The Damage Done By Excess
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-08T17:42:51.623943+00:00 | Topic: Iman
The Damage Done By Excess - Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan
Introduction: Understanding Al-Musrifeen
Today's khutbah is about a word and a concept that is talked about very often in the Qur'an. Everybody knows that Allah in the Qur'an condemns those who disbelieve or those who are ungrateful. Allah condemns hypocrites and people who commit shirk who put partners besides Allah. But one of the terms that gets overlooked that's actually quite often talked about is this group of people called al-musrifeen.
Some of the harshest statements - and by the way, just so you have an idea what musrif means in simple language, it means someone who goes overboard or someone who is excessive. It's actually one of the ways in which The Pharaoh is described. It's described in the Qur'an:
"Indeed, the transgressors are the companions of the Fire."
Those are the people of fire. Those are the people of the hellfire. So it's a pretty serious word - the people that go into excess, but there are degrees of excess.
Divine Balance in Creation
Allah reminds us, you know, on the tongue of a previous prophet, Allah said don't follow the way and the decisions and the lifestyle of those who go in excess. So the idea of being excessive is actually a very powerfully condemned idea.
This is important because our religion at the heart of it is balance. Allah describes the skies and he says:
"And the heaven He raised and imposed the balance, That you not transgress within the balance."
He says He elevated the sky and He put a scale in it, a balance in it, which means that the earth and the moon and the sun and everything is in a position. They're balanced. The day is balanced with the night, and all the heavenly bodies have a place and a position where they're supposed to be:
"All [of them] are in an orbit, swimming."
This is the way Allah likes things - things to be in harmony and balance, things that are small and big pitted against each other and weighed against each other and rotating, and each of them performing a role. And when Allah says that in Surah Rahman, He adds:
"That you not transgress within the balance."
So you don't violate the scales - simple translation - so you don't go overboard or excess in the scales, meaning just like Allah put the entire skies in order and in some sort of a harmony and balance, we're supposed to have balance in the way we do business and the way we conduct ourselves and our thoughts, etc.
Understanding Israf: Going Beyond Necessity
And there is a possibility of excess. So let's first talk a little bit about what this excess means. The word israf essentially means to go over what is necessary, to go beyond what is necessary.
Examples in Food
So to keep things simple, if you are hungry, you know, especially now that Ramadan is over - before Ramadan was over, if you're getting close to iftar time, then you are so hungry that you keep putting stuff in your plate even though at that time you're very convinced that you're going to destroy everything. But about 25% of the way through your plate you're full. Right, so you put more in there than you were ever going to eat, and that's because you're suffering from israf. You're going over what you need because you're compensating for the feeling that you have.
Silly examples of israf can be israf in food, which is very common. People go to weddings or invitations and they go to these things and there's a line for food, right? Everybody's getting their plate filled up and you get to the chicken and there's a bunch of - you like chicken legs more than anything else, so you collect all the chickens. You're looking at the guy behind you - he might get some, because if I come back for seconds, they might not be here. So you get enough chickens to start a restaurant of your own in your plate. But you do that because you're suffering from israf.
You're not gonna eat all of that. You take more than what you need, right? So israf can be in food. Those are easy examples, and it's not just eating - putting more on your plate that you're going to eat, but eating more than you need to, eating actually more than you need. You're already full, you're still stuffing your face, or you're still getting the munchies all the time. You're constantly just consuming and consuming and consuming.
Or even within food - eating things that you're not supposed to be eating more than you should. Like, okay, sugar is a necessary part of the body's functions. Bread is a necessary, or your carbs are necessary part of the body's functions. But everything is in a balance, and if you go overboard and say I just keep eating candy or keep eating sweets, Allah teaches us His natural order of things - if you eat things out of order or you excess in one ingredient over the other, your body is going to suffer, your health is going to suffer. And you may not see the effects of it right away, but maybe ten years from now if you're going to the hospital because you have diabetes or heart issues - that's because you had israf.
Consequences of Excess
So what israf does is it brings a lot of negative consequences into a person's life. And I started with the example of food, but israf can go beyond that.
