastefulness. I don't
want my money. I'm just gonna burn it. Right. It's crazy. I know. But
people will do that. Sometimes. Some obsessive people with some
disorder, maybe number two, failing to pick up your fruits of
crops until they become spoiled and rotten. I'll do it. I'll do
it. I'll do it. You've got a nice plum tree at the back. And you're
not really feeling like having those plums outside. Or those
olives or, you know, whatever it is, I mean, you know, the apricot
or whatever. And you just leave them there until they go back to
neither do let anybody else come and eat it, neither to eat it
yourself. That's wastefulness. Right? This gets if we're talking
about how bad wastefulness is, he's describing this and you know,
where do we fit into this, that's what we need to look at. Then he
speaks about failing to protect food that you already have, or
what valuables that you already have. So you're very negligent. So
things get lost, they get spoiled, they get taken away, and you don't
have them, they get they get wasted. He then says, include
includes those things which are more subtle, right? For which one
needs reminding what needs other people to tell them and which is
you don't check your own wealth. To see what's happening with it,
you just, you're just obviously you're just totally heedless to
it.
Another one is, even things that normally don't perish, you leave
it in a way you don't safeguard it properly. For example, you buy
lots of oil, right? Because it's on sale. Or you buy lots of lots
of flour or something which normally keeps for a while. But if
you don't keep it properly, if you don't keep it in a cool place,
what's going to happen to it is that eventually will become
rancid, it will taste bad, right? It won't taste right. And then you
throw it away. So initially, you thought you're getting a good
deal, but you've actually done some wastefulness. So this is
another thing.
Now, these are big things that we can understand. He says another
thing he says, it also occurs with clothing and books. It also occurs
with washing dishes, to wash your dishes, and cutlery, or even your
hands after you've eaten without wiping or licking them.
You've got food particles on your hand and you don't lick them,
which is a similar to do it's similar to lick them. You don't do
that and you wash your hands and you waste that amount. Literally,
if you leave two grains of rice in your plate that is still
considered wastefulness, he says that is still considered
wastefulness. Now we're definitely in here somewhere. You know, we're
definitely incriminated here, here or there in somewhere. Another
thing he says, failing to pick up the crumbs of bread or like the
fall on the ground. That's another straw of the prophets of Allah.
Some said something drops down, pick it up. If there's any dirt
attached to it, remove that and eat it just because it's fallen
down. Don't abandon it. That's why it's a good practice to have
something clean that you eat on the cloth that you eat on needs to
be clean so that if something does fall under, it's fine. You can
still have it. Then he says another thing he says,
which I think many of us are part of it. Right eating past
satiation, eating past being full. So once you're full, you still
continue to eat, you still have that additional chocolate, you
still have that added additional packet of Chris, that second
dessert. May Allah protect us. May Allah preserve us. May Allah guide
us because these are things because we have so much we just we
just go for it. These are things. He then clarify something just in
case somebody thinks that it's not permissible to have nice things.
He says, As for eating delicacy, foods, like wearing elegant
clothes, erecting tall buildings and the like. for which there is
no clear prohibition in this in the sacred law. The correct
position is that that will not be considered a Seraph or
wastefulness that won't be considered squandering your
wealth, unless
it is done for arrogance and pride. So there it's about
arrogance and pride. You got a nice car. If it's for arrogance
and pride to show up, then it's a problem. Otherwise, it's not
really wasting us because you're using it. But if you have two cars
that you don't use, and you've just got a few cars just to show
up, then that's a major problem. Right? Just just to put matters in
perspective. What's the cure, he gives the cure he provided he
suggests a cure for wastefulness. First and foremost, he says, the
first cure is based on knowledge, which means you have to become
educated about this. How many of you knew about these practices
that are taking place in our communities that in our in our
societies, in our production lines in this country, right to become
educated, how to store things, for example, in another is another
thing to realize the disastrous effects of wastefulness in this
world and in the Hereafter, we haven't even spoken about the
punishment in the hereafter if Allah subhanaw taala say that such
people are the brothers of the shaytaan. Can you imagine there
must be a sin attached to it, a major sin attached to it, right.
Number two, an active solution based on action. He says, To force
oneself to withhold No, I don't need that. Do I really need that?
