Materialism: The Second Biggest Scourge within the Islamic Ummat

We have already written about the First Scourge- Islamism or Political Islam. This is the Second. In a way it is the deeper of the two and underpins the first one in terms of attitude. We shall explain this in the ensuing article.

This hadeeth was narrated by al-Tirmidhi (2352) from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him), according to whom the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “O Allah, cause me to live poor and cause me to die poor, and gather me among the poor on the Day of Resurrection.”

This hadith is not saheeh. It is considered gharib which means part of the chain has only one transmitter. That does not by any means mean that it is untruthful! And boy do the ulema have a problem with it- doing all kinds of intellectual acrobatics to not take the most obvious meaning of ”miskeen” which is poverty. So instead they say “miskeen” means humility which is a secondary meaning of the word!

Yet, they know well that the Prophet himself saws lived in poverty , died in poverty and said when he saws visited the heavens that most of the people there were from the poor folks.

So what’s the problem?! There seems to be a current within Islamic fiqh of wanting to justify wealth if not justify seeking it outrightly. Perhaps this is simply to distinguish themselves from the pious Christians who praised and practiced renunciation. But in that approach they seem to forget all of the teachings about greed and worldliness. Remember the four enemies?! One of them is ”dunniya” (worldliness) and a large part of this dunniya is about wealth.

The following sahih hadith should, in fact, close the argument!

Amr ibn Awf reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “By Allah, it is not poverty that I fear for you, but rather I fear you will be given the wealth of the world, just as it was given to those before you. You will compete for it just as they competed for it, and it will ruin you just as it ruined them.”

Or alternatively this hadith Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3158, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2961

One day he (Abdur Rahman Ibn Awf) heard the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) saying to him, “O lbn `Awf, you are a rich man, and you are going to crawl into Paradise. So lend to Allah in order to set your feet free.” Ever since he heard this advice from the Messenger of Allah, he started lending to Allah a goodly loan. He was being warned about the dangers of wealth.

Or from a previous Revelation…Jesus a.s. said  “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” from Matthew 5:3 in the Bible- part of the Beatitudes.

 So what is this materialism that is so endemic in the modern world- including amongst the Muslims? Ever noticed lol? The opulence of the lifestyle of The Saudi Royal family and the kingdoms in the Gulf. The great buildings and towers in that part of the world.The sultanat of Brunei and its petroleum resources. Qatar -its buildings, its institutions it’s attempts to join the Western intelligentsia with its financial perks  and it’s World Cup hosting. The list goes on and on! In this article we will look at three forms of materialism and its implications.

 

• Obvious Outward Wealth

This is what we just mentioned. No one can miss it!  It is most obvious. And although people like Trump may love it and be obsessed by it, most Muslims are wary. They know the dangers of excessive wealth. The Quran is full of stories of previous empires that had such wealth and then crumbled-sometimes in one fell-swoop catastrophe.

 

• Ideological Materialism

This is what we were talking about in the previous text about the scourge of Islamism or Political Islam. In this form of Ideology the belief is that by establishing a Muslim state i.e. outer Islam, people will submit and become good and pious by default! What Tarek Fatah calls the “Chasing the Mirage”. All the  historical evidence-think Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran -not to mention ISIS! -all those countries and movements that declared themselves  Islamic states and look at their records .Like the previous Materialistic philosophy, Marxism, it has all failed to live up to expectations. For those who need to be reminded Marxism was a form of Materialism, called Dialectical Materialism   It, too, believed in the state as the solution. In that case it called the State “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. And I think it is not unfair to call the Islamic state “The dictatorship of the ulema”. In fact in Iran they call it such “Velayat e Faqih.” (Governing by Jurisprudents)
There is an interesting corollary to this “Materialistic” philosophy. It is often, if not always, coupled to the ideology of Rationnalism. I have often been surprised to hear The Wahhabbis and more recently the Ikhwanis(Muslim Brotherhood) to claim to be the most Rational of Muslims. If they mean “most over-thinking”, “most hypercebral”,”most out of touch with the inner dimensions of Faith and spiritual experience”,then ,for sure lol, they are right. Sheikh Nazim liked to refer to these approaches as “mind-productions” and he taught us to distinguish them from truly sacred knowledge.

