Ep 212. - Ramadan: The Radical Reset for a Capitalist World – with Imam Tom Facchine
We often associate Ramadan with seeking closeness to God, which is its aim. A believer abstains from food and drink in the daylight hours to commit themselves to Allah. We draw closer to him through worships and good deeds and this is a month of charity. Muslims give more in this month than any other time in the year, hoping that our sincerity reaches Allah and in the process he overlooks our failings.
But in many ways Ramadan stands as a denunciation of capitalism, the insatiable wants, greed, selfishness and gluttony. It teaches us to focus on what is important – family, ummah, justice and of course our own salvation. This is the argument of Imam Tom Facchine, who joins us today. Imam Tom Facchine is research director at Yaqeen institution.
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Transcript - This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
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Ramadan is a course correction Islam operates on multiple levels do you believe in a universe of
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scarcity of grid time and grid money so Ramadan forces us to confront that the Creator exists
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the Creator controls the Creator provides the Creator blesses the call of irran is the call to be an animal this is the life that we are sold and it's a scam they have found
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a way to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze people more and more it's been the slow boiling of a frog how do you understand and this Obsession that many Muslims have
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with places like Dubai it's the most anti- Ramadan thing in the world the the Dubai
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model we often associate Ramadan with seeking closeness to Allah to God which of course is
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its aim a Believer abstains from food and drink in the daylight hours to commit themselves to
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Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we draw closer to him through worships and good deeds and VIs
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is a month of Charity Muslims give more in this month than any other time in the year hoping that our sincerity reaches Allah and in the process he overlooks our
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failings but in many ways Ramadan stands as a denunciation of capitalism the insatiable wants
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who joins us today Imam tomini is research director at The yakin Institute IM tomam
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Al welcome back to thank you so much when the genocide in Gaza began I vowed we would
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and may Allah subhana wa taala accept from all of us well jazak for joining us now this may sound like a very odd conversation to have especially
Ramadan challenge to capitalism?
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at the beginning of Ramadan uh many may not grasp the idea of of Ramadan being a challenge
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to an ideology to capitalism like just set up that conversation for me we'll go into the details and
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the weeds in a bit but set up that conversation why why do we claim Islam or Ramadan to be that
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denunciation or critique of a of capitalist ideology sure after B so we have to realize
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that Islam operates on multiple levels so as you said in the introduction that there's a personal
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individual devotional aspect to the worship but then there's also a structural societal aspect
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to worship and the institutions that those acts of worship uh either require necessitate or are
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facilitated by so a very very obvious um example would be zakat okay and I know um you know Dr suif
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has done a lot of work illustrating this and and and explicating on this point that zakat is not
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simply an individual devotional act of worship it is also a process of wealth redistribution
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in the community which is very important because it tells us that Allah is essentially saying that
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without that there's a tendency for wealth to accumulate in certain hands and it exacerbates
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inequality in an undue way so this is very important that we have a balanced understanding
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Allah says in the Quran that certain amount of inequality is by his will why in order to test
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you who is grateful and who is patient and in order to give both sides opportunities to
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ACR virtue to give the rich the opportunity to ACR virtue through the redistribution of their
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wealth and giving it away and the the poor to acrw Virtue through their patience and their
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dignity and honor and Trust in Allah despite their situation okay now that being said that
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doesn't mean that we step over all the homeless people and say go get a job right this is this is
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also a structural part of the religion where even if you go into the books of F and some of the hanfi scholars especially when they talk about what are the types of wealth that are zakat
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that are that must be paid zakat on they speak a lot of the conspicuous wealth that the people in
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the community see because you would imagine that if you're going to the mid and I'm praying next
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to somebody who's driving a Lambo and I'm you know rumbling along in my in my Prius or my Cor
