Ismail Kamdar – Greed & Consumerism
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
He said,
beware of greed.
Their greed
pushed them to be miserly,
and so they were stingy.
They agreed, pushed them to break family ties,
and they did so.
And their greed pushed them to combat immoral
acts, and they did so.
In this, hadith founded Abu Dawood
and created
as authentic by the scholars of hadith,
Rasulullah salallahu
alaihi wa sallam is warning us about a
very important
and dangerous disease of the heart,
greed.
Last week, we spoke about the importance
of self care of the soul,
The importance of keeping our heart and soul
free
from that which corrupts it.
What are the corruptors of the soul
that is dominant
in modern society,
and upon which a lot of modern ideologies
are built upon,
is greed.
Greed in all of its cycles.
Greed
means that you have a excessive
and unhealthy desire for something,
an excessive
and unhealthy desire for something.
You see, it's natural
to desire money.
It's natural to desire a spouse. It's natural
to desire a nice house, a nice car.
But when it becomes an obsession,
when all you want is more and more
and more,
you start going down a very dark and
dangerous path.
And the world we live in,
a lot of the ideologies
that dominate
and shape this world
ideologies that come out of greed, that build
upon greed.
If you look at the concept of consumerism,
the idea that you should be constantly
consuming products,
that people are constantly trying to sell you
new products. You just got a phone, they're
trying to sell you a better phone. You
just got a car, they're trying to sell
you a better car.
Right? There's always more and more and more.
This
is a type of greed. This is an
entire
ideology built upon greed.
Hedonism,
the idea that you should always go
after what you desire,
is built upon greed.
And this greed
has
worked its way
into every aspect of our life.
If you look
at the marketing or advertising industry,
it's built upon
targeting the greed within us and amplifying it.
You know, 20 or 30 years ago, it
was bad enough with the billboards and the
and the television adverts. Now it's 10 times
worse worse, maybe a 100 times worse, because
now
you have targeted
adverts
on your phone.
What they do is the AI scans to
all of your likes, all of your interests,
all of your searches, and gives you advertisements
about the things that you are thinking about,
the things that you desire, and make you
greedy for more.
So you buy a new phone, and you
need to get the adverts for the latest
1 in that series.
Right? You buy a new car, you immediately
getting adverts for the new for newer and
better cars.
There's this constant play to get us to
buy more and more and more.
Now, we'll take a step back,
and it remind you that Islam is a
balanced and moderate way of life.
Islam doesn't tell us that we have to
be poor.
Islam doesn't tell us we have to give
up this dunya.
It simply teaches us to live a balanced
and healthy lifestyle.
That
as Muslims, we should work hard.
We should, especially the men should provide for
their families. You should work hard and provide
for your families.
And we should
have goals, we should have vision, we should
be working our way up in life through
hard work. All of this is part of
being a good Muslim.
But also,
also part of being a good Muslim
is that at the end of the day,
whatever you made for that day after working
hard,
whether it's a lot or a little, you
say, you
are grateful for it.
Right? You are grateful and content with your
destiny for that day. The next day you
try again, and you work hard again.
And whatever you receive, you are grateful for
it.
This keeps us in check. This keeps us
balanced. On 1 hand,
we work hard. We are not lazy. On
the other hand,
we are also filled with gratitude and contentment
at the end of every day. This is
the Islamic way to go to life. And,
yes, there's nothing wrong with desiring moving up
a level in life. There's nothing wrong with
desiring to have a nice house, to have
a nice car, But it's important
to keep yourself in check and not to
reach a level where you're just always looking
at what's next.
You're always looking at what's more. Right?
Because this is what happens today.
What happens today is you buy a nice
house or a nice car, and immediately your
mind goes, oh, that car is better, or
this house is better. And you're so obsessed
in getting a better car or a better
house, you don't take the time to enjoy
what you have. You don't take the time
to appreciate what you have. And so, you
are never
fulfilled.
So Islam teaches us a balanced way. It
teaches us to work hard. It teaches us
to have aspiration, but it also teaches us
to have tawakul, to to accept our destiny
and to be content.
Rasulullah
warned us against greed in many hadith's.
The Quran. The Hadith, we started this. Rasoolullah
salallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that Hadith,
that
greed is 1 of the causes of destructions
of the past nations.
