Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – THE DESTITUTE A DISCUSSION ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF POVERTY
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hamdulillah
Al Hamdulillah here on malaria Alameen wa salatu salam ala Murthy
Rahmatullah Alameen are the early he was speaking about a killer
seldom at the Sleeman Kathira on Eli Yomi. Dean Mr. Barrett, call
Allah with the baraka Ouattara feel Korean material for Connell
Hamid
Al halco Taka Thor Hatter's Ottoman macabre
Bacala Tara, where you will liquidly whom as a lady Gemma and
Myrna whadda. Ya Cebu Anna Maria who have fled.
Work on the BU sallallahu alayhi wa sallam if disorder have enough
okatie misfold Marysia are called Uttara wakad sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam gathered for Kuru Hakuna Ghufron.
My dear respected brothers and sisters and our other guests here,
salaam Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
We're living in a very strange world, especially in
the time that we're living in and and then in the West. And then in
London, for many of us, London, New York, Shanghai, Dubai. That's
kind of the trend now, we seem to be
we have two issues that we're dealing with. First, it's the way
the whole system works. In which money, I mean, I'm not an expert
in this, and I'm sure Sheikh uses gonna probably expound on that
much more than much more, but we're everything travels up. So
the people on the ground, you and I were left poor. And from
materialistic sense. And the people at the top they make every
year they make the same amount and more they get their bonuses. So if
there's been extra claims in a particular year, because there
were these cost camps of people having others bang into them. And
then, you know, there was a massive scam two, three years ago,
or five years ago, and then insurance just shut up for
everybody premiums. At the end of the day, the people at the top,
they're going to make the same amount of money, because the next
year, they're just gonna raise the premiums. So we're gonna end up
paying the same, you know, more and more each year. Right, because
the people at the top they need to get the profit and the additional
bonuses and their raises and so on and so forth.
Like that's like, with everything. I mean, we're we're living in a
system where we're so part of that system, which is prophesied by the
messenger, salallahu, alayhi, wasallam, as well, that we could
probably say I was just discussing with Sheikh Yusuf earlier, that do
you think we could say that we have living in the West, we have
actually become institutionally
materialized. Or you can say institutionally, we become
institution institutionalized in the mess of capitalism, in the in
the midst of materialism, in decadence, consumerism, we're all
parts of it.
Because today, the situation is that from the bottom, and as in
terms of the consumer, there's a different problem from the top,
it's pure capitalism, where they they just want people to spend and
spend and spend, they actually measure the we constantly hear in
the news reports that the health of a society, the health of this
country is measured by how much people spent on Oxford Street, you
know, during this holiday or that holiday, and everybody gets really
excited when people spent more. So despite the fact that you may not
need, I lived in America for eight years, and I felt consumerism was
big there. Because, you know, that's the land of opportunity,
and so on, there's still a marked difference, I believe, between the
states and the US. So you know, what people are buying, buying,
buying. And then after every few months, they do a garage sale,
right? You've seen the garage sales. And basically, then they
tried to get rid of, and some people, they just keep it in
there, because they have these big houses, garages and so on. I mean,
we can't really do that in London, you have to be much more careful
about that. The problem we have though, on another level, is that
we will buy things by the time we've actually paid it off. The
thing is one out so you bought a new sofa or a new TV, and we're
paying you know, we're paying every every month, by the time
we've actually paid it off. We it's all worn out. So you you
never really enjoy what you buy because you constantly think that
you have to still pay it off. It's not really yours. When you have
paid it off. It's become old and you have to start again. And you
have to get the next best thing out there.
So from the top down, it's just they want everybody to spend and
from the bottom up, the situation is, is different. The situation is
that we are encouraged to spend as much as possible. And we've got
some quite interesting things that, you know that that, that are
used a lot of promotions and so on, for example,
if you just think of some of the promotional material out there
that we're bombarded with day in and day out, especially in London,
and you know, wherever else you I used to live in Santa Barbara, in
California for eight years. And one of the great things about
Santa Barbara was that there were no billboards, billboards were
banned in the city. So I never saw a billboard for a very long time
unless I went to Los Angeles, which is two hours away from that.