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that there might be something of a resentment or there might be something of a westwest as a suggestion a satanic suggestion of jealousy but if I know that this person is paying their fair
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share in the community it cuts that resentment it strengthens that solidarity okay so that's zakat
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so fasting Ramadan has a similar sociological and even civilizational um import and significance
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that let's imagine a society without Ramadan to see the fruits of Ramadan that without Ramadan
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what what is the tendency of people is to fall into a scarcity mindset that we need to work
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every hour of the day in order to accumulate a certain amount of income or a certain amount of wealth and if we don't we're going to end up in the poor house and we're not going to be able
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to take care of our family or our responsibilities you know and and people Muslims already face these
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challenges and these suggestions these satanic suggestions despite Ramadan right even with the
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prayer oh well if you take time out to pray then that's less studying or less uh less time open
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business or less time at work technically true but what Universe do you believe in do you believe in
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a universe of scarcity of grid time and grid money where every dollar or every pound is the same as
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every other pound and every second is the same as every other second or you do believe in a Dively
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created Universe where Allah can put blessing in some seconds and take blessing away from other
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seconds and he can put blessing in some pounds and take blessing away from other pounds so that these
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things actually aren't fible literally they're actually not fungible they're not the same so
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it's a theological challenge as to what type of un Universe do you believe in do you actually
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demonstrate your belief in the Creator that he is the provider that your provision is and I
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challenged the audience I was with last night with this that that if aliens came down from from from out of space and they looked at the Muslims they watched them how they behave and
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then you told them these people say that they believe that Allah is the provider do they act like it what would the the aliens answer many of us the aliens would say no they don't act like it
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they might teach it in their Sunday schools they might say it in their me on their Mims on Friday prayers but they act as if they believe there is no God they act as if they believe that that
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God doesn't create or provide for them they act as if their provision was not promised to them
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they act as if that Allah didn't say through you know sending it to the prophet sallai wasallam that your provision is written by the time that you're in the womb it's determined it will come
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to you no matter what they don't act like that so Ramadan forces us to confront that you have
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to slow down you're not going to be as you don't even have the access to the calories let's talk
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about I used to work on farms okay in addition to my have a ton of very eclectic experiences right
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it's like so I used to work in restaurants both in the kitchen and then as a waiter and I us used to work on farms if the materialist was right I should have been enfeebled by my physical labor
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I'm depriving myself of calories I'm depriving myself of sleep in the summer times working out in the weather 12-hour days in the sun doing physical manual labor if the materialist is right
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I should be suffering the materialist was wrong I was thriving because the Creator exists the
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Creator controls the Creator provides the Creator blesses and so Ramadan forces you to confront that
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reality that you are being sustained by Allah you are being sustained by the Creator your provision
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is in the hands of the Creator whether you take time off or whether you go to work it doesn't
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change what's going to come to you whatsoever that the stores of energy how much energy you have in order to complete your tasks your grades your whatever it is already determined by Allah
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so you might as well live your life in obedience to Allah because disobedience is sure not going to
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profit you and the only thing that will profit you is obedience okay now that's on the theological
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element then what about the societal element how do we measure success in our societies how do we
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measure success as a family we say oh masallah he's a doctor masallah you know he so much he's
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got a nice house and a nice neighborhood and and all these things and he has to work that's a problem or at least it creates a dependency or a potential problem where now anything that
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would threaten that livelihood becomes seen as a threat or suspicious which is why Allah says
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in that it's the devil that threatens you with poverty any scarcity mindset is attributed to