If you look at the nations that were
destroyed,
they were greedy for different things.
They were amongst them those that were greedy
for wealth.
There were amongst them those that were greedy
for power.
There were amongst them those who were greedy
for immoral desires.
And all of these are different types of
greeds that corrupt society,
and all of these greeds are are found
in our society.
Every type of greed is found in modern
society.
And the prophet also told us that greed
destroyed these nations,
and to destroy us too if we don't
keep it in check.
And he showed us in his studies 3
ways in which greed corrupts you.
3 ways in which greed corrupts you. If
you don't check your heart, if you don't
get rid of greed, if you don't keep
your worldly desires under control, this hadith says
in 3 ways that it will corrupt
you. Number 1, it will make you a
miser. It will make you stingy.
A greedy person doesn't like to share. A
greedy person doesn't care about others. A greedy
person only cares about piling up more and
more and more.
Number 2,
it says that greed will command you to
break family ties.
Greed will command you to break family ties.
Think about it. What's the main causes of
the breaking of family ties in our communities?
Fighting over inheritance,
fighting over businesses.
It's fighting over money.
Right? Greed for wealth causes people to break
family ties.
And number 3,
greed will push you into immorality.
If you cannot find a halal way to
get what you want and you allow allow
your greed to consume you,
then you will look for Haram ways to
get what you want. And we are seeing
this also in modern society.
In other Hadith, Rassoulullah, SAW Allah SWALLAM warns
us that there's 2 types of greed that
never ends. We don't keep them in control,
they never end.
End. But the sheep moving holds the time.
He says, the son of Adam grows old,
but 2 of his
desires
never end.
Right? Everybody grows old, but there's 2 types
of desire or greed that doesn't grow. It
stays in your heart for life. What are
these 2 types of greed that stay with
you for life?
He said,
Being greedy for money and being greedy for
a long life.
So the prophet said no matter how old
a person gets, they also wanna live longer,
and they always want to
make more money. And so the prophet is
warning us here that there is no end
to his desires.
You have to keep them in check.
It's not it's not something you outgrow with
age.
Right? You don't outgrow greed. If you don't
learn the internal mechanism of keeping your greed
in check, Yet it stays with you for
life. Even at the old age, you're still
greedy for more.
And in 3rd hadith, the prophet salallahu alayhi
wasalam, warns us that green
is something that cannot be satisfied.
Green is something that cannot be satisfied.
The prophet
said, the son of Adam,
if Allah had to give him 2 valleys
full of gold,
he will desire a third valley.
Listen again to the hadith. The prophet said
that human nature is such
that Allah had to give you 2 values
of gold, you will desire your ada.
Meaning,
there is no end to breathe.
You become a millionaire, you want to become
a multi billionaire. You become a multi millionaire,
you want to become a billionaire. You become
a billionaire, you wanna become the richest man
in the world.
Right? There is no end to it. No
matter how many valleys of gold you get,
there's always the next 1. There's always something
that somebody else has that you want.
What satisfied
greed? Where are they then?
The prophet
said,
nothing
stops a person desiring more except
dirt.
What does it mean by dirt? Means when
you bury, you destroy the dirt over you.
Debt. That's what it means. Analogy for death.
When we die, when we put in the
graves,
we've all been there. Right? We're at the
graveyard, and we're all taking the shovels, and
we're putting the dirt over the body. He
said, that's the only time when greed stops.
All of these hadith are warning us
that within us and within our souls, there
is something that if we don't keep it
under control, it can consume us. It can
dominate us.
Why is this bad? What does greed do
to us that
makes it something so dangerous that the
prophet warned about it over and over again.
I'll just mention 5 of the harms of
greed. There are many, but there are 5
harms of allowing greed to dominate your heart.
Number 1,
if you are greedy,
you will never be content.
And if you are never content,
you will never experience your peace.
Greed and contentment are opposites.
The greedy person only sees what other people
have. The con content person is grateful for
what he has.
If you want contentment,
you have to let go of greed. It
cannot coexist in 1 heart.
And so greed
robs you of contentment.
Greed robs you of inner peace.
Greed
robs you of enjoying what you have right
now. You can't enjoy what you have because
you want something else.
