Shahawāt al-Dunyā · The Appetites of the World

Yā Rabb, You did not create me as a monk. You created me as a human, with appetites You designed Yourself. The pull toward a spouse. The longing for children. The desire to build wealth. The taste for good food. The pleasure of a safe home. Every one of those is a niʿmah You placed in me. None of them is shayṭān's invention. He cannot create. All he can do is hijack what You created. So forgive me, ya Allāh, for the times I let him hijack mine. For the gaze that drifted to what was not halal. For the wallet that opened for what was not needed. For the hour given to imagery I should not have invited into my eyes. For the comparison with another's family, another's salary, another's home, that made my own niʿam feel small. Every one of those was an appetite of mine pointed at a door You did not open. Redirect them, ya Rabb. Marriage. Build me a marriage that channels every legitimate longing into halal, into mercy, into duʿā said together at night. Lineage. Grant me children, by birth or by spiritual fatherhood/motherhood, who carry Your name forward. Wealth. Give me ḥalāl rizq, just enough to live and give, no chase of takāthur. Mobility. Take me places that serve Your cause, not idols of leisure. Sustenance. Let my plate be modest and grateful. Home. Let it be a place You would step into and feel at home, ya Rabb. And then close the veil of shahawat over the Fire, so that I see through it, with the clarity of īmān, the Garden waiting on the other side of patience. The reward You named in the very next verse: jannātun tajrī min taḥtihal an-hār khālidīna fīhā. That is the better return. Make me a believer who walks past every veil of shahwa knowing what is behind it (Fire or Garden), and chooses, every time, the harder road home. Āmīn ya Tawwab.