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the devil the devil threatens you tries to get inside your head say if you don't do X you're
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going to end up in the poor house if you take time for prayer if you uh you know how many times we
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get the students ask us around Ramadan it's like go do I have to fast through exams yeah you fast through exams if I fasted while I was harvesting vegetables you have to fast through exams like
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it's normal right that we have to be careful that all scarcity mindset comes from the devil and his
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suggestions but the two things that Allah promises are in contradistinction to that Allah promises
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you Bounty and forgiveness from him okay so when it comes to our families and how we organize our
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time and then how we organize our society the GDP what is the GDP this this sacred cow that
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we've we've put up for ourselves how do we know I I laugh at all these um you know these these
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indexes come out every couple years about which is the the country that lives the most by the Sharia
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and it ends up being like Ireland or something like that it's like why it's the GDP mashallah the GDP it's like what is the GDP there was someone who said you know the Muslim said
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something about in in Co it's like oh I I went to Target today and I bought some stuff even though I didn't need it like why well you know I wanted to stimulate the economy what what on What
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Madness is this when the companions LED auster lives when the sallallahu alaihi wasallam said
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that refrain and abstain from what's on Earth and Allah will love you when the prophet sallallahu
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alaihi wasallam used to sleep on a mattress of reads and he had them imprinted on his side when
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he would get up when the companions they owned one or two pairs of clothing when some of the
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companions when they were buried that the cloth that they had to bury themselves in or shroud
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themselves in if you cover the head head the feet come out if you cover the feet the head comes out
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and this was not all by circumstance this was their their way when was the khif when he was
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the ruler and he came up to Sham when sham had been uh had been conquered and he met one of the
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Companions and they embraced and he said Omar basically said I want to come with you to your
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home and he said you're not going to like what you see because when Omar came in there's nothing
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he owned nothing except his sword his horse and his his bow that was the extent of his provisions
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and they had just conquered and they had he had the ability to build a palace he had the ability to that was his concern so how do we evaluate what Society is is succeeding or not I would even say
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and I I say this with love and respect some of our Muslim Charities fall into this when we paint the
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sad picture of this group or this group that we want to help and we say oh my goodness they live
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such squalid lives they're you know they they don't have a school house they have a school Outdoors masallah the best school is outdoors yes education is important we're not talking about
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you know it's not that but sometimes the things that we associate so we we have to be careful
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that we don't assume that the Western um scale of measuring success and progress and advancement
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is imposed upon the world because it's not a self-evident a selfly evident uh self-evidently
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true scale is that what does the GDP have to do with you or me being happy what does the GDP have
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to do with blessings what does the GDP have to do with piety and righteousness has nothing and
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in fact radical idea we could probably stand to reduce the GDP it probably be a good idea because
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if you're only worshiping the GDP and you're only trying to push it up up up up up then what it has
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led to is led to a society of waste has led to a society of pollution and led to a society
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of um a throwaway Society a society of planned obsolescence a society where everything is meant
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to be thrown away and meant to be cast out we don't mend our clothes anymore we get rid of them
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we don't mend our shoes we don't mend our cars we don't fix them or we get rid of them get a new one
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and our society has started producing things more cheaply to break sooner so that you can just get
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a new one and throw it in the landfill we throw it away where's away away is part of the creation
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there's a physical place where the trash goes and if you were to actually if this was brought into our Consciousness out of sight out of mind if it were brought into our Consciousness we would be
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ashamed we would be ashamed of how much refu that we produce and how how much we squander
