This Q&A session following Abdur Raheem Green’s landmark lecture cuts directly to the questions Muslim communities in the West wrestle with most urgently: Can a society governed by Sharia produce genuine prosperity? Is chasing money or fashion a form of idolatry? How does a believer find real joy without surrendering to the consumer culture surrounding them? These are not abstract theological puzzles — they are live questions posed by an audience of Muslim youth, and the answers Sheikh Abdur Raheem gives are historically grounded, spiritually clarifying, and practically challenging. At the core of his response is a single, profound shift in worldview: the difference between a life ordered around the worship of Allah and a life enslaved to its own desires.
When Sharia Governed, the World Prospered: Islam, Economics, and the Purpose of Work
“The Muslim works in order to live, so that what is enough to maintain him and his family is sufficient. He doesn’t need to destroy himself — he doesn’t need to give himself a heart attack when he’s 40 years old because he’s so stressed out from his work. Work is only in order to maintain himself and his family.” — Abdur Raheem Green
Sceptics of Islamic governance often claim that Sharia is incompatible with a functioning economy — an argument Sheikh Abdur Raheem answers not with theory but with documented history. He points to the era of ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, widely regarded as the fifth rightly guided caliph, when the Muslim empire stretched from China to Morocco and deep into Spain and France. So complete was the justice and prosperity of that civilisation that no recipient could be found for the zakat — across that vast empire, not a single person was poor enough to qualify. He further notes that it was Muslim scholars who pioneered the mathematical and scientific foundations that Europe would later call its own, and that Europeans once travelled to Muslim Spain to study in the great universities of Córdoba, where streets had lighting and baths at a time when their own continent considered bathing once a year sufficient. The lecture is equally clear, however, that Islam does not condemn honest work — the Prophet ﷺ declared that the truthful, honest merchant will be raised in the company of the prophets on the Day of Judgement, precisely because maintaining integrity in commerce is so demanding. The key distinction Islam draws is one of orientation: the believer works in order to live and worship, not lives in order to work and consume. Key takeaways from this discussion include:
- The Sharia-governed Muslim empire produced such prosperity that zakat collectors found no eligible recipients across its entire territory
- Muslim civilisation was a global leader in science, mathematics, medicine, and philosophy when it adhered to Islamic principles — and declined when it abandoned them
- Halal work and honest trade are not merely permitted in Islam — they are acts of worship, beloved to Allah
- Islam opposes the consumer society’s core philosophy that man is purely a material being and that happiness comes from accumulating possessions
- The Muslim’s surplus time — beyond what is needed for work and family — belongs to salah, Quran, community, health, and worship, not to endless consumption
- Forced marriage is categorically haram in Islam; a Muslim man or woman has every right to refuse, and no one has the right to compel them
- True Islamic education cultivates critical thinking; Western institutions often deliver indoctrination, feeding information without teaching people how to think
The Worshipper of the Dinar: Identifying and Escaping the Idol of Wealth
When an audience member asks whether being a slave to fashion or to work constitutes a form of shirk, Sheikh Abdur Raheem draws on a direct hadith of the Prophet ﷺ: “Woe to the worshipper of the dinar and the dirham.” Islam does not prohibit wearing good clothes or earning money — the defining marker of spiritual illness is the state of the heart, not the presence of wealth. When a person’s happiness rises and falls entirely according to whether money is flowing or the latest fashion is within reach, those things have become rivals to Allah in the heart. The worshipper of money will not care whether their income is halal or haram — they simply want it. The believer, by contrast, holds wealth in the hand while keeping the heart free: grateful when provision comes, still content and still grateful when it does not. This distinction — between having the good things of this world in the hand versus in the heart — is where Islam draws the boundary between freedom and enslavement. The same principle applies to the question of whether “religion is the opiate of the masses”: fossilised, ritualistic religion that has lost its living connection to guidance can indeed dull a community into passivity. But true Islam — the Islam of the prophets, of Musa confronting Pharaoh, of Muhammad ﷺ enduring years of persecution to deliver the message — is the precise opposite of an opiate. It is a call to active virtue, sacrifice, and the reformation of society.
The Sweetness That Cannot Be Described: Finding Real Joy in the Worship of Allah
“How can you describe the sweetness — the happiness, the contentment — of someone who would rather be thrown into a fire than return to disbelief once they have tasted faith? How much happiness do you want? How much enjoyment do you want?” — Abdur Raheem Green
Asked directly how Muslim youth can enjoy their lives in a secular society, Sheikh Abdur Raheem’s answer is both disarming and deeply compelling: the greatest pleasure available to a human being is the worship of Allah, and once truly tasted, nothing else compares. He describes brothers who left active da’wah work in England to take comfortable jobs in Muslim countries — and who returned missing not England itself, but the experience of calling people to Islam. This is the sweetness of faith the Prophet ﷺ described: when Allah and His Messenger are more beloved to you than anything else, when you love and withhold and give for the sake of Allah alone. This does not mean life becomes grim or joyless — sport, rest, time with family, even marriage are all legitimate and rewarded when approached with the intention of strengthening oneself for worship. The Muslim’s entire life becomes ibadah. As for the education system, the counsel is nuanced: Muslims must be the most qualified and educated people in their communities, because that education earns respect through which da’wah becomes possible. But entering these institutions demands critical awareness, because the system is designed to produce conformists, not thinkers. The long-term solution is the investment of effort, time, and wealth into building genuinely Islamic schools and universities — not a luxury, but a generational obligation for any community that wishes its grandchildren to remain Muslim. The path forward begins with the most basic act of faith: establishing the five daily prayers, fasting Ramadan, giving zakat and charity — small, consistent steps that begin to reorient the heart from the worship of the world to the worship of its Creator, and that open a door to a happiness the consumer society has no mechanism to offer and no way to take away.
