The world (dunya)

In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons the world is compared to a large store where a person fills his cart and pays the bill at the end ¹. The Sheikh holds that money may be a pillar of happiness but that happiness itself cannot be bought with it ². He urges accepting every stage of life with its merits and accepting people's natures as they are ^{3 4}.

The Sheikh compares the world to a large store, a supermarket, where a person keeps filling his cart and at the end must pay the bill ¹.

The Sheikh holds that money can be one of the colours of happiness and a pillar of life, but that happiness itself cannot be bought with money; he prays that God make us happy through obedience to Him and not wretched through disobedience ².

He says that every stage of life has its own dignity for a Muslim. He faults the poet who wished that youth might return one day, and urges a person not to hope that time will turn back, since every age has its own merits ³.

He adds that one should not demand things against their nature, like someone looking for a spark of fire inside water, and he applies this to marriage: if a wife is not good at showing affection (or the reverse), that is her nature and she is accepted as she is ⁴.

He tells a humorous story of a wife who went with her husband to a tower after sunset in a romantic moment and expected him to say something kind about the moon and the lovely evening; instead he asked her jokingly what she would think if he buried her in the sand right now, and she wondered at such romance (needs_source) ⁵.

The Sheikh says that the world is not a house of honour but a house of trial, and he calls it the prison of the believer (his view). He cites a saying that he describes as authentic (needs_source: its source is not given in this passage) ⁶.

He relates a saying, attributed to an unnamed person who was asked how he had found the world, that it is a house with two doors: he entered by one and left by the other (needs_source: the transcript does not make clear to whom the saying is attributed) ⁷. He quotes a saying of the Prophet ﷺ: the believer is a stranger in this world, neither grieving over its glory nor despairing at its hardship ⁸.

The Sheikh cites a saying in which the Prophet says that he does not fear poverty for his community, but fears that the world will be opened to them so that they compete for it and forget one another ⁹. He says that whoever wakes up safe in his home, healthy in his body, with his daily food, has as it were been given the world in its entirety ¹⁰.

The Sheikh holds, as his own opinion, that worldly fortune is divided as a test and the fortune of the Hereafter as a reward, and that success must be met with gratitude ¹¹. He describes the world, for those who seek it, as a carcass, while the righteous see it for what it is ¹².

The Sheikh holds, as his own view, that when the Companions honoured the Hereafter the world served them rather than ruling them, and that a person should use the world rather than serve it ¹³. He quotes the saying: "O world, serve whoever serves you" ¹⁴.

The Sheikh says that time has several properties, and that the first is its swift passing. He cites a hadith that the removal of blessing from time is a sign of the Hour. ¹⁵ He presents swift passing as the first property of time, promises to discuss the others later, and says that its speed is a sign of the Hour's nearness without meaning that people should give up their work. ¹⁶

The Sheikh says that the world is a house of test, not a house of honour, and that people are tested so that it may be seen who gives thanks and who is patient. ¹⁷ He says the world is no place of rest. He cites a saying that a son of Adam who had a valley of gold would want a second, and he likens love of the world to seawater, which only increases thirst. ¹⁸ He likens the world to the passing shade of a traveller who rests under a tree, and says that trials are met with thanks because one's faith is intact. ¹⁹ He cites a verse that thanks God for removing sorrow, and says that there is no sorrow in Paradise. ²⁰

He says that scholars called the world a loan to be returned, like a borrowed book, and that God lends a person his life, his wealth and his health. ²¹ He says that people speak of owning land, cars and money as though these were theirs, and that this is a manner of speech. ²² He recounts a saying that people left the world without tasting its sweetest part, which is contentment with God. ²³ He says that the greedy person is never satisfied by the world. Like one who drinks seawater, he drinks more and thirsts more. Blessing comes from God, so one should spend on others. ²⁴

The speaker's view is that the blameworthy joy is worldly joy linked to pride and boasting, and that it is not the same as a smile or happiness. ²⁵ He warns against being deceived by the world's smiles or grieving over its frowns, and calls this alternation a sunna of God who gives provision to whom He wills. ²⁶ He says there is no good in grieving over youth that has passed, and raises a question about why the early generations endured while later ones did not. ²⁷

The Sheikh says that 24 percent of the world's poor live in Muslim countries because wealthy people withhold zakat (needs_source: the figure is not sourced in the recording), and that large fortunes need to be audited. ²⁸