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the blessings and the resources that Allah has given us that Allah doesn't love those who waste he says that in the Quran and that the people who are are are wasteful are Brethren to the
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to the Devils this is something that Ramadan is a course correction we consume less try to consume
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the same amount of calories in Ramadan that you consume outside it's very difficult yes usually
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the first week you try it because you're used to it and then you can't sleep and you have horrible indigestion and these sorts of things like you actually can shrink your stomach just like
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you can expand your stomach if you just eat with Reckless abandon you can survive off of
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less you can get by with less you can do more with less and that's part of what Ramadan teaches us
Donate to Baitulmaal
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thanks for wrting Mal to build our school to give us the hope today is the first
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day in the school and thanks so much to make us to continue to do new successes
Viewing moral obligations
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this is interesting because of course uh very few people will pit Ramadan or place Ramadan
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as a challenge to capitalism uh so let's talk about the the different facets of capitalism and how this Ramadan we need to think about uh challenging challenging those facets in in our
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own lives um a Rand who's I suppose the high prce uh pre of of um of neoliberalism uh she
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spoke about how selflessness selfishness and um uh being greedy and sort of the idea that greed
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is good uh these should become moral virtues rather than moral vices um how how does one how
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does Islam or how do Muslims or how should Muslims view uh morality and his moral obligations the
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call of irran is the call to be an animal that's the simple way to put it that the only thing that
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differentiates us between from us to the animals is morality yeah and living for higher ideals and
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higher purposes that the idea that greed should be turned into a virtue and that self-interest
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will somehow balance itself out it's also very ahistorical we've seen that we tried that we
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saw especially in the Western Hemisphere where when this type of thinking was perhaps at its
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peak and unbridled capitalism was perhaps at its peak and you had seemingly unlimited access to
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resources and a fresh a seemingly fresh slate for those who came to the United States and the clear
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cutting of forests and the complete destruction of lakes that are no longer usable and the complete
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contamination of the water sources we saw what unbridled greed and selfishness does it
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historically was a failure so much so that even the American society had to pump the brakes and
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say hold on a minute we actually need to like change course and that's when you have the rise
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of the national park system and FDR and the you know the New Deal and and you know people forget
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that time period because now it's been quite a while and so they've forgotten the lessons now we think deregulation be because there have been other problems with the the three-letter agencies
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and the overreach and Corruption and and there are other problems with that but we've also forgotten
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about the hard learned lessons and and all of the exacerbation of uh of forest fires and the
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exacerbation of flooding and the ex like there we lived in the United States a period where
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cities would be wiped out every 20 or 30 years by Major fires or major floods due to the ecological
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destruction that was wrought by this unbridled capitalism by this greed by the self-interest
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so it's not even historically true look and and just study what happened in the places that this
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was implemented it was we've extinguished species the Bison were were completely wiped out or the
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Buffalo were completely wiped out many other uh species were completely suffocated and wiped out
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so we've tried it it's not even we don't even have to go to Theory we've tried it and it was a miserable failure and so we have to question the thinking here and we have to say you know
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is this really the rational uh conclusion that it pretends to be or postures as or
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is this merely a justification for a Bas desire that seeks warrant and a legitimizing discourse
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and I think that people of people they get into IR Rand in their in their teens and their early 20s I think I I hate to be patronizing but I think that when you live more and I've read
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IR Randy especially as a teenager I you know but when you live more and you see people of various
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stripes and you see different experiences you see how limited and small that mentality is and how
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it kind of makes sense if you squint but if you take a second to think about it that it proposes
