Restraint in an Age of Excess

Friday sermon (jum'ah khutbah) by Sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad - Cambridge - 8 October 2004 - 26 mins 12 secs

In this sermon, the sheikh relates a sound hadith in which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said that what he feared most for his community was the following of the uncontrolled urges of gluttony and lust. Although we often hear important warnings in sermons and elsewhere against the influence of the sad and tawdry modern culture of immodesty and sexual permissiveness, less attention is paid to the greedy and dysfunctional attitude toward food that the Western monoculture promotes. Yet not only is it a problem against which the the Blessed Prophet strongly warned us (peace be upon him), but one which is increasingly and obviously widespread among Muslims. The sheikh therefore reminds us of the importance of the prophetic virtue of restraint, which has so many important benefits, both spiritual and physical, and discusses how we can attempt to imitate it.

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