Reality
Let’s talk about reality for a moment since the point of the last post seemed to have gotten lost in the discussion in the comments
Anyone that has written a will knows that it is a very sobering thing to do. You are writing something that you will not even be able to hear read and executed. We all know that death is the ultimate reality. But have we ever thought about this subject, as it relates to the loved ones we potentially leave behind?
Imagine this scenerio:
You are a convert writing your will. You are married to a convert. Neither of you have any Muslim family. You have four children. In the event that you both pass away, who do you leave to take care of your children? Think about it before you answer. You are writing a will and you are playing for keeps. It’s reality time.
Who do you really trust to take care of your children and to carry out your wishes AND that your children know and feel comfortable with?
If you have someone in mind, do you really agree with the way that this person raises children? Do you even know how he raises his children? What are his goals? Does this person put the emphasis on education that you do?
Have you met with him to discuss this realistically? More than just a five minute conversation, but about all the nuances? Does he really want to take care of your children or is he saying ‘yes’ because that is just kinda like “the thing to say”? How does he discipline children?
If the person you have in mind has children, can he realistically afford to take care of more children? Especially children that are not his own? If he agrees, how does his wife feel about this? Her input is just as important (if not more important) as she likely will be with the children most of the time. Before you give me a textbook answer about the rewards of taking care of the orphans (I understand that), know that the reality is that some people do not like other peoples’ children. Some are abusive. (Why do you think the step-mother gets such a bad rap?) Some have quick tempers and little patience. Others are too lax. I mean, who is this brother you feel close to really? Have you even been to his house? What kind of neighborhood does he live in? Seen him interact with his children etc? How well do you really know him?
Will this person end up in a battle with your parents or your wife’s parents for custody of the children? Do the children feel more comfortable around your parents than your Muslim friends? How close are you really, to your Muslim friends? Close enough to let them have your children?
Do you really trust this person to give him all of your bank account information, places you have kept cash hidden, the combination to your safe, your ATM PIN, the location of all of your valuables and all of the most personal information so that he may be able to access it in the event of your death?
What about age and health issues of the potential guardian?
Is there a ‘plan B’?
In the event only you die, leaving your wife and kids, what provisions have been made for your wife and children to pay the rent and keep the food on the table? The car note? Was she a housewife? Have you talked to her about what she and the family would do in the event of your death? Assuming the children are in Islamic School, any plans for how she will be able to continue to pay for that? What about ongoing expenses that are a part of your family’s current life? Growing children cost progressively more
What about paying for burial costs? (Yes, it has to be paid for)
Those of you reading this and screaming ”just make hijrah” right now should consider that, in the above situation, your wife will likely be put out of the country before your body is cold in the ground. (Especially if she black) And even if she was able to stay, she would unlikely be able to survive in that situation, having no family or tribe members to help her or take care of her in that country. (So much for that panecea)
We understand what is in the books, but when it is time to play for keeps, what will the real situation be?
Those converts married to immigrant sisters:
If you both die, can the family back home take care of your children? Will they be seen as a burden after some time. Don’t forget health and age issues.
If you alone pass away, how realistic is it to send the wife and children back to her home country, especially if she is from a poor country? Often the economy is horrible, and finding work is next to impossible. Do you have enough to send the entire family back with all their belongings? What about citizenship issues for the children? Will the children be able to go to school? Even if they are able to go to school, will they get a proper education over there that will prepare them to be adults?
Have debts? Who will pay them off? Will your family be burdened with it?
Are these not questions that Muslims should think about? Are Muslims supposed to procrastinate on these issues, completely ignore them, or pretend it will never happen? Is this something that we should dismiss and say “I’ll deal with that when it happens”? Should we just leave it? Should your family just be thrown out there to be a ‘ward of the masjid’ asking for sadaqah money to pay the rent and basic needs?
If you still think that this should be dismissed (Can’t worry about all that akh!) consider that in the event both of you die, someone you disapprove of may end up with your children unless you name someone, a judge could appoint just about anyone who applies. Or if no one comes forward to take care of the children, they could end up split up and in foster care.
Is it not permissible to think of these things and do what is within our power to try to prepare for the worst?
