بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Allah says in the Qur’an:
“O children of Adam, take your adornment at every masjid, and eat and drink, but be not excessive. Indeed, He likes not those who commit excess.” [7:31]
When Allah mentions here “eat and drink”, this does not merely include sustenance as in food, this also includes our daily lives in general. So here, when Allah talks about those who are excessive, this includes everything from our worldly entertainment to our deen.
These people are known as the “musrifeen” which is derived from “israf”. People that suffer from israf have a tendency to go overboard with what they are doing. A simple example can be food – one can be full and still carry on eating simply out of being excessive. Another example is being excessive in the deen: people that abandon their daily responsibilities and relationships to learn more about Islam. This breaks the relationships people have with these people and pushes them away from the religion.
A young woman recently approached a teacher of Islam and complained about her mother. She mentioned that the mother would study the deen all day, abandoning everything in her life. The young woman was beginning to move away from the deen simply due to how her mother lead her life. It portrayed the deen as taking over one’s life, cutting relations and not allowing any breathing room.
We must understand that Allah does not want our lives to be this way, instead He wants us to balance our lives, not to lean more on one side over the other. Take our prophet (ﷺ) as an example; he was the final messenger of Allah, but was also a father, a husband and a friend to many people. He balanced his life, never going overboard, never being excessive in his actions.
Think of Islam as a bird, it will only fly straight if the wings are balanced.
May Allah make us of those who live a balanced life.
Allah knows best.