Tamara Gray – How to balance Deen & Dunya

How am I going to live and build a life that is balanced between that

which will help me get to Jannah and that which will help me

succeed in this world, because Allah subhanho wa Taala created us

in such a way that we recognize the need to do well in this dunya,

and we need to remind ourselves sometimes about the need to do

well for the akhira.

So when we're thinking about balance, I want to be a little bit

careful about that sentence, because we don't balance between

deen and Dunia in the same way we balance between vegetables

and meat. So

when you're going to eat dinner,

you put what you put on your plate, chicken, curry, rice,

vegetables, salad,

and you know, you put one piece of chicken, maybe two, a spoon of

rice, maybe two, spoon of curry and vegetables, maybe two.

But you don't put 10 spoons of rice,

because then you can't eat your vegetables.

That's a really good way of thinking about food, but it's not

such a good way of thinking about Islam and about deen and dunya,

because they're not equal.

It's not a buffet table where we're picking and choosing. What's

the main dish, what's the side dish?

Islam or deen is the table.

It's the whole table,

and dunya is the chicken and the rice and the salad and the and the

vegetables. So the balance is to make sure that our table is solid

and strong, so that it can not only hold up our dunya, but can

beautify it.