Resanctifying Our Religion in An Entertainment-Driven Era

"Give to God what is God's and leave to Caesar's what is Caesar's." This statement, attributed to Jesus, is often misunderstood as a pass for secularism, that God's law is personal and should not enter into the political sphere. In fact, it's not that at all. If in fact Prophet Isa spoke these words, the meaning would be something in line with this hadith:

One day Abu Bakr saw a man name Hudhayfa rushing by him, weeping. "Hudhayfa," he said, "What's the matter with you?" Hudhayfa replied, "I have to see the Prophet; I'm a hypocrite. When I am with the Messenger of Allah, it is as if I see Heaven and Hell right before me. And when I'm home with my family, I forget all that and am busy playing." Abu Bakr got worried. "If that's the case with you, then I'm no different!" So they both rushed to the Prophet, weeping and nervous. When they explained themselves to the Messenger, he smiled and reassured them: "An hour for this and an hour for that."

The lesson? There is the sacred and there is the mundane and we have the green light to engage in both without feeling guilty. We can get rewarded for the mundane if we make the right intention. But there's a key—don't mix the two. Today, there is a move to validate our entertainment and pop-culture by mixing it with religion. Lectures mingled with pop-culture references are applauded for being "relevant", implying that a talk solely about deen without such references is irrelevant. Muslims have been crossing boundaries for ages in their entertainment, but today, there is a move to validate everything. We are conflating deen with dunya. In the process, we are threatening something critical to healthy living—the sacred. For imams and teachers, relevance has to do with the subjects chosen and the manner in which they are delivered. It has to do with understanding the challenges of the attendees. It has nothing to do with proving that we've watched TV or movies or that we know lyrics.

Today, "relevance" has been reduced to discussing whatever becomes popular on social media, and to "me and my issues", usually collapsing into complain-fests. The discourse is set by us. "By the people, for the people." We've taken the ethics of a customer and created consumer religion. It is an approach to faith that looks like it's serving us, but in fact perpetuates the very spiritual problems we are seeking to unlock.

This approach to religion is built upon a false and patronizing assumption, namely that the masses of Muslims are incapable of staying focused long enough on a deeni topic and will only stick around if we bring up sports or movies every five minutes. That type of chit-chat is understandable after the talk, but I do believe that if someone got up after work or on the weekend and drove all the way to the masjid, then they are primed and ready to learn some deen. They're looking for a challenge, not a confirmation. Furthermore, if its pop-culture that I really want, I wouldn't go to the masjid or to a lecture or a conference; I'd stay home and surf the web at my own leisure.

Pop-culture is already in our homes, at work, and in our pockets; we don't need it in the masjid too. If it invades sacred space, where then will a person take refuge and unplug? And who, if not the imams, will push us to rise up to something greater and deeper than that which we already experience in the mundane world?

Relevance to me is offering people what's missing, not rehashing what they already have. And today, what is more needed than uplifting our God-consciousness? I need an imam who will pull me to something higher than YouTube, Twitter, and everyday life. That's the inefficiency in our lives that needs to be rectified.

In contrast, when a shaykh comes down to my level, it's endearing for the moment, but when I go home, I've been given nothing to work with. No challenge. Nothing beyond what I already had.

A healthy life balances what is mundane and what is sacred. But it does not conflate it. In order to truly advance spiritually, we must be moved to look beyond ourselves. While one who merely confirms our current state makes us feel good initially, ultimately it leaves us trapped in our current state. In this sense, pop-culture and consumer religion is the most irrelevant genre of deen.