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a hsian world of the war of all against all and everybody having the only limiting factor is force
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in those situations in the in the randan world the only limiting factor is force there is no
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place where uh where where self-interest becomes a mutually beneficial um uh sort of uh thing that
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there is exploitation that people will resort to exploitation and what really is at the base
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of it is that people are led by their desires and they're looking for an intellectual justification
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to act wickedly on Earth and that's what I believe is at its base a former British prime minister
Ramadan and Individualism
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Margaret ther who was a neoliberal believe that said I think that there's no such thing as Society
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just an individual and family uh and I suppose the idea was that if everyone works for themselves
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then Society will improve if there is such a thing called Society so individualism is in many ways
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the Cornerstone of this capitalist belief system um how can we use Ramadan to uh to question at
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least uh this this idea of individualism in our lives it's a really interesting uh proposition
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because it questions us or it forces us to question what a family is for and there are
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sociologists and historians that have written about this that there used to be the understanding of a family as a corporation someone call it the corporate family or uh the family corporation
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that when let's say when my ancestors came to the United States from Italy that they all worked as
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a unit as a business almost like as an Enterprise and those who have have immigrated more recently
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they know this that the oldest child is usually responsible for getting the good education and Bank rolling the educations of the rest or maybe has to go work to provide there's all these sorts
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of decisions that are made at a collective level okay so where's thater World in 2024 we don't even
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have that so we see an erosion and the elimination of society and then after that was the erosion the
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elimination of the family now it's everybody is a as dun said a man unto himself right fancies
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himself a phoenix right um that they imagine what it's it what what is the vision of your life that
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is sold to you that is communicated to you you know J what do you want to be when you grow up you
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don't ask your parents don't ask about Duty don't ask about what your siblings rights upon you are
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what do you want to be when you grow up I want to be this thing I'm going to go to school for this and this is going to be my education my career my family my everything and so now we March through
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life no we don't March actually we sit on a conveyor belt as individuals and that is the life
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that is promised to us that you can get a mortgage and you can have your house in the suburbs and you can live a comfortable lifestyle and you're entrapped by debt and you're entrapped by your
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addictions and you know but you have Netflix so you're okay so you know quiet down there don't you know rock the boat this is the life that we are sold and it's a scam I mean I believe
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that one of the things about neoliberal Society especially in in our era and I'll speak from the
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American experience that they have found a way to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze people more and
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more it's been the slow boiling of a frog wages have not real wages have not increased in America
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for 50 years right they have found services and public goods have been eroded in those 50 years
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you know the the debate whether Marx or Fuko was right has been settled it was Fuko he he was right
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the material condition for a socialist Revolution according to Marks have already come and gone but
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the people have been ideologically conditioned to accept it as normal and even to Pat themselves on the back as we're the most free Society in the world at least we're not like those third worlders
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you know happily smiling as they go to school in their uh in their chairs out in the forest so we
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have to really consider that that these are not people who want the best for us that are positing
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these so-called realities or truths that there's a large enrichment or a scam of enrichment of the
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elite that happens through these processes it stands to benefit um the elite of society or
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the the ones who hold the strings to be able to reduce your interdependency interdependency is
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also a collective autonomy right when you are an individual you know the wolf goes after the lone
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sheep when you are individually dependent upon the government and your credit score and this and that
