Advertising is everywhere. There if a frenzy to buy, buy, buy. Let's
realize that this is not a spiritual way of life. It's not an
appropriate lifestylefor someone who is dedicated to God. The
consumerist madness is a deception. There's no joy orpeace attached to
it. It's a shallow illusion.
Look at what society has done to itself in the name of consumerism. A
day of thanks (Thanksgiving) has become the prelude to "Black Friday",
the biggest shopping day of the year. Itused to be that Black Friday
did not begin until Friday morning, out of respect for Thanksgiving.
Then the starting gun was moved to midnight, and now it has crept into
Thursday evening. Nothing is sacred.
The Prophet 'Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus the son of Mary), peace be upon
him, has been turned into a marketing strategy. His purported birthday
has become a month of shopping insanity, presidedover by a mythical
sub-deity named Santa. People go into debt, they fight over sale
goods… no mention is made of faith.
We Muslims fall prey to thesame consumerist lifestyle. Sometimes the
holy monthof Ramadan becomes a month of shopping, sleeping and binge
eating, astaghfirullah.
Let us – Christians, Muslims,Jews and all people of God – not follow
this path. Let'shew to a way of sacrifice, zakat (purification),
sadaqah (charity), zuhd (giving up material luxury).We don't have to
be monks, but we must focus on the things that matter: faith and
family.
There are movements that advocate a simple living, back-to-nature,
low-impactlifestyle. In Islam this is called zuhd , which could be
translated as detachment or asceticism. Zuhd is a choice that a person
makes to give up the hunger for material possessions and transgressive
carnal experiences, and live a simple lifestyle dedicated to God.
That's what we need.
The faith in our hearts is more important than the brand name of the
clothes we wear. Where our feet carry us – to someplace good or bad –
is more important than the cost of our shoes. The sincerity in our
hearts is more important than any gift. May Allah help us to see what
is important in life.
The Enjoyment of Delusion
There's a powerful verse from the Bible, Proverbs 30:8-9:
Give me neither poverty nor riches,
grant me only my share of bread to eat,
for fear that surrounded byplenty, I should fall away
and say, "Yahweh – who is Yahweh?"
or else in destitution, take to stealing
and profane the name of my God.
(Yahweh is an ancient Hebrew name for God).
If you visit the shopping malls at Christmastime, andread the news
stories of people lining up from the night before and huddling in
sleeping bags in order tobuy the latest gadgets, then trampling each
other in the rush; if you turn on the TV to the usual Christmas
comedies and "Frosty the Snowman" cartoons, you see that God has been
forgotten, and has even become taboo. It's not politically correct
tospeak of God. Just watch what we broadcast, be hypnotized by our
Christmas elevator music, buy and forget…
Allah says about this:
"Know that the life of thisworld is but amusement and diversion and
adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of
wealth and children – like the example of a rainwhose [resulting]
plant growth pleases the tillers; then it dries and you see it turned
yellow; then it becomes debris. And in the Hereafter is severe
punishment and forgiveness from Allah and approval. And what is the
worldly life except the enjoyment of delusion." – Quran, Surat
Al-Hadeed, 57:20
This theme is struck repeatedly in the Quran. The amusement and
adornment of the dunya is an illusion that dries up and crumbles like
a corn stalk, and becomes dust. It is empty, the enjoyment of delusion
. Wow. That phrase, "enjoyment of delusion", makes me think of a
madman alone in a room, tied in a straight jacket, engaged in a
pleasant delusion playing only in his mind.
I know people who have a bedroom devoted to all thejunk that they have
boughtbut do not use. They never enter that room and the door is kept
locked. Isn't that a kind of mental illness?
Gratitude
How do we resist the onslaught of the season? How do we remember Allah?
The greatest tool in our toolbox is gratitude. By looking at what
we've been blessed with, our hearts become content. Socrates commented
that contentment is natural wealth, while luxury is artificial
poverty. Contentment does not mean complacency or passivity; it refers
to a stateof awareness of our blessings, and gratitude forthe smallest
to the greatestprovisions – the tiniest cellsin our bodies, to the
grand earth itself.