What’s too Extravagant – That’s Messed Up

Nouman Ali Khan

Date:

Channel: Nouman Ali Khan

Series:

File Size: 6.36MB

Share Page

Episode Notes

How do you define extravagance? Well, it’s not the same for everyone and Allah doesn’t demand that you live an austere lifestyle either.

AI generated text may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Muslim Central's views. Therefore, no part of this transcript may be copied or referenced or transmitted in any way whatsoever.

AI Generated Transcript ©


00:00:10--> 00:00:17

Hey, man, I got one of those epic questions. So good. So good. Sometimes people send me like a four liner.

00:00:19--> 00:00:20

And it's just like, wow.

00:00:21--> 00:00:32

That he says, I have a really guilty conscience. Because we have made in the house and the prophets. I saw them, you know, faulty model, the lohana came to him.

00:00:33--> 00:00:36

And she said, We need help around the house. And he said, just go do this be

00:00:38--> 00:00:51

the sense of Hallo Allah. So Allah Subhan Allah. So how can we have a maid and the prophets own daughter? So I started looking at her and I did not have a maid. Right? Somebody dropped that on her. And she's like, Yeah, that's true. Let me guess those that are in love.

00:00:53--> 00:00:59

I don't know who. But you know, what makes that epic? Is how incredibly misunderstood something can be

00:01:00--> 00:01:23

like that Hades is about them, literally starving. And her hands completely changed. They're like scales on them. And he knows what she's been working hard on. And she comes to him. And he's literally the you see your daughter in that position. And he has nothing to give her. And he says, just say so probably Instead, it sounds like he had options. They take this as a servant data, and nothing.

00:01:24--> 00:01:26

He was starving himself at the time.

00:01:27--> 00:02:11

So he's just so proud of like, 33 times 100 times law for the times he gave her from what he had. Yeah. Isn't that beautiful? And then you turn it into you shouldn't have By the way, you should live a miserable life. You should actually every time you're enjoying something of this world, you should scale back and not enjoy it because the enjoyment is for the era. And a tough life is for dunya right? Why is our profits on them interested in nice horses or beautiful clothes? Or cologne? Or Oh, he was he was Yeah, like different perfumes. He actually even enjoyed foreign clothing was sent to him as a gift. He enjoyed it. One word one time. Yeah. something close to a Sherlock Holmes was

00:02:11--> 00:02:30

given to him one time, I suppose. Put it on? That was pretty awesome. You know, so. But why does he enjoy these things. And by the way, the turban for example that he wore every once in a while, according to Dr. opcom. He says he ordered once in a while. He called it the crown of the Arabs. Crown is a sign of royalty dressing up.

00:02:31--> 00:02:50

It's fancy. So I just like doing these things. And then the question arises, why does the Quran talk about the beauty of flowers and mountains and trees? And why does it talk about the things you can enjoy in this world? And why does he say, You know what? You're another country? How is he he put in this world things for you that you can use to live well?

00:02:51--> 00:03:10

Why would he say all of this if the world is a curse, like the Christian theology is that life is this life is a curse. This life is condemnation for what Adam did human beings are in this original sin, and they are going to pay the price of that sin etc. until they finally meet God and everything is going to be great. Right.

00:03:11--> 00:03:52

Ron, Islam, they're not telling you that you can't live well. Yeah, there were companions of the Prophet Solomon who lived really well. And not to mention them. There are people who documented the law of Islam, the alcohol of this religion, people like Abu hanifa, and others. They lived exquisite lives. They lived well. are wealthy people, like condemning living a good life, see, Islam wonderfully. It does not prohibit people from living a good life. It prohibited extravagance going overboard. But then the question is going overboard for a guy who makes $50,000 a year is different from going overboard for a guy who makes 30,000 a year. Yeah. And that's different from going

00:03:52--> 00:04:10

overboard for a guy who makes a million a year, right? They're different standards, aren't they? Like, when this guy that at 30 K is looking at a car, he's looking at a different search, when the guy at 50 K is looking at a car, he's looking at a difference? The guy with a million bucks a year is looking at a different search. Right? So how do you define extravagance? extravagance is actually

00:04:12--> 00:04:14

something that is a personal judgment call.

