The Sharʿi Ruling on Artificial Asceticism and Self-Imposed Hardship
Source: Fatāwā Amanpuri by Shaykh Ghulam Mustafa Zaheer Amanpuri
Question:
Some people abandon cleanliness, deliberately subject their bodies to hardship, and call it zuhd (asceticism). What is the ruling on this?
Answer:
Such artificial zuhd is sinful. Abandoning lawful means and putting oneself into unnecessary hardship is, in fact, throwing oneself into destruction. Taking means is not against tawakkul (reliance on Allah).
Allah ﷻ says:
﴿وَلَا تُلْقُوا بِأَيْدِيكُمْ إِلَى التَّهْلُكَةِ﴾
(Al-Baqarah: 195)
"Do not throw yourselves into destruction with your own hands."
﴿وَرَهْبَانِيَّةً ابْتَدَعُوهَا مَا كَتَبْنَاهَا عَلَيْهِمْ إِلَّا ابْتِغَاءَ رِضْوَانِ اللَّهِ فَمَا رَعَوْهَا حَقَّ رِعَايَتِهَا﴾
(Al-Ḥadīd: 27)
"And monasticism, which they invented—we did not prescribe it for them—only seeking Allah’s pleasure, but they did not observe it as it should have been observed."
❀ Ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Jawzī رحمه الله (d. 597H) said:
اعلم – وفقك الله – أنه لو رفض الأسباب شخص يدعي التزهد، وقال: لا آكل، ولا أشرب، ولا أقوم من الشمس فى الحر، ولا أستدفئ من البرد كان عاصيا بالإجماع.
"Know—may Allah grant you success—that if a person abandons means under the claim of asceticism, saying: ‘I will not eat, nor drink, nor move away from the sun in the heat, nor seek warmth in the cold,’ then there is consensus that such a person is sinful."
(Ṣayd al-Khāṭir: 76)
