How would you feel, if you found out that your senses have been deceiving you? You see but you don’t really see, you feel but you don’t really feel, you hear but you don’t really hear… Your eyes, which are supposed to be the window from which you look at and perceive the world around you are actually blind. Your heart, which is the source of your life, doesn’t feel others’ pains, and your ears, which is the open door for listening to others’ problems, has been shut in their faces for a long time. Basically your bodily senses have been inactive for a long time, they’ve literally died but you just don’t know as you feel that they’ve been practically functioning very well and doing their job.
Is this really true? Do you actually “see” what’s happening around you? Do you really “feel” what others are going through or the world is only revolving around you while you’re standing still watching like an idle spectator? Can you feel what those close to you have been trying to tell you for so long, but your ears have voluntarily shut its doors?
If the answer to the all of these questions is “Yes”, then you need to stop for a while and think carefully about how blind you are! You’ve been deluded, my dear friend, by thinking that what you see, feel, and hear is part of reality’s magnifying lens. You don’t really want to listen to the problems surrounding you anymore as if you’ve decided to take an early retirement from your life, but did you really think that this is the solution? You no longer want to feel how or what people feel, you don’t want to be part of their lives or contribute to it by any means.
It’s only you that life revolves around; your thoughts, your feelings, your problems, you… you… you, and only you. Unfortunately the 21st century has been an advocate to the ideology and philosophy of Individualism and selfishness. If we look over and study this concept, we’ll find how far society has succeeded in turning people into robotic creatures designed to live for themselves, secluded from others, they just take orders and execute them. Materialism is the spirit of this new age, we’re the ones who keep going through circles. We keep thinking only about ourselves, our benefits, and well-being. We’ve forgotten that other people also exist in our lives.
You ask yourself, “But what’s in it for me?” But why does there have to be anything in it for you? What about others, don’t they deserve to have something from you only for the sake of doing something good for others to remember you with? Can’t we do anything for just the sake of Allah (SWT) anymore?
Our beloved Prophet (PBUH), the walking Qur’an, has answered this question for us in his hadith when he said, “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.” He also said, “Truly the faithful are to one another like components of a building, each part supports the other.” (BUKHARI and MUSLIM)
So where are we from these beautiful and meaningful notions? Would you truly feel the love for your brother/sister if you found him/her in a better position than you? Would you wish for your friend or sister all the happiness of this world and the next, if she got married before you? Wouldn’t you hope, instead, for them to lose what they have for you so that you wouldn’t feel inferior or incomplete?
Let’s be honest, none of us truly loves for his brother what he loves for himself and I won’t say it’s because of a lack of faith or love for your brother, it’s just because you love yourself more and this is the nature of human beings. But Islam came to teach is that humanity could be developed and reformed for the sake of a higher purpose. If we keep in mind that we’re not here in this life to collect but rather to give away what we have for Allah’s sake, we’ll start to understand the meaning of loving something for others’ sake.
How beautiful is the hadith when our beloved Prophet (PBUH) describes to us people who truly love each other unconditionally to the extent that if one of them complained, the other would cry for him, “The faithful are like a single body: If his eye suffers, then his constitution will suffer, and if he has a headache, then his whole system will suffer.” (MUSLIM)
Finally, I’d like to leave you with a question, if I suffered, would you truly suffer for me?
This article was also featured on Zumaran
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