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There are people who are
persecuted and tortured to death: innocent
babies, people who cannot even afford a loaf
of bread, who sleep in cold weather, in tents
and even on the streets, who cannot afford
medical treatment, or who, despite being old
and weak, have to wait for hours, or even
days, for hospital care, people who are killed
just for belonging to a certain race, women,
children and old people who are thrown out of
their homes because of their religion,
enormous extravagance alongside poor people
suffering from starvation and neglect, who are
just left to die, children too young and
defenseless to be able to look after
themselves, children who leave school to work
or beg for money to help their families
survive, people who live with the constant
fear of being slaughtered by their enemies.
Everybody is aware of the
existence of such people as these. Almost
every day we come across pictures of these
helpless, miserable, homeless, and needy
people in the papers or on TV. Many people see
their plight and pity them. However, they then
either turn off the channel they have been
watching, or else they turn over the pages of
the newspaper they have been reading and
forget they exist once more.
Most people never think that
they have to make an effort to save these
people from the terrible conditions they live
in. They ask, "Is it up to me to save
these people when there are so many rich and
powerful people in the world?" and leave
the responsibility to others.
However, prosperity and power
alone are not enough to save these people and
to make this world a place where justice,
peace, security, and well being prevail. For
instance, despite the existence of many rich
and developed countries in the world, people
in Ethiopia are still dying from hunger. That
people are still going hungry despite the
present advanced state of technology and the
many resources in the world is a clear
indication that wealth and power by themselves
are not enough.
In order for wealth and power
to be used for the well being of these poor
and needy people, first of all, we have to be
conscientious. The sole way of being
conscientious is through belief. Only people
who believe consistently act conscientiously
can there be a solution to injustice, chaos,
terror, massacres, hunger, poverty, and
oppression. The one solution is the morals of
the Qur'an.
When we look at the problems
in the world in general, we see that they are
all caused by feelings such as hatred, malice,
antagonism, self-interest, selfishness,
indifference, and cruelty. The way to finding
a solution to these and eliminating them lies
in love, compassion, mercy, pity, the zeal to
serve without expecting anything in return,
sensitivity, sacrifice, brotherhood,
tolerance, reason, and wisdom. These traits
are only found in those who fully live by the
morals in the Qur'an. In one of His verses,
Allah refers, in the following verses, to the
Qur'an's aspect of leading people out of
darkness to light:
(A
light has come to you from Allah and a clear
Book. By it, Allah guides those who follow
what pleases Him to the ways of peace. He will
bring them from the darkness to the light by
His permission, and guide them to a straight
path.)
(Al-Ma'idah 5:15-16)
In another verse, Allah
states, in the following verses, that
everything which conflicts with the Qur'an
will end in corruption and confusion:
(If
the truth were to follow their whims and
desires, the heavens and the earth and
everyone in them would have been brought to
ruin. No indeed! We have given them their
Reminder, but they have turned away from it.) (Al-Mu'minun
23:71)
At the very moment you are
reading this, millions of poor people are
either suffering, or trying to avoid dying
from hunger or cold. Or else they are being
torn away from their homes, families and
children, and forced to leave their homelands.
For this reason, conscientious
people must think about all this and act as if
these troubles, adversities, and hardships had
befallen themselves or their loved ones. Or
they must look for ways to help those who ask
for spiritual or material help. In the
following verse, Allah orders conscientious
and faithful people with common sense to
assume this responsibility:
(What
reason could you have for not fighting in the
way of Allah — for those men, women and
children who are oppressed and say, "Our
Lord, take us out of this city whose
inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give us a
protector from You! Give us a helper from
You!") (An-Nisa' 4:75)
The most important thing for
Muslims to do is to struggle in the
intellectual domain so that the morals of the
Qur'an prevail against lack of religion. The
only salvation for the weak, helpless,
homeless, and destitute is the widespread
practice of the morals of the Qur'an by all
the people of the world. For this reason
telling people about the morals in the Qur'an
and communicating the message is a very
important and pressing way of worshipping for
all Muslims. As is also stated in the Qur'an, (Our duty is only to proclaim the clear
Message) (Ya-Sin 36:17).
Those who do not use their
consciences, who behave indifferently and
uninterestedly towards orphans, the poor, and
the unhappy, who spend the possessions given
to them on vain things in the life of this
world, who coldly watch women, children and
old people under oppression, who feel happy at
the spread of all kinds of immorality and
ugliness in the world, and who encourage this
point of view, will certainly account for all
that in the hereafter as Allah says in the
following verses:
(Have
you seen him who denies the religion? He is
the one who harshly rebuffs the orphan and
does not urge the feeding of the poor. So woe
to those who establish prayer, and are
forgetful of their prayer, those who show off
and deny help to others.) (Al-Ma`un
107:1-7)
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