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Hadith #22 - The Root of All Social Injustice

December 24, 2017Dr. Omar Suleiman

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said the root of all social injustic is greed. It tears apart relationships. It causes disregard to others to the point where human life has no value. If left unchecked it will ruin every relationship. It destroys communities, families, and you as an individual spiritually.

In this episode of 40 Hadiths on Social Injustice, Sh. Omar Suleiman dives into a number of occasions when Prophet Muhammad ﷺ mentioned the evilness that is derived from greed and how it is the cause of all social injustice.

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
If everyone could get settled inshallah. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulihi al kareem. Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salamu tasliman kathira. I'm gonna need the brothers to... You guys could also keep the doors closed. And the kids' restraint. Jazakumullah khair. Alright. So, alhamdulillahi wassalatu wassalamu ala rasulillahi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. Once again, who knows what the last hadith was? It's been two weeks. So we finished employee, employer. We finished sort of the concept of trust and amanah in those situations. Tonight we're going to move to a more spiritual element, a more spiritual dimension. The brothers can please keep the door closed inshallah. More spiritual dimension of this all. And this really, to be quite honest with you, should be. And maybe once we finish compiling all 40 hadiths, this will go towards the beginning of this compilation. As opposed to where it is right now. This is a hadith that really speaks to the spiritual foundation of justice. And it speaks to the detriment as well that comes from a deep void inside of one's chest. And it is greed, this concept of shuh. Now a lot of times the hadith that we hear, we hear them either in portions. Or we don't hear the full narrations of these hadiths. And that puts us in a very difficult situation. Or it puts us in a situation where it's hard for us sometimes to make connections that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam made.
So there's a hadith that we narrated in the very beginning of this class. It taqul dhulm, fa inna dhulma dhulmatun yawm al qiyamah. Everyone's so excited today. It's elections. So the kids are screaming about elections. So we talked about the hadith it taqul dhulm. Beware of dhulm, beware of injustice. Because dhulm is dhulmat on the day of judgment. Injustice or oppression is darkness upon darkness upon darkness on the day of judgment. But this hadith has a very interesting continuation. The hadith is narrated by Jabir radiallahu ta'ala anhu. And this is in Sahih Muslim where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam continued on this thought. So he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, It taqul dhulma, fa inna dhulma dhulmatun yawm al qiyamah. Wa it taqul shuh, fa inna shuh ahlaka man kana qablakum hamalahum ala ansafaku dima'ahum wa istahallu maharimahum. So this is a hadith the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Beware of injustice, for injustice will result in darkness upon darkness upon darkness on the day of judgment. One of the first hadiths we covered. But then he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, And beware of shuh, beware of greed. He said, for greed is what destroyed those who came before you. So it's really interesting. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam in pointed this as the reason that nations were destroyed. And he continued, he said, It drove them to spill each other's blood. So greed led to murder. And he said greed led to people violating one another's sanctities. In another hadith the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said in a sermon, he was giving a khutbah. And this hadith is also an authentic one. It's narrated in Al-Adab Al-Mufrad by Imam Al-Bukhari. Qala alayhi salatu was salam,
Iyakum wa shuh, fa inna shuh ahlaka man kana qablakum safaku dima'ahum wa qata'u arhamahum wa zdhulmu dhulumatun yawm alqiyamah. Almost identical to the previous hadith. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, beware of greed. It destroyed those that came before you. First it caused them to spill one another's blood. And then it caused them to break off their family relationships. So it divided people as a whole and led them to kill each other. It ruined families. And then the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, And dhulm, and oppression or injustice is darkness upon darkness on the day of judgment. And lastly, another hadith that connects to these two hadiths, is a famous hadith that's narrated in multiple books. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said, law anna abna Adam o'ti awadiyan min dhahab, had the son of Adam been given a valley of gold, labtagha bihi thaniyan, then he would try to use that valley of gold to attain another valley of gold. And then he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, walaw o'ti a'thaniyan, and if he was to be given a second valley of gold, ahabba ilayhi tharithan, then he would try to use those two valleys of gold to attain a third valley of gold. And he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, wala yasuddu jawfu ibn Adam, that nothing would fill the mouth of the son of Adam illa turab, except for dirt. Meaning nothing would stop that pursuit of more and more and more, except for his mouth being full of dirt. Meaning a person eventually dying. wa yatooballahu ala man taab, and Allah forgives those whom He forgives. Now, connecting these hadiths, what do these hadiths say about social injustice? Well, if you look at it, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said that it's the start.