Examples in Spending
In spending, there's a lot - Allah describes:
"And [they are] those who, when they spend, do not transgress nor are they stingy, but are ever, between that, [justly] moderate."
When they spend money, they don't go in excess - meaning you just need one bag, but you want to get three because you like all three colors. Or you're gonna go to the grocery store to get eggs, but by the time you came back you spend $200 because you start stuffing everything in the cart. That's a kind of israf. You didn't need it.
"But I might need it. I might need this too. I might need this too," and you just tell yourself that you want it or you need it, but you don't really need it. And then some people because of that they have a hoarding problem. Like they can't even fit all their clothes in a closet, or their pantry is just overflowing with stuff that's from 1987. People collecting things, people unnecessarily collecting and hoarding things that they don't actually use and don't actually put to work. This is a kind of israf that people suffer from.
So sometimes you can tell for yourself if you're suffering from some form of israf like hoarding - if you go home and you find small little trinkets everywhere and you don't know where to put them and you don't know what they're for. If you just go around your house looking at "What's the purpose of this thing? What is it for?" and you have a bunch of those things, then you're probably suffering from israf.
So it can become a real problem for a person to collect and collect and collect, or to want more and more and more.
Excess in Entertainment
Eating and spending and hoarding, and of course israf can be in entertaining yourself. It's okay. Everybody needs a mental break at some point. If you've been studying for six hours, you need a break. You can play some video games or something, or watch something on social media, or go play outside, play sports or whatever - take a small mental break. That's fine.
But for some people their life is a mental break. That's all it is. They wake up and they entertain themselves. They go to sleep and they entertain themselves. They're clicking away and tapping away and swiping away all day. Hours go by and that's all that's going on. That's a kind of israf.
Being in touch with somebody is okay, but living on WhatsApp is a problem. So there's balance, there's limit to things, and then there's excess, and this excess is actually a really serious problem.
Allah's Response to Excess
Allah says, in the least problematic or the least threatening language:
"Indeed, Allah does not love the transgressors."
Certainly Allah does not love those who do israf.
The Pattern of Human Behavior in Crisis
But the ayah that I really wanted to focus on today that has to do with israf comes from Surah Yunus, and I recited in the beginning of this khutbah. And I'll address some of the other forms of israf as I go along inshallah too, but this ayah in particular - Allah describes a phenomenon that He's talked about in a few places in His book.
He says when a human being is hit with harm, when a tough situation falls on a human being - maybe it's a financial tough situation, maybe it's a health tough situation, maybe it's a family tough situation, maybe it's a spiritual crisis - it could be any sort of tough situation that falls upon a human being. What does he do?
"He calls upon Us [lying] on his side or sitting or standing."
Then he starts praying to us, calling on Allah. "Ya Allah, get me out of this situation. Only You, You're the one who can get me out. I've tried every other avenue, there's nobody who can help except You." And whether this person's standing or lying on their side or sitting down, they're constantly calling on Allah. "Ya Allah, fix this problem for me. Help this problem. Help me with this problem. Help me with this problem. Help me with this problem." There's a desperation to turn to Allah on behalf of this person.
"But when We remove his distress from him, he continues [in disobedience] as if he had not called upon Us to [remove] a distress that touched him."
And when we alleviate that difficulty from him, then he walks around like he never called us about that harm that was messing him up, that was hurting him.
So first when you are in a trouble situation, then you're desperately calling on Allah. And when the problem is solved and everybody goes back to normal, we act like we weren't praying to Allah. We weren't desperate to Allah. There were no tears in our dua - there used to be, but when that's gone, as if that relationship with Allah is pretty much over. "I got what I needed, I can move on with my life now."
The Connection Between Excess and Crisis
And so, but what does this have to do with israf? Interestingly, it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with israf. But the way Allah ends this is very particular:
"Thus is made pleasing to the transgressors that which they have been doing."
That is how we have made - for those who do excess - whatever they do has been beautified for them.