Another Dose of Reality:
You have four children and have been told that health insurance is haraam. You can not afford to pay out of pocket for health visits, regular appointments, and vaccinations. The brothers are telling you that these things aren’t needed because they didn’t exist during the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and berate you for having weak Iman for even bringing up the topic.
But on the other hand, your children need vaccination to go to school. They do get sick and need to go the doctor. What happens if some health concerns develop? These things do happen. Do you take the health care insurance offered at work or listen to the brothers at the masjid with the cut and paste fatwas from the internet?
Other realities:
What about the children being able to have friends? Learning social skills? Nay, learning to read at grade level? College tuition for several children?
In light of the above, and how much work we have to do, while we have an opportunity, on our personal lives and family situations, how much time should we really invest in tired slogans?
With all of these realities and many more in our personal lives, how do we have time to concentrate on pie in the sky theories, emotional rhetoric or empty slogans? This is why I am so against sloganeering. When reality hits, one is totally unprepared to deal with it because for the past 10 years, he has done nothing to prepare for it.
All of the above are questions that you need to ask yourselves and seriously consider. Because the fact is that converts in this country are not close enough to other Muslims (to no fault of their own in many cases) to have solid answers to most if not all of the above questions.
All of these things are yet another taboo in the American Muslim community. You can’t bring this topic (the vunerability of convert families) up in many masjids because it is somehow un-Islamic to even bring up these questions. Try bringing up these topics amongst converts, and watch the reaction. Then ask yourself, why this reaction?
My advice to you is to then go home, take a long loving look at your children, evaluate your life realisitically, talk to your wife, and begin to make some plans and action.
Filed under: Sloganism over Reality, The Culture of Denial and Pretense
bismillah
I wouldn’t have replied to this article if you didn’t have drawn a relation to this and your previous article. This is due to the simple fact that this is a problem we as people face. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Athiests, we all face problems. If you haven’t drawn a relation between this article and the previous one, I would have replied by saying “may Allah help us all”. Simple as that. The fact your relating this article with the previous one shows (and correct me if I am wrong) that you’re saying that reality is so difficult that we should not worry ourselves with any political work and only concentrate on our personal lives.
Tell me something, would you say this to an Iraqi? A Palestinian? A Chechen? A Kashmirian? or do you think everyone has a roof over his head and food on his plate like you do? Or will you wait until every single country becomes like Iraq? I am not a supporter of al-Qaeda or any violent methods, however that does not mean I jump to the other extreme of things and become completely removed from any political action.
Allah (swt) says;
“Your wealth and your children are only a temptation, whereas Allah! with Him is an immense reward.”
64:15
wassalamu alaikum
That is so weird that you wrote this because I was thinking about this very thing this morning. We are racking out brains trying to figure out who will be the guardians of our children. There are so many issues to think about and of course being Muslim its complicated so much with the mahrem issue, education, finances. Some times you want to go into denial and just pray the situation never comes up but you cant its hs to be dealt with.
I was also thinking how you get taught so many things are haraam, but then get no advice on how do you deal with your situation in America. Women are constantly harangued not to work but if something happens to the husband, some people don’t even have enought to pay a months worth of bills. Even if the wife is educated if she has been out of the work force for years she can’t go get a job that easily. You can’t depend on the Muslim community in America, it just not that organized and charity is focused on poverty overseas. I have had to try to collect money for people and I pray Allah never puts me in that situation.
Anyway, you bring up excellent points in your posts that Muslims are in denial about sometimes. Anyway I hope this is changing for younger Muslims as they become more educted and move into the middle class but it is certainly dire for those in the lower class because their financial situation is so precarious. Actually most people, no matter income, are living paycheck to paycheck.
Um Abdillah:
Writing a Will is very sobering thing to do because it lets you know where you really stand. That is if you don't just throw names down. You have to ask yourself the serious questions and not just think like we have been trained to think.
It is so easy to just ignore what is right in front of you and complain. Makes you feel better. But DOING something to change it is entirely different.
Abdur-Rahman:
I don't know if you saw my last comments on the last post, but I will repeat that you strike me as someone who is young and single with no children or you would not constantly call for us to ignore the fire in our own backyards that we can actually put out to simply LOOK AT one overseas.