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that you're you're held firmly in place and you have to be very careful or else you'll fall off that conveyor belt but when you have a more Collective unit that we are the the family
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Corporation and we're taking care of each other and you know God forbid if someone should become a widow or someone should be you know get um you know uh paralyzed or have something that we all
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take care of one another and we move together you know if if someone's going to move we're all going to move together very very different way of of thinking about life so Ramadan puts
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I believe it puts us in touch with this that you have to rely on other people more that you have
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to have more inter dependence and dependence is a very radical thing these days you know we're
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sold Independence but it's a different type of dependence Upon A a system like the state or the
27:45
the government or or your economy but there's a different type of dependence an interpersonal
27:50
dependence within Islam on your spouse on your elders on your community that actually create
27:58
the possibility for a different kind of Freedom that you can't ever attain moving through life as an individual how do you understand this Obsession that many Muslims have with places like Dubai um
Dubai Muslim model?
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there is a there is a and and you know often they say when where you when they go to Dubai that you
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know it's a a a destination where you can be a Muslim right you can you can practice your
28:21
faith openly and free and freely like what what I can see from your face you're to there's a lot of
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so what definition of a Muslim are we operating with that I can be a Muslim in Dubai in a way that
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I can't be in uh in London or in the US or you know God forbid a humble place in in the desert
28:45
or in a forest somewhere a secularized version of a Muslim a consumerist capitalist version of a
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Muslim that really what I want is I want shopping malls and I want holiday days and I want Resorts
29:00
and I don't care about the migrants who had to die to build them and I don't care about where the the
29:05
trash gets thrown away and I don't care about the externalities of my lifestyle it's the most anti-
29:12
ramadani thing in the world the the Dubai model and I as you can tell I am pained viscerally
29:20
pained by Muslims who think that Dubai is a model of success without even getting into the politics
29:27
just getting on to the economics and what it means for society that this is a deeply held inferiority
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complex that we have that we are attempting to recreate the Tower of Babel or the um what we
29:42
think of as whatever we think that progress and civilization is almost like the you know some
29:49
of the postcolonial Lit Literature out there is is quite severe but it actually is very accurate
29:55
when you say who's going to drink the alcohol the most alcohol and who's going to be the most
30:02
promiscuous it will always be the colonized Elite because they have to prove that they belong to the
30:07
colonizer right so they have to outperform and there's there's terms for this that I'd rather
30:13
not say on this on this program but that's what Dubai is to me that we're trying to prove to the
30:19
West so so bad that look at me I'm as Progressive and as enlightened as you and and I can build and
30:28
exploit and Conquer and Destroy and and trash just as well as you can and I think that's horrible
Tempering inner vices
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there is a uh we know that Islam has a long tradition of um of challenging one's inner viic
30:44
Imam bazali talks a lot about about this so it's not it's not as if these vices are of of greed and
30:51
arrogance are just byproducts of capitalism been around since human beings have been around but of
30:58
course maybe it's fair to say that uh capitalism uh makes these vices a virtue as as we said with
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with iron Rand um in particular arrogance comes to mind I mean capitalism uh tends to uh make a
31:13
human being extremely arrogant about themselves and their progress and and what they've achieved in life um how can we temper these internal vices internal traits uh and how can we utilize Ramadan
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to uh to to I I suppose to find Islamic Concepts Islamic ideals to uh to moderate uh arrogance
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and and greed and whatever absolutely Ramadan forces us to confront the idea of going without
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and voluntarily going without not because you're forced to not because of your circumstances but
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choosing to go without is an extremely important spiritual practice Yeah because it accustoms you
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to a a certain type of patience it humbles you you thing who you you human being that thinks you're
32:09
so great and thinks you're so arrogant look at how pathetic you are without your coffee look at how
32:14
pathetic you are without having your morning meal yeah that you're complaining you got a headache and you're you know you're you're trudging through the day look at how much you depend upon Allah to
32:24
continuously prop you up despite your weakness that there's um that we are continuously and
32:32
ever dependent upon a DA for everything and it forces us to confront that I ask you about the
Arrogance in wealth
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story in Surah kah where we've got the two men and veram uh and uh uh one was arrogant and one
32:46
was you know I I remember sitting for a kba once where umam explained this story very well and it
32:53
was it really stuck with me um can you can you just explain the the difference between the two
33:00
and and excellent what made one um uh Stronger in the eyes of Allah subh than the other one of the
33:08
dangers of material wealth that is touched upon in the story is that when we are exposed to comfort
33:19
or to material wealth we fall pre delusions of permanence that is always the test of wealth
33:28
