Read the Friday Sermon Below:
SPIRITUALITY AND MATERIALISM
There
is a common belief among us that the Arabs and Muslims in general are
spiritual while the West, i.e. industrialist and capitalist American
and European societies, is materialistic. But how true is this claim?
Sometimes
non-Western countries are included in this category, such as Japan
and South Korea for instance. Most East European and Latin American
countries are not considered to be Western. The West, according to a
common belief among many historians, is made up of capitalist and
liberal societies rather than socialist and communist cultures.
The
terms materialist and spiritual are contradictory. Obviously, good
ethics can be found in both spiritual and materialistic societies.
Spiritual means having attachment to faith and humanitarian values,
the principles of mercifulness and compassion, social solidarity and
the belief in life after death. Spirituality
and materialism are both seeking after happiness.
Spirituality seeks happiness within the overall concept of God and His All-Power while Materialism seeks happiness without the Divine support, abandoning faith for the flimsy world. Spirituality teaches us to aspire for a better life, a more illumined life. Materialism teaches us to desire more material goods and material wealth, leaving behind the belief in the Retribution.
Spirituality seeks happiness within the overall concept of God and His All-Power while Materialism seeks happiness without the Divine support, abandoning faith for the flimsy world. Spirituality teaches us to aspire for a better life, a more illumined life. Materialism teaches us to desire more material goods and material wealth, leaving behind the belief in the Retribution.
Permanent
happiness and materialism can never be found together. Spirituality
teaches us to be selfless; materialism teaches us to be selfish.
Spirituality teaches us to love our fellow man. Materialism teaches
us to love our material wealth. Spirituality does not compare.
Materialism is subject to constant comparison, being the father of
jealousy and insecurity. Spirituality takes the help of material
progress, but it is never a slave to materialistic desires.
Materialism cannot see how spirituality helps.
Spirituality
lives in the present moment. Materialism lives in tomorrow’s world
of endless desires and yesterday’s world of inevitable
dissatisfaction. Spirituality enables peace of mind. Materialism,
even with all the wealth in the world can never buy peace.
Materialism
eventually becomes frustrated with its own limitations. Slowly,
reluctantly and even unwillingly, materialism eventually turns to
spirituality to feed its insatiable appetite for real happiness.
Materialism
means behaviour based on power, repression, competition, free market
policy, imperialism, technology and lack of belief in religion or
life after death in addition to the coercive concept of survival for
the fittest.
Let us go back to the common belief that Arabs and
Muslims in general are spiritual and that most Westerners are
materialistic. On what criterion is this opinion based?
The
answer is simple: Arabs are religious people or are ruled by
faith while the West is ruled by materialistic interests. Claiming
that we, Muslims are governed by religion may be true but what
religion? Is it the religion of noble values or that of appearances
and false rituals? For that we need to define what is a true Muslim,
and we need to precise the Islamic aspects of Arab countries and
their inhabitants. The true Muslim and true Muslim country guided by
the Islamic laws, in other words, Allah’s Laws, the Holy Quran and
the Sunnat (practices) of His Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
surely shall inevitably be spiritual, preserving their bond with the
true faith and God Almighty and striving for the hereafter, leaving
behind egoism and the thirst for material things.
We
cannot deny that the Arab countries nowadays are filthy rich, and
with material riches comes also temptation and a loosening of one’s
spirituality to embrace materialism and materialistic desires. Today
we are facing two extremes of the Arab societies: being too
materialistic or too extremist in matters of the faith, to such a
degree that such kind of people take such bold steps, contradicting
the holy commandments of Allah and they take their own definition of
religion/ faith as the real one and thus they become so fierce to
others which thus in turn projects a bad image of Islam, when in
reality Islam is a religion of peace, it is the true faith.
For
instance, over the years we have witnessed to what the Taliban and
the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have done, giving a false
outlook on Islam, giving more attention to their own ostentatious
rituals of the religion than to the noble values of justice, freedom,
equality and dignity which Islam actually preaches.
In
most Arab societies, relationships are now commonly based on the use
of power, nepotism and self-interest. This is an actual fact which
cannot be challenged. Money is a pivotal factor in shaping these
relationships. Repression is a feature of many Arab societies today.
Power is a highly valued concept which has been the theme of the
majority of Arab poems even those composed before the advent of
Islam. Weak people in our society do not count. They receive no
support from anyone. Minority groups in our societies suffer a lot.
Let
us now look at the West. Is it really materialistic? If, yes, to
what extent?
Generally
speaking, free societies not attached to spirituality and its essence
are called to be doomed in the long run. The West though to a large
extent materialistic is slowly but surely turning little by little to
spirituality. And the best form of spirituality is found in ISLAM.
People in such societies are realising the importance of spirituality
in their lives and Insha-Allah, I pray that the time comes
that the West merges in the true spirituality which Islam has on
offer for this is the best form of spirituality and their connection
to the Unique God, Allah shall then be guaranteed.
Whilst
capitalism and the free market economy decide the destiny and fate of
the people there, however, Westerners are aware of this fact and are
making an effort to change it. The dominance of the free market
economy does not prevent people in the West from honouring spiritual
and humanistic values such as justice, freedom, equality and social
solidarity. This is a fact that cannot be denied.
Lastly,
if we understand the spiritual or humanitarian to mean human dignity,
then it is the West which is spiritual and we are the materialists.
Instead of the values of justice and dignity, the behaviour of
repression is predominant in our societies. Despotism has replaced
dignity and chaos has replaced order.
So,
now Muslim and Arab countries and all people involved, we need to
ponder over this carefully and change our materialistic fate to that
which Allah had already gifted us with when He directed us to Islam.
We should honour the trust that He has placed in us and handed over
to us in that which He has given us Islam as the best form of
spirituality, as the best form of faith to enable us to reach to Him
through perfect morals and human values, to help ourselves to reach
Him and to enable us to help others also to reach to Him,
Insha-Allah, Ameen.
May
Allah change the fate of today’s Muslims and help us revert to the
Sahih al Islam of the times of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and
to shape our societies like the Holy Prophet (pbuh) shaped the
community of Islam in his days. Insha-Allah, Ameen.