Number 2,
greed forces you, especially in the modern culture.
It forces you to look beyond your means.
It forces you to look beyond your means.
So if somebody is greedy,
and they cannot afford the things that they
are greedy for,
the modern world has built an entire
sinful system, the system,
to keep you,
to give you the purchasing power to buy
anything you want
with some long term payment plans.
And when people's greed dominates their heart,
you'll find that even though they can't afford
it, they drive cars that they can't afford,
they live in houses that they can't afford,
they go for vacations that they can't afford,
but the idea is, oh, I'll pay for
it later.
I'll pay for it later.
It's a very stupid way to live your
life.
Right? To do all of these things and
say, I'll pay for it later,
It it it showed a lack of intelligence,
and it shows a * of desires over
inter intellect.
Living beyond your means
is 1 of the worst ways you can
oppress yourself.
You're literally putting yourself in a difficult situation.
1, you could have easily avoided.
Linked to that, the 3rd harm of greed.
The 3rd harm of greed is linked to
living beyond your means. And what is that?
You get trapped in a cycle of debt.
You are always owing somebody something.
This is a result of greed. When you
are greedy,
and you're always borrowing borrowing on credit cards,
and you're always buying things on loan, and
you have all these different
long term payments to make out,
you will always be owing somebody something. And
when you are owing people money, you can't
sleep at night. When you are owing people
money, it plays on your heart. This is
something
that has made a lot of people very
depressed in the modern world. The idea that
they can never
they can never escape the cycle of death.
And again, the system has been designed like
this. Make you greedy, make you want something,
make you buy your credit, make you spend
the rest of your life paying it off
so you'll never have time to take, you'll
never have time to worship Allah, you'll never
have time to do anything else with your
life.
The 4th danger and harm that comes from
being greedy is that you neglect that which
is more important.
You neglect that which is more important.
You see, as a Muslim, it's important
to make money, to provide for your family,
to buy halal things.
But there are things that are more important.
What's more important in making money? Number 1,
Allah
Number 2, your family.
Spend time with your family. Have a good
relationship with your family. Be there for your
family. Number 3, your community. Spend time in
the community. Give back to the community.
Be involved in the community.
But when people are greedy, they don't have
time for Allah, they don't have time for
their family, and they don't have time or
money for the community.
Life just becomes about work
and money, and that becomes all the history.
That becomes a person's entire obsession, their entire
life. And it's very scary to see that
our society is moving in this direction. That
people no longer have a sense of community,
and people have no longer have a sense
of family. Life is just work and builds
and work and builds, and there is never
a life outside of work.
This is a very dangerous way for humans
to live. When you don't have friends, don't
have community, don't have family, it's just work
and just money. Their life is all about
that only.
And that takes us to the 4th harm
of
unchecked greed. The 4th harm of unchecked greed
is that you start to build your identity
around
your possessions.
You know, you get people out there who
their identity their identity is, I own this
type of car, or I own this type
of handbag, or I own this designer brand.
Your identity is not a worship of Allah.
Your identity is not your family. Your identity
is not your culture. Your identity is possessions.
What kind of a shallow identity is that?
The greed is dangerous
and greed is built into the system that
we live in.
And so throughout history,
people had to fight the enoughs to make
sure that greed doesn't consume them. In the
modern world, we have to fight twice as
hard to make sure that greed doesn't consume
us. Because all around us, on our phones,
on our computers, on the billboards, on the
television, there are adverts
encouraging us to be greedy and greedy and
greedy. And we have to keep ourselves in
check. We ask Allah
to purify our heart to operate
How do you
check your heart? How do you prevent grief
from corrupting your soul and dominating you?
I'll just mention 5 brief points
and, shall I be applying these 5 things,
we can work on purifying our souls of
greed. Number 1 is self awareness.
Be aware of the problem. Be aware of
society.
Be aware of what's going on in the
world. Be aware of the effects it has
on you. This is why I encourage people
to study the psychology of marketing.
Not to apply it, but to know when
somebody's applying it on you.
Because a lot of the psychology of marketing
today is just mental manipulation.
Manipulating you into being greedy for things that
you don't need to make you think that
you need it. It's important to be aware.
Self awareness helps you to fight this.