But here, we're constantly bombarded, you know, whether
you're, whether it's on a site of a bus or whether, you know, it's
you're waiting at a bus stop or on the road, or wherever you are. So
the whole concept of it is to get us to spend and to get us to
indulge and to enjoy. So for example,
it says,
ice cream, sheer indulgence. That's the motto of sheer
indulgence. Another one is pure decadence.
Now, these are all words that you know we consider to be lowly terms
for people who've lost their knifes and their soul and they've
become prey to their desire. But yet, this is what attracts us
seeing that nice big Magnum I screen, right? And it says sheer
decadence, pure intelligent indulgence, sheer bliss. And you
feel like you want to go and get one. I mean, obviously, they spent
millions, trying to find the right key terms, and presenting them the
right way that mean that millions are spent in basically producing
these promotions to make millions or billions on top of that.
Another one is, it gets as far as saying, there's one that says
bring out the devil in you.
That's so shaytaan is like bring out the shaytaan in you. And we
just passed by this. I don't think we even I mean, when you see such
a advertisement, I don't think we even bother to think about it
twice. Like ma that shaytani but shaytan is becoming so popular.
Like bring out the devil in you. That's the total opposite what
we're supposed to be doing. Another one is Heineken refreshes
the parts that others cannot reach.
I mean, Hamdulillah we don't you know, most of us don't drink but
it's just the term and it's just what it's telling you another one
is just do it.
I mean, everybody knows that one. What is just do it. Right that's
your night just do it. Right and so just do it. It's just about us
freedom. Just do what you have to do what you want to do.
Another one is when you got it, flaunt it.
That's about ostentation.
Cable,
arrogance, but when you got it, just flaunt it.
Some of the best ones advertisements are from visa and
American Express. One of them is it's everything you want to be
It's everything you want to be you see a person on the moon and when
he needs money, there's a American Express machine there. And you
know, a cash machine, credit card machine Subhanallah
another one is Have it your way just pure knifes you know Have it
your way Have it your way. Another one is this is a famous one a
diamond is forever.
I mean is it really forever? Right? A diamond is forever and
they've made literally billions out of that one.
Only gender is forever.
Or Hellfire for that matter.
My goodness, my goodness.
And do you remember I mean those are the older ones here will
remember happiness is a cigar called Hamlet.
Do you remember that one? Happiness is a cigar called
Hamlet's.
Do you remember that one?
It was a British one. I don't know.
Another one. Betcha you can't eat just one.
So just eat and eat and eat totally opposed to what the
Prophet sallallahu Sallam is telling us to do.
So that's what we are bombarded with day in and day out. So what
do we do?
What this book is all about? It's actually although it says the
destitute it's actually very deceiving title in a sense because
It's not just about poverty. It's not just about somebody who
doesn't have material substance. But let me just read to you one
portion of it, one, one paragraph from it, which goes to explain
what he's speaking about. And I'm sure our other respected scholars
will expound on that further. He says, Consider from the example of
your own life that the agonies of poverty are nothing but the
representations of confused souls when they abandon one another.
So poverty is nothing but the representation of confused souls
when they have abandoned one another.
What is basically
if 2.5% of the world's wealthy went to the poor, there would be
no poverty in the world.