00:04:15--> 00:04:25

It's not a standard in society. This is extravagance and this is not. It's actually a personal judgment call. Here's another there is one little caveat, though, that we have to understand about extravagance,

00:04:26--> 00:05:00

if people around you in your immediate circle, because you know, everybody's in a social setting. Yeah. And people that are similar in their financial situation tend to live closer to each other. Yeah, that's just naturally the case in the world, right? You don't have people that live in hut hut, hut, hut, mansion, hut, hut, hut. That doesn't work. That's not how the world works. Right? So people end up in similar economic circumstances, right. So people that have living in an apartment complex, it's a nice apartment complex. You could imagine that the average income is close to everybody. Right? Because the

00:05:00--> 00:05:22

can afford that kind of housing and some other neighborhood is different, in some other more expensive neighborhoods is different. extravagance can also be about what you do, and especially when it comes to lower income communities, where you have people that are living tough lives, and you go out of your way to display your wealth to those people to make them feel like they have nothing.

00:05:23--> 00:05:52

You see what I'm saying? That's what rajala told me. He was in it, he talks about power, and he came out and he came decked out, you know, with his ride and his posse, and he's going through the ghettos of the Israelites, where they live in slaves. And people are looking at, I wish we had what he had, you know, that's extravagance, that's extravagance. But there are other aspects of you know, there are scholars who lived in literally mentioned that servants, everything.

00:05:53--> 00:06:22

But you know what, that doesn't mean that they have material in their heart, they have material in their hands, and they use it, and they use it to do a lot of good to, you know, then the other beautiful thing. And the brawn about this subject, I love it. It's so so well said, I think, unless I said, and nobody can say it better. Well, that's a no ma ba, ba, ba, ba, ba kumala. don't wish for the kinds of preferences, Allah gave some people over others. Allah gave me certain talents.

00:06:23--> 00:06:56

He also gave me certain weaknesses, those are mine, I have to make the most of them. I'll give somebody else a different equation, a different balance of different, you know, set of recipes. And they're made up of that that's their package, somebody else's a different package. And every one of you has to make the most of the package that they were given. Right, the circumstances are part of your package. What family were you born into what country were you born into what economic situation, what political situation, some people are born in a war zone, that's the package of lugging them. And they have to make the most of what that is. Some people are born in complete

00:06:56--> 00:07:25

luxury. That's the package they've been given. You know, and they have to make the most of, you know, each of them. That's what has to be done. So that's the nature of this life, Allah did not make them monotonous, like everybody should have a perfect life. And by the way, if you don't talk about religion, for a second, you leave religion out of it. You say, everybody should have the same exact opportunities, they should have the same exact access to clothes and food, and they should have the same access to education. Wow, that sounds a lot like communism. Yeah. Does it?

00:07:27--> 00:07:46

People sometimes, like they frame these kinds of things, without even realizing what is the logical conclusion to what you're asking about? It's been tried already people. And like if someone has a lot, and they're just hoarding their wealth, and living the simple lifestyle, that's being miser, that's the opposite. That's also a problem. That's also

00:07:48--> 00:08:21

Gemma Malinois, does, he gathers money and counts it, that's all he does. He's got bags and bags, and when he never spends a penny of it, so the Quran is not saying you can't make money. And the Quran is not saying everybody has to be equal, but the Quran is talking about a kind of uneven distribution, right, the wealthy should be more generous in their spending a level ask them more about how they spent, how generous they were. But at the same time, they're not cursed for eating nice food or dressing nice clothes, or etc. And they're not. That's not something that they're answerable for, unless they earned it from impermissible means, unless they took somebody else's