Once again you have sadly COMPLETELY missed the point. If you were paying attention to my comments on the last post, one of the things I mentioned that one could do is GIVE CHARITY. That includes to all the places you mentioned, which do have many problems and we do what we can to help.
But you know what? It takes disposable income to give charity. Disposable income comes from a job.
One can give charity encourage others to give charity and make duaa for those situations. Doing other than that, such as talking at the coffee shop with the brothers about it for hours does no good except to make the brothers feel better about themselves because they care so much more than everyone else. (Lots of good THAT does the people in the places you mentioned)
Meanwhile these brothers doing all this TALKING collectively can't give a dime to charity, yet the very brothers and sisters they are berating give millions.
We have too much to do in our own homes that I have illustrated above. In a way I'm glad you came though because unfortunately you personify in your cut and pastes exactly the programed knee-jerk thinking that causes us to take our eyes off the ball.
You would do well to read this article
Finally, I leave you to ponder this quote from George Orwell:
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle"
Unfortunately we have been lulled into a deep comfortable sleep by retreating into our own private existences removed from the real world. We have somehow been living inside of classical texts and scholarly fatawa and not in reality. This definitely the case for converts. The texts do not match our reality. And many of us have either burned out, gone insane or just become inert by trying to force-fit something that won't fit.
The issue of our children and wills is totally different when it comes to someone who's entire family is Muslim and his wife's entire family is Muslim.
Visiting one's family is an entirely different issue for converts than it is for someone who's family is Muslim. (grand-parents, uncles, cousins, etc.)
For example, the only time the majority of my family is in one city is during one of their holidays. They are Christians. But they are family. WHat is the solution?
"O shaykh…what do I do?"
The Shaykh's family is all Muslim. He cannot relate and can only give you an answer taken right from the classical texts but that cannot be applied to this situation because the scenarios are totally different.
An Egyptian whose entire family is Muslim is not going to be able to relate to my dilema as an American Muslim whose extended family goes to church and not the masjid.
Enjoying the 'Eid is an entirely different issue for converts. It is easier for someone to feel actual exuberance during the time of 'Eid when his mother is Muslim, his father is, his grand-parents, his cousins, his in-laws and what have you. His children can play with their Muslim cousins and enjoy the 'eid at the family gathering over granny's house. What about converts? Who are your children playing with? Are you invited to a relative's house to celebrate? All of your relatives are non-Muslim. So there you are at the 'Eid salah with your wife and kids (maybe) and for all intents and purposes you are alone. Oh yeah there is the passing awkward congregating of other converts with no Muslim family of their own - but back to bro. Tariq's piercing questions - do we really know them? Are we really close like a family? Do you trust them with your children? DO they know your childrens' names? Do they care? Or are we just pretending and using each other (other converts) as a surrogate family in place of a real one?
At the masjid, it is saddening - no depressing to see the immigrants' who can be with their uncles, grand-parents and cousins at the masjid for salah or a cook-out or pot-luck dinner and they actually enjoy themselves because they are all family. And then there is the convert - pretending that he is having the time of his life (or in complete denial) even though the best he can do is be there with his immediate family.
If an immigrant couple dies - the grand-parents are muslims, or the uncles and aunts or a close cousin. Man, they have options. Many of us converts haven't even THOUGHT of this scenario - let alone the financial burden we leave behind for others to sort out.
So what have we been doing all this time? Arguing about who's on the correct manhaj of course. Or who is a deviant. Or why we need khalifah. Or "where is Allah?". Or How high the trousers should be. Or how long the beard should be. Or meat. Any number of these issues that seem to fascinate converts into an opiate induced vision of self-righteousness at the expense very real and serious social questions that have yet to even be asked. Seriously I DO make that du'a..May Allah help us all. Ameen.
community building has a long long way to go in north america. i had lived there for six years and i was so disappointed to see only less than 10% of the whole N.A.’s muslim community’s efforts concentrate on community building. about 60% was pure ritualistic ibadah even if the place of worship was a suburban run down warehouse instead of a beautiful masjid. the remaining 30% was pure dwelling on contemporary issues and puritanistic issues such as which is right and who is right.
i only wish N.A. muslim leaders, even if they feel they ‘know’ all, will instead take a world study tour to traditional muslim communities and try to study how communities were developed in order to concentrate on community building efforts.
dwelling on issues that divide us has brought us nowhere. integration needs to be the core theme for N.A. muslim community for next five years… i urge all of you who read this to repeat this question loud and clear repeatedly whenever you attend or come across any debate or conference or talk or activity or effort within the smaller or larger Muslim community in N.A., “will this integrate the community??? will this aid community building???”