um and another important story with this isun the story ofun in so if you've got one person
33:36
and another person and each of them have Gardens and the one is taking pride in having more than the other like I've got more land than you and I've got more children than you and I've got
33:45
more this than you I've got more that than you and the humbler person is saying it's nothing because
33:51
of what you've done that's just the Bounty of Allah and Allah can take it away if you want and
33:58
The Arrogant one makes the crucial mistake that Allah attempts to rectify time and time and time
34:03
again in the Quran which is conflating material success in this life with Divine approval and so
34:14
he says some things he's like and I don't not even sure if there's ever going to be a resurrection so
34:19
he falls into that delusion of permanence but he even also says and if there is I'm going to get
34:26
even more so it's a horrible analogy that he makes and a and a and a mistake but one that
34:33
demonstrates the the cunning nature of our reason and the fact that really we instrumentally utilize
34:42
rationality when we're really looking for license for what our nefs is trying to strive for and that
34:48
he thinks that his wealth and bounty in this life is an indication of divine approval that he's then
34:54
entitled to even more in the afterlife and then of course it was all destroyed and the lesson is
35:03
that no it wasn't that it's a fitna in the literal sense of the word just like we said in the in the
35:09
previous program it shows What You're Made Of how you act when you're up shows What You're Made Of
35:14
how you act what you're when you're down shows What You're Made Of and that is a a process of
35:20
preparation deposits and Investments that you make if you haven't made the Investments and deposits
35:26
along the way that is one of the many situations that will expose what you've been saving up or not
35:31
in that case and the situation with in is even perhaps well it's just as relevant I mean they
35:40
ask him how' you get all this money he says from my knowledge I deserve it I studied hard this is
35:46
what I deserve I worked for it this is literally the words you know we had when I was in university
35:52
we had um a hunger strike because and and protests because this was part of the neoliberal um
35:59
takeover of higher education in the US where you know presidents of universities were no longer Educators that they were becoming uh corporate they were and business people and so we had an
36:10
incoming president who was a former World Bank employee and the neoliberal model of slashing the
36:16
costs and upping the profit margin and that was the only concern and we've seen how that leaves
36:23
universities and higher education prey to moneyed interests in the last 15s months anyway we went
36:29
on we so one of the things that they were doing to cut costs was to take all of the cafeteria workers who had a career that was their job 40 hours a week with benefits and make them into
36:41
temps make them into parttime that they wouldn't have to pay them benefits and it's no longer a career and so we tried to fight this we ultimately were unsuccessful but we we did a hunger strike we
36:52
did protests and we were in the Office of the President and the president made over 300,000
36:58
a year as a salary and there was another University where the president had taken a
37:05
pay cut in order to this was recession time as well like in order to keep going the the other
37:10
workers so that the other workers we said why don't you please do the same and the response we got from her was I worked hard for this it was cn's response it's like this is what I'm
37:21
entitled to and Allah knows best what happened with that individual but they'll they'll meet
37:27
their their Justice eventually but we see that human delusion humans have such a propensity to
37:33
delude themselves the delusion of permanence and the delusion of entitlement those I think are the two the two main things thinking that we should always have this Ramadan breaks that
37:43
nope you don't deserve that whatsoever you're not entitled to that you're not entitled to three meals a day you're not entitled to to eat whenever you want and drink whenever you want and
37:50
do these things you have no right to demand that or expect that and it forces us to confront that
Balance in wealth
37:58
yeah um so far we've talked about the the evils of of excessive wealth or or maybe the arrogance
38:05
that comes out of excessive weth but of course we know that Islam did not like like Marxism
38:10
Islam isn't a faith that uh stops people from accumulating wealth and Islam does not confront
38:19
even the luxuries that that one may possess in one's life as long as one does that with with
38:24
the right frame of mind um so what is that balance can you can you can you explain that balance to us and how should we exercise our our natural need for growth our natural need for wealth uh but
38:36
these excessive qualities that you you talk about that are problematic it all comes back to what's
38:42
your ultimate goal and who are you serving yeah right what is your your object of obedience for
38:51
many people who accumulate wealth it's themselves they are serving themselves through their wealth you know either to gain validation from other people or to feel that they have a certain amount
39:02
of comfort whatever it is for other people they use their wealth to serve Allah and that is the
39:10
proper use of wealth and you see that there was always important and that's a huge corrective that Islam has for Marxism or other systems that are very sweepingly categorical in black and white
39:20
that you can be a righteous rich person person you can be there were there were companions who were righteous rich people ABD man Abu Bakr they they had money they made money tons of money but
39:33
it wasn't stagnant that's an important thing and Allah says when he's talking about zakat in the Quran that one of the ultimate objectives of zakat is so that money will not simply circulate
39:45
between the wealthy or the elite that it must move which is why zakat also is not an income tax it's
39:51
a a tax on Surplus stagnant wealth if if you dip below and then come back up the threshold then you
39:59
know it resets the clock that's important money is meant to move and so there is a way of inhabiting
40:07
that but as we see with Abu Bakr as we see with the other companions they were ready to part with
40:13
it on a moment's notice that when the time came to finance a capital gains project or a military
40:22
Expedition or whatever was the in the in they were they put it in service of of the Muslim Community