Allah says that is how Allah has beautified their behavior of those people who do excessive things. The ayah is unlocking a very profound secret about our lives: when you live a life of excess - whether it's money excess, spending money where you shouldn't be spending, entertainment excess that I talked about before, or social excess, which means you're always hanging out with somebody, you're always out, you're always with friends, you're always talking to people, you never have any time to worship or any time to do one thing - whatever you do, you do into excess. When you live a life like that, then you will fall into trouble. Then there is going to be hard times falling on you.
The Balance of Responsibilities
Because it's as if - and I'll give you examples. Men, it's an easy example to take because I can relate to it - as men, you have many responsibilities on you. You maybe have responsibilities towards your parents. You have responsibilities towards your siblings. You have responsibilities towards your spouse and you have responsibilities towards your children. Then you have religious responsibilities. You have work responsibilities, financial responsibilities. You have friends that you need to stay in touch with. You have physical health that you need to stay in touch with. There's lots of things pulling at you, lots and lots of things pulling at you.
But if somebody decides that they're going to take care of their health - forget everything else - because then now they're tilting the balance in one side. They might end up actually becoming really healthy, but everything else falling apart is going to bring them a lot of problems. Or somebody says "I'm gonna take care of my children, I'm gonna forget about my parents - forget about them." Then there are going to be lots of problems coming their way.
So when we take one thing and we go in excess at the expense of other things, there's always something else that needed your attention that needed to be balanced out. So every time we do excess, we're actually depriving something else, denying something else's rights. That's actually what's going on, and as a result there are going to be troubles coming our way. And then we turn to Allah begging for our problems to be alleviated.
Self-Reflection on Excess
So actually one of the ways we can contemplate when we fall into trouble, when we fall into distressful times, is: where was my excess? Where did I go overboard? What did I neglect and what did I go too far in? Did I go too far into something and that's why I'm in the situation that I'm in? This is how I found myself here because I lost that balance, that scale that was supposed to be there. So this is actually a really important principle of our deen, a very powerful principle.
Emotional Excess
And the other examples of that that I want you to think about for yourself - they have to do with even emotions. So for example, getting angry is normal. If somebody upset you, you got upset, or somebody said something upsetting and you got angry - that's a normal reaction. But you know what excess would be? That you start living inside that anger. You're eating and breathing that anger. You're constantly thinking about that anger. That was one event, one thing that was said, and now your entire rest of your life is shaped by the thing that was said.
And as a result of that, your view has completely changed of all things. Nothing is good anymore. Nothing makes you happy anymore, everything - and since you're already upset, now things that never used to make you upset now start making you upset. You start getting annoyed at everything, and when that happens, people around you start suffering, and as a result, the chain reaction starts and you end up in dua. That's because you had israf - you went too far in that one emotion.
The same thing happens with other emotions like joking around. Joking around is a normal behavior. It's okay to feel happy sometimes, but if you're always joking around, you're gonna end up offending people. You're never going to take matters seriously. There's something serious being talked about and you're making jokes about it. You're dismissing other people's emotions. You're dismissing other people's needs, and as a result, you're going to end up creating a lot of conflict.
So israf can create lots and lots and lots of trouble in a person's life.
The Beautiful Dua from Surah Al-Imran
One of my favorite duas in the Quran that has to do with israf is actually found in Surah Al-Imran, and I like this dua especially for many reasons. One of them is that Allah describes these people that used to
fight in the path of Allah many centuries before the Prophet ﷺ with their own prophets. They had their own prophets and they were called on to sacrifice their lives for the sake of Allah, and before they would go into the battlefield:
"And their words were not but that they said, 'Our Lord, forgive us our sins and the excess [committed] in our affair and plant firmly our feet and give us victory over the disbelieving people.'" (Quran 3:147)
It's a four-part dua these people used to make from thousands of years ago, and so valuable that Allah made it a part of His Quran so you and I can benefit from this dua.
Breaking Down the Dua
He says first of all, these people that were struggling in Allah's path would say:
"Our Lord, forgive us our sins" (Quran 3:147)
That's to cover our mistakes, cover the embarrassing things that we've done, cover for us.
