Advertising is everywhere. There if a frenzy to buy, buy, buy. Let's
realize that this is nota spiritual way of life. It's not an
appropriate lifestyle for someone who is dedicated to God. The
consumerist madness is a deception. There's no joy or peace 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. It used 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. Nothingis 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, presided over 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 the same consumerist lifestyle. Sometimes the
holy month of Ramadan becomes a month of shopping, sleeping and binge
eating, astaghfirullah.
Let us – Christians, Muslims, Jews and all people of God – not
followthis path. Let's hew 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 thatadvocate a simple living, back-to-nature,
low-impact lifestyle. In Islam this is called zuhd , which could be
translated as detachment or asceticism. Zuhd is a choicethat 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 by plenty, I should fall away
and say, "Yahweh – who isYahweh?"
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, and read the news
stories of people lining up from the night before and huddling in
sleeping bags in order to buy 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 to
speak of God. Just watchwhat we broadcast, be hypnotized by our
Christmas elevator music, buy and forget…
Allah says about this:
"Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and
adornment and boastingto 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 isan illusion that dries up and crumbles like a
corn stalk, and becomes dust. It is empty, the enjoyment ofdelusion .
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 abedroom devoted to all the junk that they have
bought but 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 state of awareness of our blessings, and gratitude for the
smallest to the greatest provisions – the tiniest cells in our bodies,
to the grand earth itself.
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