40:28
and they put it in service of their own salvation and that's really the ultimate thing and we have to be careful because you know we have to assess where the the community is at and right now it
40:40
seems like the community has tilted to the extreme that we justify having wealth Without Really
40:49
emphasizing the duty that comes along with that wealth we we say things like oh Allah loves to see the sign of his his favor upon a Believer and you know Allah hasn't forbidden you know the the zena
41:00
as he says in the Quran the uh the nice things are the Finer Things in life and the prophet s wasallam said that arrogance is not in having nice clothes all of which is true but contextually
41:11
if we use this as an excuse and our mosques are underserved and our institutions are underserved
41:18
and there's poverty in our communities and people aren't paying their fair share then this is a
41:23
problem then we've gone too far to one side and if we were ever to go too far to the other side then
41:28
we would correct accordingly but when you see the community leaning one way when literally there's
41:33
a a a place in in Canada where a brother had a fancy car and he had a glass wall installed in his
41:42
house or no his garage so he could look out the window and and look at his car now I want you to
41:48
give me any any justification for this religiously there's none that's is that is that is waste and I
41:56
fear for that brother on the day of judgment uh so we have to be realistic but also yes like it
42:01
is not categorical that it is there just like your intellect just like your network and your connections just like your skills it's all there to assist the other Muslims and to worship Allah
42:14
and to push his Dean forward and to serve humanity and society and as long as it is used for those
42:20
ends then it's okay one final question for you um uh capitalism infects all of us and infects our
Capitalism and Dawah scene
42:29
ways of being and the way we interact with others uh you know I'm I'm particularly interested in
42:34
your thoughts about how capitalism has has maybe infected the the dat we scene um it just seems
42:41
to me that wealth uh is flowing through sort of this Islamic da scene and maybe there is a danger
42:48
again I'm not saying uh that one can't be paid for for one's services and and you know for for
42:54
the commitment one puts into into to travel and whatever it may be uh but there may be a danger
43:01
of um excessive wealth uh flowing to personalities and and just you know I don't know if you share
43:08
that that feeling but absolutely no I I'm very concerned by it I I detest the celebrity daa
43:14
culture right and what it has done um and the structural problems that it has brought along
43:21
the fact that we brand ourselves as individual speakers um rather than collectives I think is is
43:29
one front that is very problematic yeah so if you brand yourself as an individual what consequences
43:39
does that have on your ability to receive critical feedback if you are employing modern contemporary
43:47
marketing strategies then how much is your PR coming in the way of N and rectification
43:57
and accountability these are really serious things that we need to talk about if this is a uh a
44:04
monetized space or a commodified space overly so then how does that shape our relationship between
44:11
each other do we see each other as competitors if we see each other as competitors then are there
44:18
turf wars are there uh do people get black Bal do we not even trust each other enough to confide in
44:25
each other when we're struggling with something which all of us do every single person does right so there are serious structural um consequences negative consequences to the commodification of
44:36
daa but even perhaps more than that which is bad enough what are we spending our money on
44:44
as a community that's my bigger concern because if we were to do programs that developed capacity
44:54
within the community and we were to spend a lot of money let's say this like such and such a person comes along or such and such an organization and they're going to show us how to develop capacity
45:03
over here over here and we're going to be able to do a lot more for a lot we're going to be able to
45:09
to open up halfway houses we're going to be able to uh have more programs and and feed more poor
45:14
and do all of these things I can justif that makes sense what I'm concerned about is that
45:22
our money seems to be going to talks that just make us feel good and that's not significant of
45:28
enough of justification for me um perhaps that's my bias maybe I'm just more of a systems person
45:33
than a whatever but I think that that's a problem and I think that we need to consider the Hadith of
45:39
the prophet wasam in this that you will follow you will follow the way of the of those before
45:45
you into the lizard hole and we've seen what happens with televangelism and the the you know
45:50
these what's next are we going to have uh you know shakes in private jets that would be embarassing
45:58
that would be and they will there someone will provide a religious justification for it but I
46:03
I really fear what that might mean so we have to um I absolutely I absolutely agree that you know
46:10
this is this is why we had the W you know we had the W to take care of this stuff Scholars were
46:17
taken care of by the wak da was taken care of by the religious endowments and there was dignity in
46:23
that and there was humility in that and there was accountability in that I'm concerned about
46:31
for-profit daa the way that the terrain is I get it people need to be compensated for their time
46:38
their time away from their families and the sacrifices they make and and it it's a lot I get it but I don't see it as a long-term setup I I think that we need to move to a a wak based model
46:52
that has more connectivity and more mentorship and more um collaboration and and that's something
47:00
that we've challenged ourselves with whether it's been in back when I was with UD KES or elsewhere
47:05
like how do you treat the other people in that space do you collaborate with people that are the small fries or do you only look to collaborate with the people above you for clout right do
47:15
you collaborate with people and put people on an advertise for people who they might call you out
47:22
once in a while they might publicly disagree with you or do we get salty and just sort of nurse our wounds and and see that person as as a competitor right these are really really important things
47:31
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