leave behind Dunya

 

Hazrat Muhammad (ﷺ) says.

 “Be in this world as though you were a stranger or a traveler/wayfarer.” Ibn 'Umar used to say: “When evening comes, do not expect (to live till) morning, and when morning comes, do not expect (to live till) evening. Take from your health (a preparation) for your illness, and from your life for your death.”

You know, life is very busy and it’s very easy to get trapped in all the business of this life. We want to be good Muslims, but we find ourselves pushed about, and all the “hustle and bustle” takes us away from Allah.

To detach us from the dunya, we have make space for the love of Allah, and to let Allah envelope us in His love. The Prophet ﷺ once said: 'Detach yourself from the world and Allah will love you. Detach yourself from what people possess and people will love you. '

O Believers, Muslims! Everything around us tells us one thing: whatever you look at in this world is telling us one thing. You cannot prevent it from happening. However hard you try, of whatever you try of technology, or try to give of advice, whatever you are going to try, there is one thing that is obvious for every human being on earth. And that is that there is no one who is going to live forever.

There is no one going to survive more than what has been given or planned for him or her. Look around the world. Everything has an age. When that age comes, that thing shuts down. From any living thing, anything that has a soul, one day is going to die. Is it not? Human beings or animals or trees, or nature. Anything that has something moving in it or shows life in it is going to end. There is now way that it is going to last. The other thing is that whatever you have made at one time is going to die. Anything that you can imagine, even a car, at one period of time is gone. A plane, a computer. So everything has a time limit. Since there is a time limit, why are we fighting for this dunya that is going to die also. Why are human beings, for what cause? Everything is ending. That is why there is no way that you can do to prolong or stretch out your life or the life others. So what are you running after? Running after “ad-dunya al-jeefatun,” “the corpse of this dunya.” “Ad-dunya raasu kullu khatiyya.” – “this world is the head of every sin.”

Dunya is a dry corpse. Like dogs biting on a dead corpse and eating or like cats. We must learn from the ibra (example) the Prophet (s) showed us.

“In kuntum tuhiboon Allaha, fa-tabi`oonee yuhbibkum-ullah.” – “If you would love Allah, then follow me and Allah will love you.” [3:31]

Where is that zuhd, taking only what you need of dunya. And the Prophet said, “…and your following of the Sunnah.” This means, “Your following my Sunnah, not these ideologies from here and there. Nothing is deviating you here and there.”

Do you know schools of thought in Islam? You know four schools of Islam.

Mohammad Abu Zahra of al-Azhar University in Cairo, wrote a book called Taarikh al-Islam. He counted more than 434 schools of thought in Islam. What caused that division? For what reason? Is that what the Prophet asked us to do?

I will end up with a hadith, narrated by Muslim who said, “su’ila Rasulullah `an sawmi `Arafat.” – “They asked the Prophet (s) on fasting the Day of `Arafat.”  That is the day of Hajj. “Qaala yukaffiru sannat al-maadiya wal baaqiyya.”

It means, “whoever fasts the day of `Arafat, Allah will forgive him from all the sins he committed the year before.” That means all the sins from this `Arafat to the previous `Arafat. “And He will forgive you the sins you will commit from this `Arafat to next year’s `Arafat.”

O Muslims, try to fast that day, because Allah will take your sins away and forgive you the last year’s sins and protect you from falling into sins in the following year up to the next `Arafat.