فوسوس اليه الشيطان قال يا ادم هل ادلك على شجرة الخلد وملك لا يبلى

فَوَسْوَسَ إِلَيْهِ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ قَالَ يَـٰٓـَٔادَمُ هَلْ أَدُلُّكَ عَلَىٰ شَجَرَةِ ٱلْخُلْدِ وَمُلْكٍ لَّا يَبْلَىٰ

Adam (as) was given everything but a tree in Jannah. If you wonder what could have happened that would lead him to this tree amidst the vast garden, you need only look at his progeny and the state of the Muslims living in the systems we live under to realise not much has changed in relation to how we are being tested.

We are permitted every kind of trade but not interest. Every kind of drink and not alcohol. Every kind of food except pork. The forbidden things are microscopic compared to what has been allowed, yet all we ever seem to want are those things. We can see how civilisations have gravitated towards that tree. The empty promises and insatiable temptations of a more prosperous and stable life we see offered by these systems. It was the offer to enjoy freedom and prosperity by eating from its forbidden fruit. This temptation was in fact shaytan's first attack. Then those who knew about shaytan and his system were faced with another tact, the renaming of the fruits of capitalism and liberalism with a different name like 'islamic' finance, and islamic 'shura' democracy and freedom of expression and equality. Much like Shaytan who renamed and rebranded the tree 'the tree of eternal life in an everlasting kingdom'.

Today life is so suffocatingly narrow. The road to zina has multiple routes, and the few roads to marriage obstructed. The paths to Interest are wide and plentiful, you can either live by your means and risk being poor or take the money conditioned on interest being thrown at you daily. They send you letters with a credit card attached with your name printed on it, they call you in your time of need before you even knew you had a financial problem, and when you have nothing left and on your knees, the banks vanish like shaytan himself, when the banks then fall on their knees, the government re-appears. This diseased tree and its diseased fruits pervades almost every transaction over genuine effort to earn ones wage by providing assisting and serving your fellow man. To profit by the exploitation of another and not at their expense. Having to get loans just to learn so you can pay it back, to take a loan to own a house because all properties and land are under leasehold and freehold ownership which of course is ok, since man has always owned the earth. These pressures pushes you to earn impermissible sources of wealth to provide the best for your children.

In daily life it seems difficult to maintain being polite and kind without it being exploited and repelled as it is seen as a sign of weakness and naivety. We see how for young people to take care of their parents in old age, seems a task too big and suppressing one's ambitions to raise one's children a burden.

We see nations forcibly taking resources and exploiting the people instead of distributing to every person their bare necessities and sharing resources and skills, choosing always to profit from a nation on its way down, never to help it become strong and independent. So that was about their 'brotherhood' on a domestic level now look at the interactions of these nations to one another. Look how they are plagued with arrogance and paranoia instead of respecting and helping other people who in turn will help them, they believe in the idea that it is better to take from your fellow man by force and then kill him to avoid reprisals than to be patient to see if he would give it for willingly. Kill him while he's thinking about it! Everything but the good is possible in these systems. When there is good it is despite the system not because of it. Subhanallah! What a system that made these few things that Allah (ﷻ) forbade become so dominant in our lives that Man made it integral to its very existence!

So if you ever ever feel there is no choice to do haram and that you are being squeezed as an individual, whether it was zina, interest or some crazy pyramid scheme. Ask yourself what you did you do to change and widen the space for your fellow man, what did you do to uproot the ideas that nourish and give life to this tree. How many of us are content to live under the sewage of man made systems either concentrated in kingships or diluted democracies?
As for Adam (as) he showed us that we can be Khalifahs (Trustees) of this earth and gain more reward and closeness with our Lord than in our original untested state in Jannah. And Allah (ﷻ) knows best.

20:120
فَوَسْوَسَ إِلَيْهِ الشَّيْطَانُ قَالَ يَا آدَمُ هَلْ أَدُلُّكَ عَلَىٰ شَجَرَةِ الْخُلْدِ وَمُلْكٍ لَّا يَبْلَىٰ
Then Satan whispered to him; he said, 'O Adam, shall I direct you to the tree of eternity and possession that will not deteriorate?'


Reflections: Taha 20:120