Love of Dunya*

It was a good shabguzari night yesterday. We had a guest speaker, a Sheikh who was a top pop singer in Pakistan and left his career to become a proper student of knowledge. He's like a magnet to the crowd. It was a bigger gathering than usual. Sheikh said that we should be proud of being the ummah of nabi sollaLLahu alaihi wasallam and we have been bestowed with the noblest effort which is the effort of calling people towards Allah. (He referred to surah Yusuf).

Then this morning we've been reprimanded about the reality of love of dunya.


There's this story of a fake sheikh whose appearance is like a pious man. Then this poor guy got attached with him due to his good appearance. Unfortunately, the 'sheikh' started to use his new disciple's affluence and riches to satisfy his own desire.

Time passed by and the disciple got a dream.

He narrated the whole dream to his 'sheikh'.

Disciple: Sheikh, I met you in my dream last night and it's quite strange.

Sheikh: What have you seen?

Disciple: I saw that your hand is full of honey, and mine is full of animal waste.

Sheikh: Oooh, that's not strange at all. That's obvious. I have knowledge of deen, but you don't. What is in your hand is dunya.

Disciple: But Sheikh, the dream does not stop there.

Sheikh: Then what happened?

Disciple: I saw that I licked your hand and to my surprise you were licking mine.

Moral

Dear brothers and sisters, we should not have the slightest love of this dunya. The word dunya itself comes from the word 'dana' in Arabic which means 'low'. Everything that we have in this dunya will surely perish whether someone like it or not. It has no value at all. If it has the value of a wing of a wasp, then Allah will not give even a sip of drink to those who disbelieve Him.

Instead, the real life and real success is in the hereafter. In fact, to the same effect, the real regret and sorrow is also in the hereafter. That's the place of compensation for everything that we do. Be it good or bad.

It is strange enough that a person sells his dunya for the dunya of others. It's even stranger that a person sells his akhirat for his own dunya. And the strangest thing is that a person sells HIS AKHIRAT FOR THE DUNYA OF OTHERS!

Possessing this dunya is one thing. Though, it is going to cause a person to have a longer hisab if he has more of it. But the real concern and the matter of discussion here is about the LOVE of dunya as it may infect anyone – the rich and the poor. It is a disease of the heart that voids a person from attaining virtues of this world life and the hereafter. We need to find its cure.

But how?

Let's put an example. A person would be sad if someone were to take our $20 notes and burn it. But if with that same note he spend it to buy a bag of rice, he would not feel anything if that same note happen to be burnt. Strange ah? - He will value that bag of rice instead. Now if the rice is burnt, he'll be sad. This happened because the value of that $20 note has been taken away from the heart and it's replaced with the value of the bag of rice.

Likewise brothers and sisters, for this love of dunya to come out of our heart, we need to spend it for the deen of Allah. Then, the value of dunya will be taken away and it'll be replaced with the love of Allah and His Rasul.

Thus we need to spend from what Allah gives us – time and wealth – the two dearest assets for a human, in His path. Indeed this is the cure to the love of dunya that Nabi sollallahu 'alaihi wasallam has warned us especially.

Wallahu a'lam

*Dunya is roughly translated by me as worldly things.


 
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