﴿ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تُحَرِّمُوا۟ طَيِّبَٰتِ مَآ أَحَلَّ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمْ وَلَا تَعْتَدُوٓا۟ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْمُعْتَدِينَ ﴾

“O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not deprive yourselves of the good things of life which God has made lawful to you, but do not transgress the bounds of what is right: verily, God does not love those who transgress the bounds of what is right.”

The connection between man and God is a live relationship which is established on a psychological level. It is internal in nature. But when religion is on the decline, and this internal relationship becomes weakened, then the mentality develops that one must try to build up such a relationship from external sources. One of these is giving up worldly pleasures—in effect, renunciation or monasticism. It is assumed that staying away from material things will cause a man to come nearer to God. Some of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions were influenced by such monastic thoughts. They intended to give up eating meats and sleeping at nights, to castrate themselves and leave their homes to lead the life of hermits. Some of them went to the extent of taking a vow or oath to this effect. But people were prohibited from doing this and were told that one could not attain nearness to God just by treating permitted things (halal) as forbidden things (haram). Whatever a man achieves, is done by his remaining within natural limits, and not by his inventing stricter limits.