But to point even 2.5% is not given. And this has been shown in
the time of Ramadan Abdulaziz within two and two years and four
or five months of his rule. There was nobody in North Africa to
accept the cut because everybody seemed to be well off. So today
we're enjoying great prosperity. In fact, there's a hadith in
Muslim which speaks about the Prophet sallallahu sallam was
asked about different trials that are to be set the ummah. And then
he said, then they said, What about after that, and then he
said, after that will be the fitna to Sahra
the fitna to Surah, the fitna of prosperity, where the smoke of it
will come from under your feet, basically saying that it will be
everywhere, money will be very easy to have and to get and to
gain to use. And that's why today,
poverty in Western countries is in a new, it's got an it's a it's an
it has a new form. Because you don't have to have money to spend
money today. You don't have to have money to spend money,
you just have to have a few credit cards, and then you Max them out,
and then you become bankrupt. And there's a system in place to deal
with that. So people are buying on credit cards, and depression etc,
etc. You know, that's, that's besides the point that's an after
the fact. The fact is that we need to indulge right now and just make
and get as much as possible. So what he's saying here, though, is
that the agony is of poor poverty that people feel they come from
nothing. They're just a representation of confused souls,
when they abandon one another compassion is gone. Selfishness
has set in. There is no, absolutely no care and concern for
anybody else. And I mean, sitting here and with what's going on in
Syria, and in other places. I mean, we do seem even hypocritical
even speaking about this, because of what we eat. Just today, I saw
a video of these two kids who are in their own world, they're just
picking literally from among the pebbles. They're picking bits of
bread,
the older sister who's 10 years old, and then you've got this
younger brother of hers is about seven, the younger brother, he's
just finding the bread meeting. And the 10 year old, she's she's
discussing with the interviewer, but she's just going about her
work. And she just saying like, you know, and she's piling it up
on this cardboard piece on this cardboard piece of cardboard
literally, literally, like what birds would pick. That's what
that's what they're reduced to. And he's saying that we've been
left behind. But the Eman mashallah is so great, that
sometimes you you sometimes think that do we need poverty to
strengthen our faith?
Is that what's going to help us because we become so
institutionalized in capitalism here, that we become part and
parcel of the system, where we don't even think otherwise. So,
then he says,
and that is the simplest form of hatred, then he says, oh, when
they conflict with one another, then that is the cause of hatred,
or when they plot against one another, then that is hatred
itself.
And then he says, It is for this reason, that the miser that the
miser is one of the ingredients of poverty
Subhanallah he's really been thinking about this, that the
miser is an ingredient he's contributing to the poverty of the
world. Though he may account himself one of the many elements
of wealth, wealth, so he thinks is one of the elements of wealth, but
he's actually one of the ingredients of poverty. So this
book is going to challenge us, it's going to make us rethink and
I'm really glad that this has been translated, because it's extremely
profound. It will deal with wealth and the concept of poverty in a
way that you've never heard about it. We've never thought about it,
because we're so institutionalized. It it will what
it seeks to argue here. Is that poverty
is not just absence of wealth, but poverty is rather the absence of
all character, praiseworthy character traits. That's poverty,
which is more harmful than the poverty of wealth. Yes, there's a
hadith in which the Prophet sallallahu sallam said, curdled,
fakra Hakuna Qumran that it is very possible. It's likely in
many, many circumstances situations, poverty does lead to
infidelity. You know, somebody's renouncing God because they think
they've been, you know, they think they've been forsaken. But that
happens in very few cases from a lot of what we've seen. So
highlight, it strengthens the mind as well to a certain degree. But
regardless of where you are, the worst thing is to be poor, in
terms of compassion, in terms of generosity, in terms of love for
the other in terms of preference, contentment with what we have, not
hankering after everything that is out there that shines and
glitters, that's really, that's really what we need to be, we need
to be looking towards and to try to imbibe within ourselves. Now,
the fact is, that, regardless of where you live today, regardless
of where you live, today, many countries they've just followed
the same path, this phenomenon of Riba and etc. It's worldwide,
whether you're in a Muslim country or otherwise, it's just sometimes
clothed in different names, and, and so on, so forth. Yes, there
are some serious institutions that are properly Islamic and so on.
