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In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honour of the Prophet and the messengers, Muhammad ﷺ, and upon his family and companions. May peace and blessings be upon them. The question is: can I go to a restaurant where alcohol is also being served? I am not consuming it, but it is there. There is a bar or whatever. So can I go there?
First and foremost, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, prohibited us from being in the same room where there is alcohol being served. Alcohol is prohibited. The ayat of the Quran is very clear. So consuming alcohol is prohibited. In Islam, the fundamental principle of the haram of anything, of prohibition of anything, is that when something is prohibited, then everything connected with it is also prohibited. So when alcohol is prohibited, Allah says, “Oh, you believe in intoxicants, which are all forms of gambling, whether it is lottery tickets, or horse racing, or dog racing, or camel racing, or any kind of thing.” All forms of gambling are prohibited. Divining arrows, all kinds of prophesying, tarot cards, horoscopes, astrology, and all of this palm reading. All of these are prohibited. Allah said, “These are the filthy things from the actions of shaitan.” Now imagine, shaitan does not have any good things. So when you say filthy things from the actions of shaitan, by definition they are filthy. Meaning, how filthy are these? Right? Allah said, “Do not even go near that. Stay away.” So not even a question of crossing; don’t even go near that so that you may be successful.
Rasool Allah ﷺ therefore prohibited us from even being in the same room where alcohol is being served. It is not true that they cannot avoid it in the US and Canada and so on. I live in the US. We do not go to a place where there is alcohol served. There are plenty of places where alcohol is not served, which are run by Muslims, which are run by non-Muslims. Even non-Muslims. There are restaurants and so on where alcohol is not served. So find it and go. And it’s not a life-saving thing. You don’t eat at home? Don’t go. Eat at home. Huh? So people of our Hyderabad don’t eat at home. If you go, then every hotel in our Hyderabad is not allowed. So really we should know: it is not permitted. Blanket. Whether it’s a corporate party or whatever, you do not go into a room where there is alcohol being served. The question of whether the person is buying the alcohol with your money makes no difference. You do not go there, no matter how you bought it. What is doing? As long as there is alcohol in that room, you don’t go.
Now you might say, well, I’m going to eat in a hotel in the restaurant itself where the food is served; there is no alcohol. Next room, next door, there is a bar. That is okay. As long as there is no alcohol being served in the room that you are eating, that’s fine. Ideally, don’t go to that hotel also. Go to a place where there is no alcohol. But supposing you might say, for example, you will say, “I’m traveling, I’m staying in a five-star hotel.” There is a bar. I know there is a bar. So what should I do? So I think you eat your food, you do your thing, but make sure that you don’t eat or go in a place where there is alcohol being served. As long as you come, Inshallah, we do that. That is enough. Again, as I said, Hityat, as much as possible. Islam has got flexibility in that. So as much as possible, try to follow.
Last two questions. Okay. Alhamdulillah, very good question. The question is: when and where is the line between showing off, which is Israf, and just being comfortable and so on? Alhamdulillah, Allah has blessed you with wealth. So I am using my wealth, Halal wealth. Obviously, we are not talking about Haram. Halal wealth. I’m using that for myself. So where is the line? You know, this issue of Israf is such a serious issue because there is no witness. It is between you and Allah. Right? And that is a very dangerous place to be in because you have no witness. So more and more, the thing to do, therefore, is to ask yourself, your own conscience, “Why am I doing this?” Now, taking a car for example, buying—you do not have to go from one extreme to the other extreme—but a good comfortable car, right, and something which is really a question of the brand. Because especially if I take for example Hyderabad, I can buy a top-of-the-line Mercedes for example; where will I drive it? Yeah, there is no place to drive on the road, so what is the point? I am spending crores of rupees to buy that and then run it nowhere, right?
So Alhamdulillah, I have a perfectly good car, very comfortable, very reliable; I am very happy with that. So my point I am saying is that the issue is that we have to ask ourselves, why am I doing this? Now the hadith is, the actual authentic hadith: a man came to Nabi ﷺ and he was in a very sort of disabled and dilapidated condition; the clothes were all not good, maybe torn or something. So Nabi asked somebody, “Is he poor? Is he a faqir or something?” They said, “No, no, he is wealthy; he has got big gardens and what not.” Then Nabi said to him, “Why do you look like this? Allah has given you this. Allah has blessed you. Show Allah’s blessing. *Allah hu jameel wa hubbal jamaal*.” Show that doesn’t mean that now the man comes wearing clothes of gold, no. Show that meaning, be well dressed, be well groomed, drive a good car, have a nice house—nothing wrong with that, absolutely nothing wrong with that. So Allah has given you wealth, by all means. When you are travelling, travel comfortably. Nobody says travel in some third-class train. But suppose, for example, you are flying, you have the money, you can fly business class, you can fly first class. Which should you fly? Business class. Because first class is like eight times the amount of business class and both the dabbas arrive at the same time. Makes no sense. You are paying so much money for nothing.