Materialists and Rationalists. What I call the “no-nur” people of Faith. Get me out of here!  Anecdote: I was once trapped in Amman by a group of Wahhabbi (Salafis)s who had invited me into their home for lunch.They were very critical of my sheikh of the time, Sheikh Nuh Keller, and of Sufism in general. At first I argued back but then I realized it was fruitless. So in one last attempt to affirm the Truth, I looked at the whole group and said; ”I don’t see any light in any of your faces! So how can I possibly accept your words?” And I ran out .What chutzpah! But I was proud of myself.

 

3)The most pernicious of all aspects of materialism and it’s real philosophical meaning-seeing only the outer (In Arabic that would be “thaheeri”)

Now Muslims are by no means unique in this outlook. We can see it in the atheists and the agnostics. We can see it in the science types (Philosophically called “scientism” or making science into a religion).We can see it in the data crunchers-the government officials, the news reports about polls and economic numbers, demographics, statistics. It is all around us -polluting our thinking as surely as burning coal pollutes the air!

But what form does it take in our religion?! Let us look at a few examples:

: The emphasis on outer form rather than inner essence. How many times during my Islamic career have I been corrected on details of ritualistic practice. ”You didn’t make sure the water went between your toes”, ”your ruku didn’t have enough of an angle to it”. “Your hair is too long”, ”.Your mustache isn’t clipped enough” etc. etc. Not once, not even once, has someone ,outside of sheikh Nazim lol, said to me “your face is illumined” OR the contrary “you are looking darker than usual today” Not once. They don’t notice. They don’t notice the scholars with “nur” in their faces and the scholars (more of them actually) with darkness. Who needs to notice that when you can check how well their nails or their mustaches have been clipped lol

: Then there is the obsession with the hijab! Is it perfect? Does it cover every single strand of hair? Is any of the neck exposed?. And in that obsessional vigilance, the fact that the perfect hijabi lady is exposing every curve in her body below the neck by her tight-fitting clothing is completely bypassed So what is the “hayat” (modesty) that our religion speaks of. Too subtle for many. Too inner a concept.

: And the marriage negotiations. Does he have a good job? Does he own his own apartment? Does the family have money? Is he tall enough? More materialism. How many Muslim ladies have I counselled whose family foolishly pushed them into a marriage that they themselves felt was wrong, because the man had financial stability?!

When I was living in Jordan, I rented an apartment upstairs of a man who had 3 daughters in their mid to late thirties. When I asked them why they were not married, they said their father required their suitors to have a good job, an apartment that he owned and $25,000 in U.S. cash. Very few people, outside of the Royal family lol, could meet such conditions.

On an alternative note, when we were honeymooning in India , we met a family with five unmarried daughters! They claimed their father was too busy with dhikr to arrange marriages for them?! But they seemed quite happy in comparison to the Jordanian ones. I guess they knew that they had avoided a lot of grief lol

And yet, our religion is full of the “inner” in its doctrine and language. In fact, the Quran begins in surat al Baqarah by Allah saying the believers are those who believe in the “ghaib”( the unseen). There is “Iman” (Faith), ”khushua” (sacred humility in prayer), ”tawakuul” (trust in God) .

Particularly in Sufism, we find terms about the inner. We talk of “hal” (spiritual states), ”afiya” (inner well-being), “basirat” (inner vision ) and “samiyya” ( inner hearing) and “fuad( the subtle feelings in the heart), “muhabbat( love)  and “sir”(the mystical secrets). These terms exist all through the sacred texts. But who needs that if you have measurements-concrete, empirical realities  that you can rely on- just like the Materialist scientists?!

God help us to recover our souls and spirits!