But the there's definitely the same problem you'll have in
Pakistan, you'll have in India, you'll have in the UK. So what is
it that we need to do? So at the end of the day, we need to get
back to ourself, and we need to realize, and this book, inshallah
will be assisting in that regard, because it will make us really
think, and hopefully, it will get us into the center. Because
despite all that we have and the material that is available to us,
we're in a very good position to do a lot, as long as we don't
become institutionalized in that same greedy game. And that's
what's most important, is to think of it to make to repent from our
excesses of the past and to focus on the future, because God is
always forgiving. And Allah subhanahu wa taala, he likes those
people who reflect because that's what he says in the Quran that
people should do a philosopher Caronia to the balloon look
around. We're so we're so tunnel visioned in terms of what's around
us that we don't look around the world and how things are
happening, the factors that are in play. So that's what we need to
do. I'll give you one last story before I finish. But just a few
observations. We live in a world where the dollar is one of the
most popular currencies. The dollar says on it. The dollar says
In God We Trust yet.
When he told me how many minutes I've got left.
Oh, I have eight more minutes. I was going to finish off in two.
Okay, all right.
So we live in a time where you've got one of the most popular
currencies of the world, In God We Trust, yet not a single God
ordained law or rule is observed, or even, or even taken as guidance
in generating that wealth and that money.
So it's there. And that's such hypocrisy. In God We Trust yet
everything is man made, the whole system is man made, and that's why
it collapses.
And yet the bill is there. I mean, SubhanAllah. Another thing is what
hasn't been said. He said, he said Money is the sort of companion now
think about this deeply. This is one of those profound statements.
Hasan Basri, one of the debate in the early century, he mentioned
that money is the sort of companion that will not benefit
you, unless it leaves you. It can only benefit you if it leaves you.
Which means you spend it and thus you get something out of it, you
help another with it.
You leave it for your you leave it for your family. That's why the
Prophet salallahu alayhi salam said that your wealth is only that
which you've spent, that which you leave at your deathbed, that
becomes somebody else's it transfers. Your wealth is only
that which you spend. And you either spend it in indulgence or
you spend it in investment, a worldly investment, or an
investment for the hereafter
that will be accounted by Allah subhanaw taala. There's a hadith
that I'd like to finish with,
which gives us a lot of hope.
The reason it gives us a lot of hope is that if we've had excesses
of any nature, I mean, it doesn't just speak to this issue. It
speaks in general, and I find it provides a lot of hope because
that's what I believe Islam
is a is is the dean and a religion of great hope that regardless of
how one has been and whatever one has been involved with involved in
or indulgent in, and however many access accesses a person has
committed, there's always something away out. So Imam
Timothy relates from Abdullah Hibino Omar Radi Allahu Anhu. He
says that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had mentioned
this incident to us on so many occasions, and then he counted
about seven occasionally he said, probably even more than that, that
this incident was related to us by the messenger salAllahu alayhi wa
sallam more than seven times. Essentially what the Prophet
sallallahu Sallam had said, was that
there was a person whose name was skiffle from one the Israelites.
So this is a story of the past nations, one of the Israelites,
his name was skiffle. Very, very wealthy *. So he would
indulge in whatever he wanted. I mentioned this today because as I
said today, the second generation of Muslims who are here, in
general because we're in the in this phase of fitna, the fitna of
prosperity, you know, the trail of prosperity where we have, we seem
to have a lot of disposable income at our disposal. The first
generation that came into this country, they lived five to a
room, sometimes sharing bathrooms and toilets, and, and so on, and
so forth. That's our parents, the first generation, but today we're
reaping the benefits of that. And this is where we have to be
careful. Many of the first generation that came here from
countries like India, Pakistan, and Egypt, etc. They also had to
look after the parents back home. So they had to do those kinds of
things. We don't have to worry about that.