00:08:21--> 00:08:59

right. And earned that money. So now, here's that last part. I mean, let's talk about the reality of our world. People like to talk in ideals, you have to ground everything back to reality. In reality, there are people who become very wealthy by doing corrupt business practices. That's the reality. In reality, they have been government officials that have bled people dry, to get to the wealth that they have. In reality, there are people that own large amounts of land in some countries, and they've actually taken the land from poor people. They've done that it's a reality, right? And if these people are now looking for some religious justification, or less as you can live a good life,

00:09:00--> 00:09:27

all you can live a good life, but you're gonna pay for what you did to people, you know, even the smallest amount of cheating in the Quran, while a little multifeed, right? The worst, terrible destruction is people who skim off the top 50 people who skim off the top, just a little just a little, they're not robbing people blind, they're robbing them enough so they won't notice. You know, the, what do you call those and phone bills, miscellaneous expenses, or miscellaneous fees

00:09:29--> 00:09:42

that Allah says I'm gonna come after those people. Right, so Panama, so it protects the consumer, but you know, at the individual level, yes, everybody's gonna have different sets of challenges. And that's part of the beauty of this life is something came in my head so awesome.

00:09:44--> 00:09:59

In the Quran, Allah talks about how he created the same earth. The earth has Dirt, dirt is dirt wherever you go. It's the same water water is water wherever you go. But flowers of different color come out plants of different nature come out. Yes.

00:10:00--> 00:10:02

Human beings are all made of dirt.

00:10:03--> 00:10:09

But what comes out of us, and what we're capable of is entirely different. If all the plants of the earth were the same.

00:10:11--> 00:10:38

Imagine what a boring planet this would be. How unlivable it would be. And if that's true of the world of, of plants have life on this earth that has the same water in the same earth. And Allah gave the same guidance and we're made of the same dirt. Just like rain comes from the sky guidance come from the sky, just like the plants are recited, resuscitated because they're made of from dirt, were made of dirt. We're resuscitated by revelation. But if we were all the same, there would be no beauty left on this earth.

00:10:39--> 00:11:05

Our diversity gives this earth and our life beauty. So Pamela, and Alice about that equalizes it where it counts, right? Yeah. And Southern, you get rewarded based on what you've got. That's exactly right. So one can say he has more so you can do more? No, you'll be I mean, that's the only thing of relativity, the theory of Islamic relativity. I'll tell you the theory of Islamic relativity. I've got 10 bucks. That's all I got. You've got 10 million bucks.

00:11:07--> 00:11:14

We wanted to donate. So I donated $1. And you donated 1000 are no you didn't donate $100.

00:11:15--> 00:11:18

Technically, you donated 100 times more than I did.

00:11:20--> 00:11:21

But to a light counsel on this.

00:11:24--> 00:11:26

Because I gave 10% of my wealth.

00:11:28--> 00:11:45

You gave him my newsha percentage of your wealth. So the sacrifice you made is actually much smaller than the sacrifice I made. Now the thank you check that the or the thank you note that the for nonprofit will send you is going to be bigger than they might not even send me anything because I just gave $1.

00:11:47--> 00:12:28

But to Allah, that dollar that quarter, that Penny is worth far more than even sometimes $50,000 or 100,000 or a million dollars for a billionaire you give a million dollars. And that's worth less, because I'm less interested in quality. Right? So we when we compare people we're comparing quantity. And Allah wants to see who will rise at the level of quality regardless of the quantity they have in this life. That's not what we're being tested on. We're being tested on our quality. You know, that's where the test lies. Everyone has the opportunity. It's exactly the thing that is being tested. The sky inside, the billionaire has it and the bankrupt one has it and the homeless

00:12:28--> 00:12:30

guy has it too. That's what's being tested.

00:12:32--> 00:12:34

Beautiful religion, man. I'll see you next time.