17. Construction of Tall Buildings

RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “You will find the barefoot, naked, poor shepards of goats and sheep competing in building tall buildings.” [Muslim] Naked does not mean that they don’t have any clothes. It means that they are so poor that they could barely cover their private parts.

Allahu ‘Alam, this hadith are describing the Muslim Ummah and not the disbelievers. In many of the signs of the day of judgement, RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam was talking about things that would happen to his Ummah. There are some signs, obviously, talking about the world in general or a particular people. In the situations where the hadith does not indicate a particular people, it is about the Muslims. This hadith is talking about people that were really poor and suddenly become rich. They are not building for the need of building, but they’re building in competition.

You’ll find this in the Gulf – because of the oil boom. People suddenly have money. Before, they couldn’t afford a house, and now there’s competition in building tall buildings. These tall buildings are built in areas that could easily afford horizontal expansion. It’s not like its NY, where you have to make tall buildings. These areas are desert. You can go as horizontal as you want – all you’ll hit is a sand dune.

SubhanAllah, this was one of the attributes of the people of ‘Aad. In the Qur’aan, Allah tells us that their Nabiy, Hud, told them in the Qur’aan, ‘You’re building monuments on top of mountains for no use.’”