Happiness, Fun and Pleasure

Happiness, Fun and Pleasure

2013 ICNA-MAS Convention by Nouman Ali Khan

Opening and Introduction

Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen wassalatu wassalam ala sayyid al anbiya wal mursaleen wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een thumma amma ba'ad fa a'udhu billahi minash shaytanir rajim.

The Central Ayah from Surah Al-Hadid

Know that the life of this world is but amusement and diversion and adornment and boasting to one another and competition in increase of wealth and children - like the example of a rain whose [resulting] plant growth pleases the tillers; then it dries and you see it turned yellow; then it becomes [scattered] debris. And in the Hereafter is severe punishment and forgiveness from Allah and approval. And what is the worldly life except the enjoyment of delusion. (Quran 57:20)

My Lord, expand for me my breast and ease for me my task and untie the knot from my tongue that they may understand my speech. (Quran 20:25-28)

The Context and Purpose of This Ayah

If I can accomplish in the next 20 or less minutes sharing with you some lessons from just one ayah of the Quran I think I've done my job. This is an ayah that belongs to Surah Al-Hadid, Surah number 57 of the Quran which is a Madani surah which means that the predominant subject of the surah is addressing the Muslim community. There are surahs of the Quran that are Madani in which predominantly the subject matter is addressing all of humanity because it was an invitation to all of humanity, but then there are places in the Quran especially in Madani Quran where the Muslim community is the primary audience they're the ones listening.

Allah's Summary of What We Pursue in Life

So now in this Madani surah what Allah gives us is a summary of the things we run after in life and he begins by saying you had better know - it's a commandment from Allah for something for us to realize.

But the things he says are really obvious but perhaps there are things that we don't take into consideration when living out our lives. He says worldly life amounts to nothing more than play.

Stage 1: Play (La'ib) - Early Childhood

I didn't understand this ayah properly enough until I became a father myself. As our children are growing up there are needs and there are wants - we all know that - and our children when they're born all they have are needs. They need to drink their milk, they need to poop, they need to get some sleep and the cycle begins again. But as they get a little bit bigger a want comes into play. My child who's 6 months old, 9 months old, a year old, they really want to play. They want to be held, thrown up and down, tickled. They can't just sit there and eat food and go to sleep - they want to play peekaboo, they want to play. It's a desire naturally that comes into a child.

I remember like a crazy incident that reminded me of this ayah. There's a place in America that every sister here knows about - it's almost a religious obligation on Muslim sisters to go once a week to Target, right? So I was fulfilling my religious obligation taking my family to Target and I was in charge of our at that time, you know, our first son - Waleed or Imad rather. I forget names all the time now, I just call him number 3, number 4. Sorry 4, come here.

So anyway, Imad was like 2 years old at the time and you know boys when you take them to the grocery store they just want to knock everything over in the aisle because it's really entertaining for them to watch you pick it up and put it back. So I need to keep him busy so I go to the toy section and there's this giant ball - huge, it's bigger than him. So I take it out and I say you do this son. So he takes the thing, he kicks it and he goes over a little bit more and he kicks it and he did tawaf of the entire Target this way. It was awesome, I didn't have to do anything. I just had to follow him around and he's getting exhausted, he's sweating, the diaper is starting to smell suspicious, and he kicks it one more time and he falls to the floor. He's sitting on his bottom like this and he's staring at the ball and he's breathing heavy like "I'm coming, I'm coming" you know. And he gets up and he goes and he's about to kick it again until my wife found out and she picked him up and said what are you doing and he goes in her arms passes out. The second he gets in her arms because the most important thing to him at that point was what? Play. It's a phase we go through in life.

Stage 2: Entertainment (Lahw) - Childhood to Adolescence

But then a new problem is added to our lifestyle. Allah says (وَلَهْوٌ - walahw) - and things that are pastimes. Lahw is actually used for things that aren't technically useful but they are entertaining. They're entertaining and they get your mind off of work - that's called lahw.

Technically our children get a little older and it's not just games, it's not just you know peekaboo and you know let's play tag or hide and seek. Now you want to add something more and we call that entertainment. "Tell me a story abba," "Hey can I watch some, can I watch the show," "can I watch Sesame

Street." We watch Sesame Street - it's ok I have a fatwa - but anyway, "can I watch Sesame Street," "can we watch this," "can we watch that," "can you tell me a story." Now that's not playing, what is that? That's entertainment. It's the next phase. It's a new desire that's been added to the arsenal.

And of course that entertainment and playing and entertainment combined together is now the new video game industry right? There are stories and there are gameplay that are combined together. And of course the biggest consumers of those things are children. And of course the huge consumers within the Muslim community are children that are buying video games that are way above their age level. So NC- 17 video game, your 8-year-old is coming to you and telling you "Mama I really need to get Grand Theft Auto for Eid and if you just get me this one video game we will be among the righteous. If you just get this one game for me I promise I'll fast everyday" etc. etc.

Stage 3: Beauty and Beautification (Zina) - Adolescence

So now there was games and there was entertainment. Allah adds a third dimension: (وَزِينَةٌ - wazina) - and beautification. Beauty itself. Tazeen actually means beautification. Zina means beauty itself. Beauty itself becomes an obsession. You know what that means? That means puberty hits, that means you become a teenager, that means you start seeing become really obsessed with how you look.

When you were 10 years old, 9 years old, you didn't care if your shoes didn't match, you didn't care how you got dressed, you didn't care how anybody else dressed. But now that you're 13 years old sister, you spend 45 minutes in front of a mirror fixing your hijab and one side of your hijab is higher than the other and you're slapping your head as hard as you can and it's not going down and your mother is knocking on the door saying "is everything ok?" "Yes mom it's ok" etc.