The second thing after:
"and the excess [committed] in our affair" (Quran 3:147)
And the excess in the decisions that we've made. In the life decisions that we made, every time we went overboard - ya Allah forgive that.
So there they saw their sins as one thing, one problem. They saw another problem: where they went too far. Where they went too far.
Excess Even in Religion
There is such a thing as even excess in the religion. The Quran tells the believers:
"Do not commit excess in your religion" (Quran 4:171)
Don't go overboard in your religion.
Let me give you an example of excess in the deen. When excess in the deen happens, somebody says "I want to study Quran" - great. I'm very happy that you want to study Quran. "No, but I want to study Quran all day." But wait, you have a family, you have responsibilities. You have a job you have to take care of. Your children you have to take care of, your spouse you have to take care of. "No, no, no, I just want Allah's word. Allah's word is enough for me. Allah will take care of them."
Well, the book you're reciting all day - the Quran you want to study all day - is telling you to go take responsibility. And that is what israf happens.
One time I was talking to people - there was a group of sisters that study Quran very diligently. I mean they spend I don't know, 14, 16 hours a day just studying, studying, studying. And it was interesting before I had that meeting, one of their daughters came to me and said "You're about to speak to this group. My mom is in this group. Could you please tell them to stop?" And I said "What?" She's like, "Can you please - because I miss my mom. I never see her. She's always studying. Even when she's home, she's like 'don't bother me.' She's got headphones and she's studying vocabulary of the Quran or she's doing this, and that's all she's doing, and I just never see her."
And you know what else the scary thing was? The scary thing - she goes "Because of her, I don't like studying the Quran because I don't want to become like her." That's scary, huh? That's scary.
So when I went and spoke to this group of ladies, I didn't talk about this girl or call out her mom. What I did say was "Let's recite an ayah together," and we read some ayahs of the Quran, and some of those ayahs, for example: "Haven't they looked to the sky how it was raised? Haven't they looked at the mountains how they were settled down?" I said "How many of you have gone recently - how many people have studied this ayah?" Everybody raised their hand. They studied the ayah. They know all the vocabulary. I was like, "So how many of you have gone to a mountain? How many of you went to just look at the night sky? Stargazing - you ever do that?" "No. No, we don't have time for that. We have to know what the Quran says."
"Didn't you look? Didn't you go see? Didn't they go travel in the land? Didn't they see Allah's beautiful creation? You want to read about it, but not do it? But Allah is telling you to go look. Allah is telling you to go see."
So in other words, even excess happens in the religion. It's ironic that people are studying Quran while ignoring the Quran. That can happen.
Excess in Emotions: The Problem of Silence
It happens in our emotions. By the way, israf is also - I mentioned aggressive emotions like anger, but there's also passive emotions like silence. Like for example, you know something wrong is going on. Somebody's doing something wrong to you or doing something wrong to someone else in your family,
and you just say to yourself "I should have sabr, I should be quiet." And because you're quiet, the person who's doing something wrong continues to do more wrong and continues to do more wrong and continues to do more wrong, and you say "No, no, no, my sabr is being tested. I should be more quiet and more quiet and more quiet." And because of your silence, now the wrong has increased ten times more. You committed an israf.
Because you were supposed to - you weren't supposed to yell and scream, you're not supposed to become ignorant, but you're supposed to at least speak the truth, at least call out and call a spade a spade. Call the truth for what it is. This is what it means to:
"and advised each other to truth" (Quran 103:3)
Right? They counsel each other truthfully with the truth. It is what it is. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Sorry dad, it's wrong. Sorry mom, it's wrong. Sorry my son, I know that hurts, but it's wrong. Sorry my wife or husband, what you did is wrong. It is what it is. It needs to be called out. If you don't do that, you create an israf against yourself, against somebody else.
The Many Forms of Israf
So the israf takes many forms, and this is why it's not something I can give you all the examples of - in how many ways can israf exist? But you, for your own life, have to take a very careful stock and say: where am I doing too much? Where am I doing not enough at all? And what am I taking focus away from?