Linked to self awareness, number 2, muhasaba.
Check yourself.
We spoke about this last week when we
spoke about self care for the soul.
You need to constantly
check yourself.
Every single 1 of us, every day, need
to look inside and see, are there any
spiritual diseases in my heart that I need
to work on terrifying my heart from?
And then you need to
take steps to do so. So you need
to constantly check your heart to make sure
that greed is not dominating
and not overcoming
your good desires.
A third way of fighting greed
is through practicing
gratitude and contentment.
Gratitude and contentment. What do you mean by
gratitude?
Look at all of the good things in
your life.
For every blessing in your life, say, Alhamdulillah.
For every blessing in your life, say Alhamdulillah.
Thank Allah for your blessings.
What is contentment?
Contentment means
appreciate what you have.
Appreciate what you have and don't always desire
the next thing.
Right? You have a reliable car. Alhamdulillah. You
don't have to be obsessed with getting a
better car. You have a house that's a
beautiful home, where you have a loving family
in there. See,
be content. Don't always look for a bigger
house. A bigger house is not necessarily a
better house.
Right? It's always about
where's the home? Where's the love? That's what
makes you the home. Right? Where the love
is.
Learn to be content. And perhaps we'll do
a separate footpath on how to be content,
on the different steps thought in the books
of this gave to Nasser, how to build
contentment.
Number 4,
the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam warned us,
don't look at those who have more than
you, look at those who have less than
you.
So we need to shift our gaze. You
know, you say you need to lower your
gaze. Lower your gaze on the possessions of
others. Don't keep looking and say, oh, this
person has a fancier car. That means this
person has, you know, a bigger house. I
mean, this person has more wives than me.
Right? People do this and they get jealous.
Just be content to what you have. Lower
your gaze. Don't think, oh, this person got
something. I want what he has. No. Allah
has decided who gets what.
And there's only someone who will have more
than you. There's only someone who will have
something better than you, something shinier than what
you have. Don't look at what others have.
Focus on what you need and what your
family needs.
And the first thing, and perhaps you do
a separate good part of this,
there is a modern practice that actually ties
into Islamic teachings.
Right? A modern practice to counter consumerism,
it actually ties into Islamic teaching. And that's
called minimalism.
Minimalism means trying to live off as little
as you can.
Don't own too many things. Don't have too
many possessions.
Try to minimize
the amount of possessions you have. It's a
very interesting philosophy and actually ties in very
closely with how
and themselves live their lives. So perhaps another
day, we will focus on the Islamic,
understanding of this topic. Wanna close-up with 1
verse of the Quran.
And what's interesting about this verse is
it's actually talking about gender roles. Right? Allah
is telling,
men and women not to desire what the
other has. But we can take it also
on a broader,
a broader perspective and say, don't desire what
anybody else has. Right? So there's a specific
meaning of the verse and the general meaning
of the verse. The specific meaning of the
verse is when it comes to the role
of the unborn wife, both have their role
in the family. It's different from each other.
Neither should desire to be like the other
or to have what the other has. And
the and the general meaning of the verse
is whatever gifts Allah has given another human
being,
don't desire it. Because Allah knows best and
who deserves what and who needs what and
who will benefit from what. And so Allah
do not desire
what Allah has blessed someone over others.
Do not desire what Allah has blessed somewhat
over others. It's a very important concept.
Right? And perhaps, Melody, again, we'll go through
this in more detail what the person is
actually talking about in terms of gender roles.
But think of it as a general concept.
Allah's given someone something that you don't have.
Whether it's strength, whether it's beauty, whether it's
intelligence, whether it's wealth, whether it's possessions, whether
it's a bigger family, whatever it is. If
Allah has given someone something that you don't
have, don't desire what they have.
Focus on what you have and how you
can improve that spiritually, how you can
be do better with what you have. But
Allah knows best how to distribute
his risk. Now, Allah may have given someone
something that he did not give to you
because that thing may have been a test
for you and a blessing for them. Allah
knows best which test each of us can
pass and he gives us accordingly. So maybe
Allah has given somebody else more wealth than
you because that wealth would have been a
test for you. Or maybe Allah gave somebody
else more fame than you because that fame
would have been a test for you.
To keep us in check, and to make
us righteous.