The Danger of Loving This World

The next matter is the danger of preferring this world over the Hereafter. The story of this Ummah with the spoils of war is a sad one. It started at the Battle of Badr, and that is when the ayat of Sūrah al-Anfāl were revealed. ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit said these ayāt were revealed because the Companions of the Messenger of Allah disputed over the spoils, and their manners were not appropriate. And in the Battle of Uḥud, that was what brought down the archers: they were eager to take part in collecting the spoils. And this problem carried on — there were Muslims who learned the lesson, but there were others who did not.

What halted the Muslim advance into Western Europe was booty. When the Muslims entered Spain, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ghāfiqī was the commander of the Muslims, and he was leading them into France, and they succeeded in conquering almost two-thirds of France, and they were a hundred kilometres away from Paris, the capital, and were almost about to overrun France. But by the time they reached the outskirts of Paris, they were loaded with booty, loaded with the spoils of war — so the soldier was fighting the enemy in front of him, but his mind was behind him, thinking about his share of the booty, all of this stuff being carried along, and it was pulling the army down. So they ended up losing the battle called Balāṭ al-Shuhadāʾ, the Path of the Martyrs — given this name because of the huge number of Muslims who were killed in it. Among them, one of the greatest leaders of the Muslim armies, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ghāfiqī, may Allah have mercy on him, was killed in that battle, and that marked the end of the Muslim advance in Western Europe. It was never reached again; from there it was retreat, retreat, retreat — even though it was slow, taking about eight hundred years, it was slowly but surely. So the turning point was due to booty. ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "I did not know that there was among us, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), people who preferred this world over the Hereafter." This was not speaking of the hypocrites — it was speaking of some of the believers. Allah (swt) says that among the believers are some who desire this world, and among them are some who desire the Hereafter — so in the hearts of some of the believers there was a desire for this world. ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd said he never knew that that existed among some of the Companions until then, and this again shows how jihād fī sabīlillāh brought out something that possibly could have never shown up on the surface. He said he did not know that it existed.