Friday reflection: Pursuing more distracts us until the journey's end

By Muneeb Nasir

In our era, abundance coexists with persistent feelings of anxiety, stress, and unhappiness. Despite technological advancements and material wealth, the pursuit of a peaceful, fulfilled, and satisfied life seems to be regressing.

This imbalance is highlighted in an early Meccan surah from the Qur'an, At-Takathur, which warns against excessive preoccupation with material possessions and worldly wealth:

“Striving for more distracts you; until you go into your graves; No indeed! You will come to know; No indeed! In the end you will come to know; No indeed! If only you knew for certain; You will most definitely see Hellfire; You will see it with the eye of certainty; On that Day, you will be asked about your pleasures.” (Qur’an, 102, 1-8).

This powerful Qur’anic Surah (chapter) addresses humanity's unbounded greed - the constant pursuit of more distracts us until we reach our graves.

It serves as a stern admonition from Allah, diagnosing human frailty - the passionate rivalry for worldly possessions, which leads to greed and a loss of inner stability, both individually and at a societal level, resulting in diminishing chances of happiness.

Muhammad Asad, the influential European Muslim of the 20th century, offered a brilliant insight into this chapter. As a writer, thinker, and scholar, he had a deep understanding of the Qur'an and its message. His renowned works, such as "The Road to Mecca" and "The Message of the Qur'an," have left a significant impact on the understanding of Islam.

In ‘Road to Mecca’, Muhammad Asad wrote how he came to accept Islam;  and as we read this excerpt it will resonate with us as his analysis of society is very relevant to us today:

“One day—it was in September 1926—Elsa and I found ourselves traveling in the Berlin subway.

It was an upper-class compartment.

My eye fell casually on a well-dressed man opposite me, apparently a well-to-do-businessman, with a beautiful briefcase on his knees and a large diamond ring on his right hand.

I thought idly how well the portly figure of this man fitted into the picture of prosperity which one encountered everywhere in Central Europe in those days; a prosperity the more prominent as it had come after years of inflation, when all economic life had been topsy-turvy and shabbiness of appearance the rule.

Most of the people were now well dressed and well fed, and the man opposite me was therefore no exception.

But when I looked at his face, I did not seem to be looking at a happy face.

He appeared to be worried: and not merely worried but acutely unhappy, with eyes staring vacantly ahead and the corners of his mouth drawn in as if in pain—but not in bodily pain.

Not wanting to be rude, I turned my eyes away and saw next to him a lady of some elegance.

She also had a strangely unhappy expression on her face, as if contemplating or experiencing something that caused her pain.

And then I began to look around at all other faces in the compartment—faces belonging without exception to well-dressed, well-fed people: and in almost every one of them I could discern an expression of hidden suffering, so hidden that the owner of the face seemed to be quite unaware of it.

This was indeed strange.

I had never before seen so many unhappy faces around me: or was it perhaps that I had never before looked for what was now so loudly speaking in them?

The impression was so strong that I mentioned it to Elsa; and she too began to look around with the careful eyes of a painter accustomed to study human features.

Then she turned to me, astonished, and said: 'You are right. They all looked as though they were suffering torments of hell.... I wonder, do they know themselves what is going on in them?

I knew that they did not—for otherwise they could not go on wasting their lives as they did, without any faith in binding truths, without any goal beyond the desire to raise their own 'standard of living,' without any hopes other than having more material amenities, more gadgets, and perhaps more power….

When we returned home, I happened to glance at my desk on which lay open a copy of the Koran I had been reading earlier.

Mechanically, I picked the book up to put it away, but just as I was about to close it, my eyes fell on the open page before me, and I read: “Striving for more distracts you; until you go into your graves; No indeed! You will come to know; No indeed! In the end you will come to know; No indeed! If only you knew for certain; You will most definitely see Hellfire; You will see it with the eye of certainty; On that Day, you will be asked about your pleasures.” (Qur’an, 102, 1-8).

For a moment I was speechless.  

I think that the book shook in my hands. Then I handed it to Elsa.

‘Read this. Is it not an answer to what we saw in the subway?'

It was an answer so decisive that all doubt was suddenly at an end.

I knew now, beyond any doubt, that it was a God-inspired book I was holding in my hand: for although it had been placed before man over thirteen centuries ago, it clearly anticipated something that could have become true only in this complicated, mechanized, phantom-ridden age of ours.

At all times people had known greed: but at no time before had greed outgrown a mere eagerness to acquire things and become an obsession that blurred the sight of everything else: an irresistible craving to get, to do, to contrive more and more—more today than yesterday, and more tomorrow than today: a demon riding on the necks of men and whipping their hearts forward toward goals that tauntingly glitter in the distance but dissolve into contemptible nothingness as soon as they are reached, always holding out the promise of new goals ahead – goals still more brilliant, more tempting as long as they lie on the horizon, and bound to wither into further nothingness as soon as they come within grasp; and that hunger, that insatiable hunger for ever new goals gnawing at man's soul: Nay, if you but knew it you would see the hell you are in....

This, I saw, was not the mere human wisdom of a man of a distant past in distant Arabia.

However wise he may have been, such a man could not by himself have foreseen the torment so peculiar to this twentieth century. Out of the Koran spoke a voice greater than the voice of Muhammad...."

The late Muhammad Asad, may Allah have mercy on his soul, provided an insightful interpretation of this surah that resonates deeply with our present times.

Asad astutely pointed out that this surah seemed to predict a scenario that could only manifest in our illusion-filled era.

He perceptively captures the essence of our age, where unseen forces drive our hearts to relentlessly pursue fleeting glitters and elusive promises of new achievements, which ultimately fade away.

He also addresses the profound hunger that gnaws at our souls, seeking fulfillment in an ever-elusive pursuit.