How Muslims can fight consumerism and materialism

One of the biggest enemies of productivity in our world today is the comfortable consumerism culture that we’re living in. Everything is within reach and we’re constantly looking for the latest, quickest, or smallest! Each of us are running around trying so hard to acquire more and more riches.

History seems to repeat itself, for the Muslim Ummah did indulge in such consumerism more than 1,000 years ago, during the Golden Age of the Islamic civilisation. The success of the expanding empire brought new riches unknown to the early Muslims which started corrupting the Muslims and making them forget their true purpose. True to the words of the Prophet (Peace be upon him), this consumerism destroyed us.

In a hadeeth, the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said: ”By Allah, it is not the poverty about which I fear in regard to you but I am afraid in your case that (the worldly) riches may be given to you as were given to those who had gone before you and you begin to vie with one another for them as they vied for them. And these may destroy you as these destroyed them.” (Sahih Muslim, Book #042, Hadith #7065).

Fighting Consumerism

At first glance, nothing seems to be wrong with consumerism, in fact the objective seems noble and peaceful: it’s about living a comfortable and happy life and enjoying this world to the fullest. Nothing sinister, right? Well, not really. But this materialistic culture entraps and enslaves people so they think of nothing else but how to ‘get more and have more’. People get into debt to buy bigger houses, get into more debt to buy a better car, few years down the line, once they’ve paid their debts, they go through the whole cycle again and get into more debt.

Another grave effect of the consumerism – is that we’ve become lazy, expecting “others” to produce whilst we consume. We do not grow what we eat, we do not make what we wear, we do not produce what we ride, everything is imported from planes to biscuits! And everything is at our convenience. But there’s a problem here: we become dependants on “others” for our survival, and hence have a weak economic status in the international sphere. How do you think China, India and Brazil started to get noticed by the ‘Developed World’? They became producing/exporting countries and unless we as Muslims really get our act together and export more than we import, I’m afraid the consequences would be severe for the Ummah.

So how do we get out of this?

As for the solution, are we supposed to shun all material aspects of this life and deem them haram (prohibited)? No, not necessarily. But we do need to realize that the problem is not in the practice of being consumers, but in the actual mind-set of consuming. We need to learn how to alter our perspective and realize the difference between wanting something and needing something.

Here are Some Practical Tips

Adopt a Minimalistic lifestyle: Build your life around what you ‘need’, rather than what you ‘want’. Be like the traveller as the Prophet (Peace be upon him) said in the hadeeth and live simply. Donate or throw away what you don’t need, and only keep those items that are essential to your day to day life. Believe me, you’ll feel so much ‘lighter’ as a consequence.

Invest more, consume less: Try your best to always invest more of your resources (time, money, strength) and consume less. Invest your time in learning, helping others, volunteering, and worshipping. Invest your money in charity, new or existing businesses, helping Muslim charities and non-profit organisations. Invest your strength in working for Allah (Subhanhu Wa Ta’ala), helping the poor and needy and supporting those around you in whatever physical means possible.

Spread the simplicity message: Encourage your family and friends to live a simple life rather than a material based one. It was said that simplicity is a part of faith and therefore try to spread the message about how we can fight our consumerism culture and what actions we can take from the Qur’an and Sunnah today to achieve this. With sincere intentions and hard work, it can be done!