So you've got this *, and today is a time where we've got
more playboys than ever before. You've got normal people who can
indulge like rich people. I mean, I mean, how many of us can go into
a supermarket and we have the whole world in front of us. And in
the last 10 years, it's just exploded. When I went to America
in 2000. My local Sainsbury's used to have used to have two racks of
drinks. The choice was a few dilutes and a few juices, and
that's about it, literally. When I went to American I went into our
local Albertsons, right? It was two aisles of drinks. So I was
going from two racks of drinks to two aisles full of all sorts of
drinks, these big gallon punches and, and all sorts. I was like,
wow, when I came back in 2008, we had been transformed as well. And
now today, you go to your local as the whatever, you've got the same
thing. You've got whole aisle or to have just drinks, you've got
aisles, where they will be selling your polish foods. There'll be
sending you Arabic food, Moroccan food, Egyptian foods, kosher
foods, everything you want, it's there. Companies have to vie for
space, and the product needs to work. That's why huge amounts are
spent to provide all of these advertisements for decadence and
so on and so forth. Subhanallah so there was this *, it's my
last one, there was this.
He was his name was skiffle. Now,
he would, he had absolutely no concern for any form of sin, any
form of wrong he would do as he wished. And people knew him to be
like that. In fact, he was so bad that people didn't want to know
him. That's how bad he was. He just had lots of money, crazy
*. So now, once he hired a woman, for, for prostitution
purposes, and you know how much he paid her. He paid her Sedena DNR,
Ron 60, dinar 60 gold pieces.
That according to today's equation would be several 1000 pounds,
because 20 dinars, which is the quantum physics that is about 2000
pounds right now. So if we were to give that equation, he paid a few
1000 pounds, he paid a huge amount of money, whatever the equation
was.
He's, it says that when he sat when he sat to do the act, when
they got right to the crux of it, she began to tremble. And she
began to weep. And he said to her, Ma, you Kiki, what is making you
cry today?
Do you do I do dislike me? Don't I look good? Like, what's your
problem? He thought she was just like any other call girl that he
had hired before? She said no. Well, I can know who what I can
know who I am alone. Mm hmm. I mean to put to this is something
that I've never done before. This is something that I've never had
to do before. The only thing that has forced me to do this is need
is poverty. That's what's forced me to do this.
Something clicked in his mind on that day. He didn't care about
anybody who was a selfish brat. He didn't care about anything. But
something clicked on something clicked for him that day. He said
the for arlena and the Friday night anti Harada. Warmer, warmer
for LTE. You You've never done this before. And today you're
doing this, you know what you go and the money that I've given you
is yours to take the money and go, it's okay take the money and go.
Wallah, he La Silla burden. And then he made a promise he swore an
oath that I will now never disobey God. It was just one of those
moments, one of those moments.
So she went away. At nighttime, he dies firmata Leila toe that night
he dies. And everybody nobody wants to touch him. They don't
want to bury him because they just know he's so bad. He's dirt is
filthy. Nobody wants to touch him. In the morning.
Everybody see is written on his door that got the Huffer a little
kid who Pharaoh in Allah can offer a little gift that Allah subhanaw
taala has forgiven gift. That's when they varied. Sounds a bit
mythical, but there's great hopes in there. And this is from the
past nations. This is related by Imam Timothy says how the Hadith
one has said that this is a sound narration, but that gives us a lot
of hope. That's an extreme example. But at the end of the
day, we need to really rethink and, Inshallah, this book will
help us in that in that regards. I really thank Sheikh Yusuf for
number one finding the book, chancing upon it, translating it
because it is a very complex book even in Arabic, it's a mcommerce
it's full of rhetorical techniques and so on, it's quite amazing. And
then the English is mashallah at a very, very profound level as well.
And then mashallah turas for you know, for the work that they've
done on this book and all the other works. And if you do want to
go down to to meet Tirath and see the head office, it's called us
junction on
I mean, I'm promoting it, so it should be fine. US junction in
tooting. So you know, you can go in Michelle have a cup of tea and
get a signed copy from your hair. Insha Allah, Masha, yeah, he has a
very unassuming man, I'm praising him in his face. And I know the
amount of work he puts into this he spends huge amounts of time,
effort money into producing these books. So may Allah subhanaw taala
reward him and make this a source of southern Nigeria for him and
his family and his father and his parents in sha Allah. And may
Allah subhanho wa Taala give us all ledger for this, working with
that 100 level