Even when it comes to matters of love, there's such a thing as israf in love. You become too obsessed with someone, too consumed with someone. A mother can become overly obsessed with her son. All she thinks about is her son. "Oh, what are you doing? What did you eat? Where'd you sleep? Are you at work? You still at work? What's going on?" All the time, all the time, all the time. And if she's doing that, then she's no longer able to be a wife to her husband. Then she's no longer able to pray the way she's supposed to pray. Then she's no longer able to take care of her own health the way she's supposed to take care of her own health.
Comes back to the same point: when you have too much in one side, you start ignoring other sides, and that's a hard thing to come back to balance, to calibrate yourself.
Continuing the Beautiful Dua
That's why this dua - it's remarkable, the wording. First thing: we ask Allah forgive our sins. Then we ask Allah whenever we went in excess, cover that. In other words, every time we went in excess, something else must have been destabilized. So ya Allah, basically stabilize us again, which is why the next words are even so profound and so logically connected:
"and plant firmly our feet" (Quran 3:147)
Firm our feet. Give us stability where we stand. Plant our feet.
What we're learning here again is: what does israf do? It makes your life unstable. We learn in another ayah in Surah Yunus: israf brings problems in your life. Now we're learning: your feet can't be firm if you have israf in your life. Every time you have israf, something is thrown off. There's anxiety in your life now. There's turbulence in your life now. There's problems in your life now, and something's not right, and you can't feel harmony.
When there's balance, there's harmony. Everything is where they're supposed to be - you can feel it on the inside and on the outside. When things are not where they're supposed to be, you're disturbed. You can't sleep. You can't get peace of mind. You can tell if you are suffering from israf or not just by the way your thoughts are. Just by the way your thoughts are. Because if you have your feet planted and you're secure in where you stand, then that's actually a result of israf being removed from your life.
So:
And finally, now that you're standing tall, now you can face any opposition:
"and give us victory over the disbelieving people" (Quran 3:147)
It's as if the ayah is saying: ya Allah, these were people that were going into battle, right? So Allah is describing these people as "ya Allah, make us strong first before we go into battle." How do you become strong first? Allah forgives you, then you're able to get rid of that excess, that imbalance, and you're stable. You're able to become strong, and now you're able to face whatever opposition comes.
A Profound Way to Restore Harmony
So this is a profound way of thinking about how we can bring harmony into our lives, how we can restore harmony into our lives.
Practical Examples of Israf in Parenting
Allah will ask us about our israf. Some of you have israf in how you love your kids. You love one more than the other. You're nicer to one more than you are the other. Even if you're not mean to one - if you just - one son comes "Oh, I love you so much" - you go "boo-boo-boo-boo-boo" - and the other one's
just looking. "Hey, so I'm ready to go." You didn't - you weren't mean, you weren't mean, but that's still israf because they feel neglected. They feel neglected.
Or if somebody does something wrong - one of them eats a cookie: "Hey, I told you not to eat the cookies!" But the other one eats a cookie: "Oh, come on. Why'd you eat the cookie?" There's a little bit of israf over here, and that will create problems down the road. Not only will they resent you, they'll resent the other sibling. And then you wonder why are they fighting with each other? Well, they're fighting with each other because of your israf. You created that. You created that problem.
Conclusion: The Need for Self-Examination
So you and I - the way we carry ourselves, the way we deal with people, the way we conduct ourselves even emotionally, what's going on inside of ourselves - all of that needs to be rechecked, and we need to find out whether or not we have become people of israf.
"Indeed, Allah does not love the transgressors."
Allah does not love people of israf. The easiest example of it is in spending, but it goes so far beyond that, which is why Allah says:
"And do not obey the command of the transgressors"
Don't follow the decision, the way, the decision-making of those who go in excess.
May Allah protect us in every way from israf and help us to identify where the israf exists in our lives, that we are able to find harmony and balance again, and may Allah make all of us of those whose feet are planted firm and their sins are forgiven.
"May Allah bless me and you through the Wise Quran, and may He benefit me and you through its verses and wise remembrance."