In the Qur’an, our Lord Allah encourages people to consume clean and lawful food and drink, but He has made waste unlawful. Allah reveals that He does not approve of those who are wasteful as follows in the Qur’an:
"Children of Adam! wear fine clothing in every mosque and eat and drink but do not be profligate. He does not love the profligate.” (Surat Al-A‘raf, 31)
In another verse, the wasteful are described as “brothers to the satan:”
"... do not squander what you have. Squanderers are brothers to the satans, and Satan was ungrateful to his Lord.” (Surat Al-Isra’, 26-27)
Yet many people who live far removed from religious moral values know no bounds to their spending and spend their lives in a state of waste. These people are unaware of their terrible heedlessness, but are perfectly sure they will never find themselves in poverty. But they may of course find themselves in a state of weakness, poverty or need in the next part of their lives. But spending their daily lives in busy heedlessness they live in complete forgetfulness of that fact. They eat, drink and waste without a moment’s thought for the millions of people who are starving in the world. The fact is that Allah has bestowed countless blessings on people, from their own bodies to the air they breathe, from the food they eat to the clothes they wear. He has placed many things, visible and invisible, at their disposal. People’s responsibility is to avoid waste, use their blessings in a measured way for Allah’s approval and give what they do not themselves need to the poor and those in want.
40,000 children die of hunger every day
According to U.N. reports, 40,000 children die from hunger caused by waste every single day. More than 800 million people in the world are facing starvation. Those who waste, who turn a blind eye to food being allowed to go off in their homes or who throw away lorry-loads of fruit and vegetables for their own personal gain, such as in order to drive prices up, never think of the many millions of people who need such products and live on the margins of hunger. There is no limit to the amount of food, bread, fruit and vegetables thrown away every day in restaurants, homes and workplaces. This is certainly something that no person of good conscience who fears Allah could ever do. It is the worst cruelty to continue leading one’s life in the full knowledge but ignoring the fact that some 20 million children die of malnutrition every year. The duty of anyone with a conscience is to strive until hunger and poverty are eliminated from the face of the earth and to try, as individuals and as society as a whole, to save the weak by preventing waste.
The way to prevent waste is very easy. If the wealthy give what remains after they have met their own needs to the poor, then there will be no more poverty in the world. If wealthy states help poor ones, then nobody would die of hunger. Encouraging or being instrumental in this will certainly earn one great merit.
Waste will be prevented in the End Tines and nobody will be poor or hungry any more
In the hadith, our Prophet (saas) says that hunger and poverty will rise before Doomsday, but that this will be followed by an age when waste, hunger and poverty entirely disappear, when people will live in the blessing of great plenty, and when there will be abundance everywhere. Our Prophet (saas) has said this on the subject:
… The earth will give forth food and will conceal nothing from people... (Sunen-i Ibni Mace, 10-347/ Ramuz el Ahadis, p. 508)
… In that time, my community will be blessed, animals will live in plenty and there will be many plants… (El-Kavlu’l Muhtasar Fi Alamatil Mehdiyy-il Muntazar, p. 26)
… In the time, my community, the good and the bad, all of them, will be blessed with more blessings than they have ever seen … (Kitab-ul Burhan Fi Alamet-il Mehdiyy-il Ahir Zaman, p. 16)
… There will be so many goods that nobody will wish to accept anything. (Sunen-i Ibn-i Mace, 10/340) Apr 30, 2009
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