The meaning of His saying, the Exalted: "Have you seen the one who takes his desire as his god?"
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. This questioner says: In His saying, the Exalted,[Al-Jathiyah 45:23] how can desire be a god for a person? And does that mean that whoever follows his desire is worshipping it and is a disbeliever because of that?
Answer:
It means that he follows what he desires. "He took his desire as his god" means he obeys his desire in what it commands him and obeys it in what it forbids him, so he took desire as a god who commands and forbids. This is the meaning of "he took his desire as his god." However, its meaning is not that he becomes a disbeliever, but rather that there is a deficiency in his religion and a deficiency in his following of the truth. No one is safe, or nearly safe, from following desire, yes. Whether it is little or much, yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. This questioner says: In His saying, the Exalted,
Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire
أَفَرَأَيْتَ مَنِ اتَّخَذَ إِلَٰهَهُ هَوَاهُAnswer:
It means that he follows what he desires. "He took his desire as his god" means he obeys his desire in what it commands him and obeys it in what it forbids him, so he took desire as a god who commands and forbids. This is the meaning of "he took his desire as his god." However, its meaning is not that he becomes a disbeliever, but rather that there is a deficiency in his religion and a deficiency in his following of the truth. No one is safe, or nearly safe, from following desire, yes. Whether it is little or much, yes.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل وأما النوع الثاني من الفتنة : ففتنة الشهوات — islamhouse.com (1:01:01)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.