It starts with social injustice and that leads to, it starts with greed, and then greed plays itself out in every dimension of social injustice. In every aspect of your life, it tears apart all of your relationships. It causes you to wrong the people that are most precious to you. It causes you to completely disregard another person to a point that it would lead you to kill somebody. That greed eventually leads someone to even killing someone. So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, by talking about greed, he's saying that if you let your greed go unchecked, it will ruin every relationship you have, and it will lead to you hurting people in ways that are unimaginable. Okay, it destroys communities, it destroys families, and it destroys you as an individual. The third hadith where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is talking about if the son of Adam were to be given a valley of gold, he would use it to seek a second valley, and if he were to be given two valleys of gold, he'll try to seek a third one, speaks to the detriment of the soul, the detriment of the self. And this is what Allah says in the Quran, وَمَن يُوقَى شُحَّ نَفْسِ Whoever conquers the greed of the self, which we're going to talk about. So it destroys you spiritually, it destroys your family, it destroys your communities. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, لا أخشى عليكم الفقر I am not worried about you as an ummah going into poverty. I'm not worried about poverty. Poverty is not what I fear for this nation. He said, what I fear is people killing each other over money, over wealth. And he said that the fitna of this ummah, the trial of this nation, is wealth. So greed leads to this situation in which you're trying to attain as much wealth as possible, as much power as possible,
and then everything in front of you merely becomes an object for the attainment of that power, the attainment of that wealth, or a hindrance in that pursuit. You stop seeing people in front of you as people, you stop seeing anything else except for that goal of more and more and more, which is why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, أَلْهَاكُمُ التَّكَاثُرُ You have been destroyed by quantity. And it did not just destroy you, or this pursuit of quantity. It doesn't just destroy you. أَلْهَاكُمُ التَّكَاثُرُ It destroys your ummah, it destroys your communities. This pursuit of more all the time. And the ulema speak about this, that shuh is the greatest enemy of social justice. Why? It's what caused Adam alayhis salam to slip in paradise. It's what caused Iblis to be doomed eternally. It's what doomed the first son of Adam. So if you look at the first parties in the story of man, in the story of our creation, greed is what tripped up everybody in some form, in some manifestation. And that's why the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, when he talks about greed, he talks about it as a gradual process. That it starts off with, you know what, I just want this. But once you get that value of gold, you're likely not to respond with gratitude. You're likely to want more and more and more. Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah, he has a beautiful statement on this. He said Adam alayhis salam wanted one more tree. Adam wanted one more tree. He had all those other trees, but one more tree. Iblis wanted one more rank. Think about it, Iblis was as high as they come.
Now this person is going to be created, and he gets a rank seemingly higher than you. So it's one more rank. And the son of Adam alayhis salam wanted one more thing that his brother had that he didn't have, the accepted sacrifice. So for each of them, it's just one more. I want one more, one more, one more. And of course we don't compare a Prophet of Allah to the most evil of Allah's creation. And I have to make that clear. Adam alayhis salam, as Sufyan al-Thawri said, he sinned out of desire, whereas Iblis, shaytan, sinned out of pride. And pride is far greater of a disease than desire is. Desire is natural, and Adam alayhis salam, the way that greed manifested itself there was in desire, whereas in the case of Iblis, it was in a prideful, boastful expression. But at the end of the day, if you just think about it, it's one more, one more tree, one more rank, one more this, one more that. And that leads to rivalries, it leads to hatred, it leads to envy, it leads to pride. It leads to all of these different types of things, but it goes back to that. And subhanAllah, we find many different ahadith and ayat and sayings of the Salaf in this regard. So I'll try to break it down inshaAllah in a way that we see it again as a problem, not just for our societies and our communities and for any dream of attaining social justice, but rather as a detriment to ourselves if we allow this to go unchecked. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he also said about shuh, so there are a few different ahadith as well. He said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, la yajtami'u ghubarun fee sabeelillah, wadukhanun jahannam. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, so this is the first part of the hadith,
that the dust in the cause of Allah, meaning dust in battle, if a person is fighting in a noble cause and their face is covered in dust, that that would not be combined with the fire of hell. That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would not allow the fire of hell to touch that man's face. And he said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, wala yajtami'u shuhwa wal iman fee qalbi abdin abada. He said salallahu alayhi wa sallam, faith and greed can never be combined in the same heart of a man. So greed essentially expels iman from the heart. What did the scholars say about that hadith? The last one which is, he wants one valley of gold, then he wants two valleys of gold, then everybody get out of my way, get out of my way so that I can try to get this valley of gold. And every person becomes expendable in that pursuit. And it's just let me get to there, I don't care who I have to step on to get there, I don't care what I have to do, I'll cheat, whatever it is, just give me more, more, more, more, more. How does that expel iman? If you think about faith, what allows faith to remain alive in the heart is that constant renewal of the pursuit of Allah's pleasure. If you're not constantly renewing that pursuit in your salah, in your dua, in your acts of worship, then your iman is going to diminish. Okay, it's going to become diminished. So in this situation, greed overtakes the heart. And a person's heart becomes so occupied with what they don't have of this world, and with the pursuit of that, that the love and pursuit of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala disappears and vanishes from the heart altogether. The Prophet ﷺ is really powerful. He's saying that those two things cannot be combined in one person's heart. One of them is going to overtake the other. Iman overtakes greed. Faith overtakes greed.
