Note: The first half of tonight’s session wasn’t recorded — it was a revision of Night 10’s discussion on tabdhir and israf. We pick up from where the new material begins.

The Balance Islam Strikes

Some spiritual traditions teach that poverty is the path to God. Monks take oaths of poverty. Monasteries require their residents to own nothing, eat simply, wear rags. Buddhism requires its monks to beg. On the other end of the spectrum, certain strands of modern Christianity preach the opposite — that wealth is a sign of divine favour, that God rewards the faithful with material success.

Islam is neither. It is ummatan wasata — a middle community, a middle path.

Allah commands us to adorn ourselves, dress well, eat from the good things of the earth. But don’t go into excess. Don’t waste. Don’t make wealth the final destination. The balance is precise: enjoy what Allah has provided, be grateful for it, and let it serve something greater than itself.

And critically — Islam does not promote mediocrity. The instruction not to be excessive is not permission to be comfortable doing nothing. Islam actively encourages wealth-building, economic development, and productivity. The criticism is not of wealth. It is of wealth as the be-all and end-all — the pursuit of accumulation for its own sake, while people go hungry and problems go unsolved.

We Are Not Prisoners Here

This ayah carries a profound theological point — one that directly contradicts the biblical narrative.

In Christian theology, humanity is on earth as a consequence of the Fall. Adam and Hawwa sinned, and we are here serving time, suffering the punishment of their disobedience.

The Quran tells a different story entirely.

Before the story of Adam even begins in this surah, Allah says: “We have settled you on earth and made for you in it a good living.” Earth was always the plan. Jannah was an orientation — a glimpse of the destination, so we know what we are working toward and what we are trying to build here.

And this ayah confirms it: “Say — who has declared haram the beauty that Allah has brought forth for His servants, and the good provisions?” Allah created this beautiful world for the believers to enjoy. If we were prisoners here, why would our Warden furnish the cell with gardens, oceans, mountains, good food, and beauty in every direction?

“All of this is for the believers in this life — and exclusively theirs on the Day of Judgement.”

Enjoying the good things of this world does not diminish your akhirah. Wealth is not a sign that Allah is displeased with you, withholding your reward for later. Hardship is not a sign that Allah loves you more. Both are tests. Wealth tests your gratitude and generosity. Hardship tests your patience and trust. Both paths lead to Jannah — if you respond rightly.

And in one sense, wealth carries an extra advantage. The poor Sahabah once came to the Prophet ﷺ and complained: “The wealthy have taken all the reward. They pray like us, they fast like us — but they can give charity and we cannot.”The Prophet ﷺ gave them dhikr as an equivalent. A few days later they returned: “Now the rich are doing the dhikr too. What do we have left?”

The lesson is not that poverty is better. It is that the wealthy have an additional avenue for good deeds that others do not. Sayyidatuna Khadijah funded the early da’wah. Sayyidina Uthman donated so generously to the Battle of Tabuk that the Prophet ﷺ said nothing could harm him after that. And what did the Sahabah do when guaranteed Jannah? They did not relax. They increased. They understood that 80 or 100 years of wealth in this world is a brief window to invest in an eternity in the akhirah.

Halal and Haram — Tread Carefully

From this ayah we also learn something often overlooked: declaring something halal as haram is just as serious a sin as declaring something haram as halal.

Halal and haram are the domain of Allah alone. The Prophet ﷺ told us: the clearly halal is clear, the clearly haram is clear, and between them are grey areas that most people do not fully understand. Scholars who specialise in these areas navigate the grey carefully, and legitimate differences of opinion exist within the framework of the Sharia.

The rule for us: stay away from what is clearly haram. In areas of genuine scholarly difference, choose a position you are comfortable with and respect that others may hold a different but equally valid opinion. And do not rush to declare things haram simply because they are unfamiliar or uncomfortable to you.

To speak about Allah without knowledge — to declare His deen more restrictive or more permissive than He made it — is itself one of the things Allah has made haram, as the next passage makes clear.

What Allah Has Actually Made Haram

So if Allah has not made beauty haram, not made good provisions haram, not made adornment haram — what has He made haram?

Fawahish — shamelessness. Both the external and the internal.

The external is visible: the stripping away of clothing and modesty, the open broadcasting of indecency, the collapse of haya in public life. We have discussed this at length over the past several nights.

The internal is the sin of the heart — and the surah has already named it: arrogance. Kibir. You cannot see arrogance directly. You see its symptoms — the dismissiveness, the contempt, the refusal to accept truth. But the root sits quietly in the heart, growing. A thought that someone is lesser than you. An assumption that your obedience has earned you superiority. Left unchecked, it becomes exactly what Iblis demonstrated: denial of truth and contempt for others.

Both fawahish — the external and the internal — are declared haram. Both unravel the human being from the outside in and the inside out.

And alongside these: shirk, and speaking about Allah without knowledge.

We will continue with this ayah tomorrow insha’Allah.

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