And then on the other side you have guys - they can't grow facial hair but they really think they can so they're staring really hard in the mirror "it's coming, it's coming, oh I see one" right? And then there's the guys that have the whole beard but they want to make the perfect pencil - you see those things? It's a work of art, it's so fine, work of engineering and they'll spend a lot of time doing that. Even the guy that's like shaved his head and he's bald is checking himself out in the mirror going like this.

I've seen young men walk to the masjid - they're walking to the masjid for Jumu'ah - and they stop and check themselves out in every car's reflection. It is so entertaining especially if you're sitting in the car and they don't know - it's really a lot of fun. But anyway, zina, beautification, it becomes an obsession. You just want, you want to look beautiful, you're attracted to others that are beautiful, you want to be in a beautiful looking car.

You don't invite people to your house if you don't think it looks beautiful. If your dad drives one of these old busted Chevys or something you ask him to drop you off three blocks before the high school. You would rather walk rather than be seen in that thing right? Because you're obsessed with beauty, with fashion, with clothes, with interior design. You start decorating your room at that age. You start, you

know, you want to get a car, you want to get a nice looking phone. You don't care if it's functioning well or not, you want a nice looking phone and then you want a nice cover on it too. This is zina. It's an age you go through.

Stage 4: Showing Off (Tafakhur) - Young Adulthood

And then this passes too because if you see a point comes - you become college students. High school age passes, you're college students now. You'll notice college students look like homeless people a lot of times right? The hair's all over the place, they don't brush their teeth, they show up to class just sitting there in t-shirt and pajamas or whatever. They just roll out of bed and go to class. They don't care. All they care about is graduating. Really serious students all they care about is the GPA you know, the internship or whatever else right? And why do they care about that? Because a new desire has now taken place.

And I'm not saying that the previous desires disappear. What were the previous desires in order? Can you tell me what was number one? Playing. What was number two? Entertainment. What was number three? Beauty. Here's number four: (وَتَفَاخُرُّ بَيْنَكُمْ - watafakhuru baynakum) - showing off to each other. What? Tafakhur. You want to be able to tell someone you mean something.

So you go somebody comes over to you and they're asking you for directions to the convention and you're like "yeah and I study at NYU." "I just need to know where the convention center is." "Med school actually." Nobody cares.

You just get your job, you get your first job and they offer you a, you know, a job ID like you. Maybe you got a job at a prestigious company - I don't know, Walmart or something - but you know you get your job and they give you your badge and you stick it out. You make sure you stick it out so people see "oh you work there." "They give me a parking lot parking spot in the parking lot. I took a picture of it. Here check it out" you know? There's a pride, you want to show people what you've accomplished.

When people graduate what do they get? They get a diploma. And what do they do with their diploma? They stick it in a drawer somewhere where nobody will see it? What do they do? They put it up on the wall so people walk in and they see it. It's your pride. You want to show people what you've done. People take a picture with a famous person and they want to show others "look at that."

I honest to God I feel like a statue sometimes at this convention. People come over "brother come here I need a picture with you." The guy doesn't even say salam man, he doesn't have a picture with you and I get scared. "Okay don't hurt me, you can take a picture" but anyhow.

So now we're at the point where your desire is to show people what school you go to, where you graduated from, what job you have, your first apartment, your first car. A car is about showing people what you got. You have that innate desire and Allah put that in us. There's something in us especially

young people - they're coming out of the cocoon, they're not under their family anymore so now they want to show the fact that they're grown adults and they're living on their own. So it somehow comes up that they have their own apartment even if nobody asked. It just comes up because they're really proud of the fact that they're living on their own or they're really proud of the fact that they leased their first car or something and it just kind of slips up and it comes up even though nobody's interested right?

Stage 5: Competition in Wealth and Children (Takathur) - Parenthood

So now this is added to the mix. You still really like games, you still like entertainment, you still have a sense of beautifying yourself and being attracted to beauty, but now add to that you want to show yourself to others. And then even that age passes - you get married, you have kids.

And how many people here have kids? Ok now you know what I'm talking about. All you can think about is what? The kids. That's all you can think about. What they need. Do we have groceries enough for breakfast tomorrow? Are there uniforms ready for school? What is the, when is summer vacation starting? We can't live in this apartment anymore, we need to move into a house because there's too many kids now and we don't have space anymore. The bills, the clothes, the changing shoe sizes constantly. The hand-me-downs aren't working anymore you know because your son is refusing to wear the pink sneakers his older sister wore once, you know, so you have to buy new ones now.

But now there's a mutually shared concern about making money and stabilizing your wealth for yourself and your children. So you're constantly checking the bank account. You have the mobile app and you log in every few hours and check "it's still there, let me check again, it's still there. It went down a little bit automatically, the gas company took out the money" and it burns every time you see that minus you're like "ahh."

Allah says (وَتَكَاثُرٍ فِي الْأَمْوُلِ وَالْأَوْلُدِ - watakathurin fil amwali wal awlad) - mutually shared urge to have stability in money and stability in children. And by the way as you get to that age when you worry about money so much and a house and savings and retirement account or college savings for your kids, young people that are still in the earlier stages of desire - earlier stages are what? Playing, entertainment - you talk to them about savings they're like "I don't care about savings, I'll never be like my parents, I don't care about a house, I don't care about this or that." And talk to me in 20 years - you will go through the same cycle that so many thousands and millions before you have gone generation after generation after generation.

The Universal Pattern of Human Desires

Allah summarizes the things we run after that we think will make us happy, that we think will make us happy. Here's all of it: a child thinks they'll be happy when they play, a little older when they get entertained, a little older when they feel beautiful and they get something beautiful and around them things are beautiful, a little older when they can show off that they've accomplished something, and a little older when they feel like they have financial stability.