Do I really need to buy that? Is it going to go to waste? Am I
going to be able to use it in the time to withhold like that, right,
especially with our children, you have to be really careful, don't
don't put too much in their plates, when we know they're not
going to eat it and then throw the rest away. i We knew one family
where any they have to cook fresh for every meal, because they would
not keep the food until the next meal because nobody in the house
was willing to eat it. Nobody was willing to eat over decent,
absolutely fine. Food that was leftover from the previous meal,
the mother had to cook over and over again and discard everything.
Right? That should not be the case in our homes as Muslims, we should
never be doing that. Number Number. He says part of that is to
remove some of the causes of this, why would somebody be wasting?
Firstly, he says that the person may be stupid. What that means by
stupid is that there's some people who are not very intelligent, they
just spend crazily without really realizing without being able to
manage their wealth. They call the super high in the Quran. Right?
Allah subhanaw taala says, if they're super hard, don't give
them their wealth, because they're just going to squander their
wealth. They're going to just spend it right left, right and
center. Number two. Number three. Number two is ignorance regarding
the meaning of wastefulness. Now we understand what meaning of
wasteful wastefulness is. Inshallah, we'll take heat number
three, ostentation and showing off not finishing your dish, putting
more than is necessary, right. Just buying more than necessary
then throwing it away, things like that. There was a Shah of Iran,
his wife used to take a bath in milk. Right? Instead of water. You
know that? What would you call that? You know what, what kind of
a problem is that? Then laziness and idleness is another problem. I
come bother, you know, there's some the some people they'll just
keep stuffing the fridge. And eventually those things in the
fridge will get bad, but they will never look. They keep these little
odd bits and bobs in the fridge. And eventually they will get that
as well. They don't have the courage to throw it away. So they
really get bad this and then they feel a bit less guilty. That's
another side problem.
Weakness of the self this kind of shyness that a person has that I'm
not going to finish my food or if something drops you eating with
others, you're not going to pick it up because you feel shy that
they're going to make fun of them. Be be confident and tell them this
is the way of our Islam This is what the Sahaba did. They were
sitting with the with the Persians something dropped the sabe picked
up at the other one said what are you doing? These people are going
to feel embarrassed. He says Are we going to leave and abandon the
sunnah of our messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam for these idiots
who don't understand anything we have. We have hula and comarca.
Right? This is exactly for what reason this is not Islam is
raffia, the brothers of Shavon when you do that, another reason
is a person has maybe weakness of faith. So they don't care. I don't
care if Allah punishes me that kind of an attitude. Inshallah,
that's not a problem with us. But to conclude to wrap up, we need to
really think about this with the way we do what in fact, I would
suggest to any Masjid if there's any
He represented machines here that we need masajid where, okay, we've
got a row, a row of tabs, but then we've got the old system as well,
where you've got these pots, these jugs, you fill them up, you go to
the side, specially made place, and you literally that's how you
do we'll do that way you will use the least amount of water. Right,
but with the open tap, you know that these automatic taps, they
have the sensitivity probably very good, where they have just small
amounts of water coming in. That's actually a good thing. Aside from
the electricity that's wasted in there, right, which is probably
marginal. That is probably a good idea because less water is wasted
in that. Anyway, these are some practical things that we're
speaking about the food at home, the amount we eat, the amount we
buy, what we throw away campaigning to others, speaking to
others about this, right, dealing with these kinds of things,
raising awareness, these are all important because we do not want
to be from the Muslims. Allah subhanaw taala speaks about them
very badly in the Quran puts Pharaoh as one of them shaytans
brother, you know, shaytans brothers are called a Muslim team.
So we want to avoid that. May Allah subhanaw taala give us the
Tofik to be concerned about our environment to be concerned about
the way we live. And may Allah subhanho wa Taala bless and remove
bless our brothers and sisters around the world. We're not in
such advantaged positions as we are in right May Allah subhanahu
wa taala forgive us for our shortcomings. Because the world
goes around things events, they they change all the time. Today
somebody else's in adversity, tomorrow we could be in adversity,
so we must never take it for granted of how we are and who we
are and where we are. Things can change tomorrow. We must thank
Allah subhanaw taala for what we have and inshallah we will donate
and we will do as much as we can for our other other brothers and
sisters around the world who are not as good as in the situation as
us working with our country.