Why? Because you realize that this world is not worth that pursuit. I'm not supposed to be attached to this world in the first place. Iman tames that pursuit in the first place. Whether it's for halal or haram ways, it tames the pursuit of this dunya. But certainly that iman, if it grows in the heart and if it overtakes the heart, then I'm definitely not going to pursue this world at the expense of the hereafter, or at the expense of my relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So it's an interesting hadith from the Prophet ﷺ, and all four of these hadith build up on one another. How does this play in society? Well, the resources of the world are finite. We can't have them all, and so people are constantly trying to get more, and that often means that you have to take something from someone else. Subhanallah, one of the du'as of Abdurrahman ibn Auf radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, because who's more likely, and this is powerful, who's more likely to be a greedy person? Someone that doesn't have or someone that has? Someone that has. It's interesting. Greed usually afflicts someone that already has a lot. Again, Adam had all the trees. Iblis had the highest rank of his entire creation, of all the jinn, raised to the level of the angels. You already have a lot, and that's when you become diseased with shuh. That's when you become diseased with shuh. When you think of rich companions, the richest of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, Abdurrahman ibn Auf radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. Abdurrahman ibn Auf, this man who was known for being super rich. I don't want to say filthy rich, because that wouldn't be fitting to a companion.
Really, really rich, very wealthy. His caravan, when it used to come to Medina, people used to think that there was an occupying army. That's rich. When you cause your home city to tremble every time you come back from a trade route, and people see so many camels and horses and so much wealth, they think that an opposing army is occupying the city every time you come home. That's a man that has a lot of money, just a lot of merchandise. That is a man who is successful, and that is a man who needs to be very careful from not getting attached to this dunya. And subhanAllah, there's a narration of Abdurrahman ibn Auf radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, which I love because it's self-awareness. He once made an entire tawaf. He was heard while he was doing tawaf. So he did all seven tawaf around the Ka'bah, and he was making the dua, اللهم قن شح نفسي اللهم قن شح نفسي Oh Allah, protect me from the greed within me. Oh Allah, protect me from the greed within me. Oh Allah, protect me from the greed within me. اللهم قن شح نفسي And he was heard saying this from the start of tawaf all the way to the end of all seven circuits, meaning he understood that because I have so much, I might be deceived by that pursuit, and it could lead me away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and lead me away from that pursuit, that ultimate pursuit of the hereafter. That's what the Prophet ﷺ is speaking to, that the irony of this entire situation is that the most greedy are usually the most wealthy. You think about the big corporations that are out there, you think about those that start wars, and literally kill people in order to grow their accounts. You think about corrupt politicians, I'm not naming anybody, that will use anything and everything to grow their wealth, even though they have more money than,
they have so much money they don't know what to do with it all, but they still are literally willing to kill people and drain countries in debt and cause all sorts of global crises and catastrophes just to grow their accounts. You don't know what to do with 10 billion, why are you going to kill for another 10 billion? You don't know what to do with your money, but that greed just grows and grows and grows and grows and literally leads to destruction. Every single war, and I think if we look at modern warfare, there's little that's more haram than that. The amount of collateral damage, the amount of poor innocent people that are killed in these global wars that are usually launched by developed nations. If you really look closely at them all, you follow the money. It's greed. Greed leads people to these things. If you look at some of the interesting power plays in the Middle East taking place right now, the consolidation of power, willing to do anything and everything to get more and more and more power. So greed, the Prophet ﷺ is saying it usually afflicts someone who has, not someone who does not have. And that's really, subhanAllah, the mercy of Allah ﷻ that He doesn't allow some of us to ever be rich. You ask Allah for more and you always find yourself in a difficult situation. If Allah is not giving you a lot of wealth and you're asking for like this and you're always finding roadblocks in your pursuit of dunya, just know that Allah is protecting you. Allah is protecting you from yourself. It could be that because Allah knows you better than you know yourself. How many people think when they don't have, that when they have, they'll be different than those that do? So when I get there, I'm going to do this. Once you've got it in your hands, suddenly it just becomes so difficult to let go of. Suddenly it owns you. You become conquered by that wealth.