So the point is, but at the same time, I am not saying travel sitting next to the toilet in the last minute. In the last seat of the plane. No. You travel business class. No problem. Alhamdulillah. Be comfortable. And you arrive in a state where you are comfortable. Right? Otherwise, you travel 15 hours to America in an economy flight and then they have to take you out on a stretcher because you can’t move after that. So the point is that this is a line we have to draw. Right? So where do I draw the line? Yes, Allah has given me. The key thing to understand is that Allah has given me wealth. Look at it in the right perspective. Wealth is a resource. To do what? Wealth is literally a resource to buy Jannah. Jannah is for sale. And if Allah has given you wealth, Allah, Jannah is for sale and it is sold for different things. So if Allah has given you wealth, your wealth is a way to buy Jannah. If Allah has given you health, your health is a way to buy Jannah. Right? Through greater Ibadah, through greater effort and so on and so forth, your health is—Allah has given you the strength. Do that. Allah has given you wealth. So how do you buy Jannah with…
Your wealth? Help people. I tell people, there is a hospital right down here. Go to that hospital and say, who are the poor people here who are not able to pay the bills? I will pay their bills. Pay them. Right? Go contact the DG Prisons. Right, General Prisons. There are people in this country, thousands upon thousands of people who are sitting in jail only because they don’t have the money. They don’t have the money to pay the bail. That’s all.
They will get bail in one minute. Right? Some petty crimes and what not, they are stuck. If the bail money is there, they pay their bail. You will free those poor people.
Right? Feeding? Believe me, you don’t have enough money to feed people. There are so many hungry people that no matter how much money you have, it will all go. Yeah?
World Food Organization. I think World Food. Yeah. World Food Organization. They challenged Elon Musk. Elon Musk said, 2% of my wealth I can feed the whole world. Did he do it? No. They said, what is the point?
So, the point is that, Israf is a very, very serious thing. It is a very bad thing. إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ (Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un). Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala said in Surah Al-Isra. Allah said, the people who do Israf, verily they are the brothers of Shaitan. Now, brothers of Shaitan, what is worse than that? So, ask yourself, whatever I am doing, am I doing it because of what people will say? How will it look in society? You know. Believe me, you can’t fool yourself. You know your heart knows. If that is there, even if there is a shadow of that, don’t do it. Don’t touch it. If it is not that, if you are doing something which is good for you in order to live a good life, and then you thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala for it, alhamdulillah, there is no problem with that.
The question is concerning the relationship, Silat ar-Rahm. That is relationship, Silat ar-Rahm, breaking kinships. Can it be done, should not be done, should not be done, and so on. And a specific question was with regard to step-brother, step-sister. Father has two wives. So, when the father passes away, the children of these two, you know, do they have a relationship? And do they? And then you asked the question, you said, does it apply only to close relationships? Now, my point is, what can be a closer relationship than having the same father?
Is there something which is closer?
So, this is an evil in our society that we have created this whole issue of “step” this and “step” that. There are no steps in Islam. In Islam, the man has been given the right to marry four times, or have brothers and sisters. That’s not the right way to say it. To have four wives simultaneously.
He can marry more than that. If one wife dies or he divorces, he can marry somebody else. So, total number of marriages is not four. But simultaneously, at one time, he can have four wives. All the children of all those wives will inherit from him. They are all his children. No child of any wife has any supersedence or any, you know, superiority, over the child of another wife. First wife, second wife, third wife makes no difference. The children of all the wives are equal. They are all brothers and sisters. And that is the closest possible relationship you can have because you have the same father.
Right? I know cases where there are brothers I have seen who are so close you don’t even know until somebody tells you that this one is from the first wife, this one is from the second wife. There’s no difference. And there should be no difference. Right? So, this whole issue of step and so on, this is all because we are using English language. And even in Urdu, these are all cultural things that have come in. It’s like the whole of Bollywood runs on our South Asian mother-in-law, daughter-in-law relationship business. The whole Bollywood is running on the part of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Similarly, it is also running on the parts of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The treatment of the first seven children is not good. The stepchildren are treated badly. This is all completely Haram and this is not part of Islam. So, number one. Number two, you should always be together. You must always love one another because you have the same father. Right? Also, all relationships of the Raham which is through the mother, all the relationships which Allah has mentioned. So, mother and the father both. Blood relationship basically which is your uncles. Your uncle has the same level as your father. Your uncle and uncle are at the level of your father.
The aunt is the substitute for the mother. In Islamic jurisprudence, the aunt is the substitute for the mother. If there is an orphan girl, a woman dies, her daughter, if she is alive, the daughter is there. Who will be the caretaker? If there is a Khala, if the mother has a sister, the sister becomes the caretaker of this girl. Automatically in Islam because that is the closest relationship. Right? So, therefore, these relationships. So, Khala, then the cousins with them. Absolutely. Besides your aunts and uncles from the father, aunts and uncles from the mother, all of these are your relationships. Yes. So, question is be close to them, have good relationships. That is does not mean that necessarily you must live in the same house. Or that you must have the same business. Nothing like that. This refers only to being good to each other. Social relationships. Going to each other. Accepting each other’s invitations and then of course obviously helping each other if they are in need but as far as your life is concerned you are completely at liberty to live your own life in your own way and do your own business and if you want to when I say live by yourself I don’t mean have a fight and go out but if you want to have a separate house for yourself you can have no problem as long as you can afford it and as long as there is no bad blood and there is no conflict.
Nobody says you have to; everyone must live in the same house, no, not necessary.