And whereas you might not, when you had a lot less, have worried about those digits as much, now that you have so much, you're monitoring closely and you want more and more and more and more. So again, the dua that we find from Abdurrahman ibn Auf radiAllahu ta'ala anhu is that if you think of many of the crimes that take place, if you think of much of the, especially the white collar crimes, right, the Wall Street crimes, the corporate crimes, and these types of things, where do they come from? They come from ash-shuh. More and more and more and more. You keep pursuing more and more and more and more. And that is to the detriment of the entire society. So our scholars, of course, always trace everything back to the Qur'an. They trace everything back to the spiritual diseases. Wa inna fitna ta'ummati al-maal. And the Prophet ﷺ said that the fitna of this ummah, the greatest trial of this ummah, is al-maal, is money. So what's the difference now between, because we covered al-bukhl, al-bakheel, we covered stinginess. What's the difference between al-bukhl and ash-shuh? Does anybody know? What's the difference between miserliness, stinginess, and greed? In the Arabic language, a lot of times, by the way, when you read translations of the Qur'an or you read a translation of a hadith, you might actually see shuh translated as stinginess. So shuh and al-bukhl are used interchangeably, or they're translated in the same way. And that's because some scholars actually didn't make a distinction between the two. But many scholars, they said if you look strongly at the Arabic language, there is a difference between the two. The difference between shuh and bukhl, greed and stinginess, Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahullah, he says, shuh is the extreme keenness of something, strongly covening it, expanding yourself to attain it, restlessly impatient to secure it.
Meaning it is particularly trying to pursue something you don't have. Bukhl is after, stinginess is after you acquire something, your protectiveness over it. Okay? So the way that you want to hold it back, so that you're incapable of letting go of any of it. So shuh actually precedes al-bukhl. Greed precedes stinginess. So he says that bukhl is the fruit of shuh. I know this sounds so awkward in English. Miserliness is the fruit of greed. Miserliness comes from greed. If you had shuh when you were pursuing, then you will have bukhl after you have it. And he said, radhiallahu ta'ala anhu, those who exhibit stinginess are incapable of resisting their greed. But those who do not have stinginess have already defied their greed. Those who are able to capture stinginess have already defied their greed. What does that mean? If you have a lot and you find it easy to give, and easy to let go, and you're not intoxicated by the power, nor are you intoxicated by your wealth. You get there, you have power, you have wealth, people compete with you for the power, whatever. People want your money, you constantly give, you spend on your family, you spend in charity. The Prophet ﷺ described this person who gives with their right hand in a way that even their left hand doesn't know. You're just constantly in the state of giving. That lack of al-bukhl, which is more tangibly observed, which is stinginess, shows that you've conquered greed, you've conquered ash-shuh. So he said the difference is, when Allah ﷻ says, shuh-ha-nafsi, the greed of the self, the scholars of tafsir, they said,
ay tam'uha fee ma laisa laha. It's your desire for something you don't yet have. The greed that you have when you are trying to pursue something. And it can become violent. That greed can become violent, and that can lead to graver circumstances of social injustice. If you think of Surah al-A'adiyat, inna al-insana li-rabbihi laka nood, wa inna huwa ala dhalika la shaheed, wa inna huwa li-hubbil khairi la shadeed. If you look at Surah al-A'adiyat, Allah ﷻ says, Verily man is ungrateful to his Lord. He is a witness upon that. That lack of gratitude, how does it manifest itself? wa inna huwa li-hubbil khairi la shadeed. His pursuit of the world becomes violent. It becomes severe. Nothing can get in the way. SubhanAllah, what does Allah ﷻ say next? athala ya'lamu idha bu'ithira ma fil quboor. Allah ﷻ immediately takes you to the grave. Won't He know what He's done or the worthlessness of what He's pursued when He's exhumed from His grave. What did the Prophet ﷺ say in the hadith of one valley of gold, two valleys of gold, three valleys of gold? You don't stop until you have dirt in your mouth. Until your mouth is full of dirt. And then that's where the pursuit ends. And you realize all that consumption of more and more and more and more just ended up with the exact same grave. You can put whatever you want on top of the grave. You're still going in the dirt. Right? To show you how worthless this world is. And he said ﷺ, this is another authentic narration. He said, sharru ma fi rajul. The worst qualities that a man can have. shuhhun hali'un wa jubnun khali'un. That's a tough one to translate. He said the worst two qualities a person can have.
shuhhun hali'un wa jubnun khali'un. So the Prophet ﷺ is saying shuhhun hali'un would be an alarming level, a great level. This alarming level of greed. This overwhelming greed inside. And the Prophet ﷺ said an unrestrained cowardice. To be unrestrained in your jubn, in your being a coward. That's also something that we find from the Messenger ﷺ. What's the relationship between these two qualities? I remember a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, I gave a khatira after isha and I talked about the connection between al-jubn wa al-bukhl. Being a coward and being stingy. Being a coward and being stingy. Being stingy means that when you're called to give for the sake of Allah, you go into self-preservation. Being a coward means when you're called to the occasion of courage, you go into self-preservation. So here the Prophet ﷺ is making a connection between the root cause of the stinginess and that trait of being a coward. That a person becomes overcome by greed and a person who is overcome by greed will be overcome by the trait of cowardice as well. How can you make that connection between the two? If a person is overcome by greed, they lose any sense of principle and integrity. Think about all the movies where you've got people in battle and you've got the traitor on the side, within the ranks of the army, that goes around and steals some of his fallen soldier's stuff and then hides off to the side. That's the best way that I could explain it to you.
That greed does away with all sense of principle. So that lack of principle is going to affect the way that you deal with everyone, including your family, including yourself. It overcomes you. So, وَمَن يُوقَى شُحَّ نَفْسِي A person has to conquer that greed within themselves. And that's why, by the way, the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ or the very famous story, this story is narrated by Abu Hurayra radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, that a man came to the Prophet ﷺ and he was clearly in need. The Prophet ﷺ sent a message to his home and they said they don't have anything except for water, so there was nothing to feed the man. So Allah's Messenger said, who is going to take this man and entertain him as his guest? So one of the Ansar, one of the people of Medina, one of the companions said, I will take him, O Messenger of Allah. And so he went to his house and he told his wife, let's entertain generously the guest of Allah's Messenger. Let's entertain with generosity the guest of Allah's Messenger ﷺ. She said, we have nothing to eat except for the meals of our children. So that's all I have is just some food for the kids. So he said, prepare your meal, light your lamp, and keep stirring the pots until the children fall asleep. And when the man sits down, then turn off the lights, put the food in front of him, he will think that we are all eating. So put empty plates in front of all three of us, but only put the food on his plate. He will think, because the lights are off, that we are all eating together, so that way you don't make him feel bad. Let him eat the food and that's it. So they did that and the Prophet ﷺ in the morning, it was beautiful, he said that Allah laughed last night at one of your actions.
Allah ﷻ laughed at one of your actions. After fajr the Prophet ﷺ said that, and he said, and he revealed, وَيُؤْثِرُونَ عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ وَلَوْ كَانَ بِهِمْ خَصَاصًا They prefer others to themselves, even if that is to their own detriment. وَمَن يُوقَى شُحَّ نَفْسِهِ فَأُولَئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ And those who are able to overcome the greed within themselves, they are the ones who will be successful. So this ayah was revealed in connection to this incident. What does that mean? Allah ﷻ is telling us that it's not just about the charity. Again, stinginess is the fruit of greed. Charity is the fruit of selflessness. Sincerity is the fruit of selflessness, the opposite of greed. So Allah did not talk about the spending part. Allah talked about the internal selflessness that they have. وَيُؤْثِرُونَ عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ They prefer others to themselves, even if that's to their own detriment. And whoever conquers the greed within, then verily they are amongst those who are successful. May Allah ﷻ make us a people who are selfless. May Allah ﷻ never allow our pursuit of this world to make us violent in that pursuit, to disconnect us from Him, to disconnect us from our families and the people around us, and to disconnect us from the good potential that He has put within us. May Allah ﷻ allow us to always be a people of charity, a people of generosity, and a people who long for Him and not for this material world. Amin. Questions?
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