The reality of the situation is that most children of Muslims in these situations will end up going with the non-Muslim family and if there is nothing in writing will be raised as Non-Muslims. The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day the brotherhood in America is not to the point were a lot of Muslims are willing to take care of one another kids; they have their hands full with their own.
Umar: You know after thinking about it, at the end of the day, as the situation stands now, my children would probably end up with my non-Muslim parents.
This is sobering indeed.
Since reading your post earlier today I've been feeling very depressed. My husband (a revert) and I talked about who the kids would go to if something were to happen to us. I had just thought that they could go to my parents, but my mom and dad are 55 and 65 with high blood pressure and diabetes, respectively. Not really prime age or condition for raising 2 young boys.
Besides my parents, are my brothers, but they're not married and know nothing about raising kids. So that just leaves my husband's parents but they're kuffar and on top of that my father-in-law is a preacher! I have no other relatives here in the states except 2 cousins but I don't really know them nor would I expect them to raise my kids, who are mixed-raced by the way. I think this is a subject that my husband and I need to revisit and actually come up with some answers this time around Insha Allah. Even though I come from a Muslim family, I am faced with some of the same issues as those who have non-Muslim families. May Allah (swt) help us all.
WackyPaki :
What is saddening to me is that I spoke with a brother (a convert) about this issue yesterday evening, and in typical fashion, he blew it off. (Can't worry about that akh!) It was very frustrating to hear him react in such typical textbook fashion.
Is it not ironic with as many khutbahs and lectures we hear about death, we never hear it spoken about with regard to the loved ones we potentially leave behind. At least I have not. I believe that is because in the Muslim world, they have Muslim family surrounding them in these cases and these are not issues facing them. So converts expect those in the Muslim world to address their special issues for them. If they don't address it, we don't address it
But, brother, “reality” is the methodology of the kuffar, designed to detract us from The Islamic Ideology.
bismillah
assalamu alaikum
Tariq said:—————————
I don’t know if you saw my last comments on the last post, but I will repeat that you strike me as someone who is young and single with no children or you would not constantly call for us to ignore the fire in our own backyards that we can actually put out to simply LOOK AT one overseas.
———————————————
Yes I did read your comment, but I thought it was pointless to reply to it. I am a university student and will graduate next year inshallah. I was initially given lessons weekly with 5 other brothers by an Egyptian brother who works as a doctor full time and has a 16 month old child called Omar. Now I am given lessons by another brother from Nigeria who as far as i understand works in some IT field and is married to an Egyptian sister and has 3 daughters. Inshallah someday when I’m cultured enough I will start giving lessons myself inshallah.
Are we going to be free from problems? Ofcourse not. As human beings we face problems everyday. Is it an excuse not to work for Islam? You didn’t reply to me whether you will say to an Iraqi from Faluja the same thing you’re saying to me. You didn’t tell me whether you will say the same thing to the Chechens. Or is today each Muslim for himself? I am not saying we ignore our personal problems, ofcourse these are things we have to solve, but in the end, they are what they are, PERSONAL problems. It amazes me the extent to how private some Muslims made Islam to be. Completely detaching yourself from your community, your society, your whole ummah that the prophet (pbuh) himself said should react like one body.
The above argument should be enough, but I will give you yet another one. You also still didn’t tell me why Allah revealed the shariah. Is not the shariah laws made to govern society? Would not our lives be made much easier if those shariah laws are implemented? Not only is your argument that because we have personal problems we detach ourselves from everything else is wrong, but it also does not even solve anything. Implementing the shariah law will solve most of your problems. In an Islamic society, you would not have to worry about your children after you pass away, they will be taken care of and raised by Islam. This is the reason why Allah revealed the shariah, not for us to stack in the shelves, but so that we use them to produce the best society that we as humans can produce on this Earth.
As for charity, it is good. But what exactly do you aim to solve with that? Are you going to liberate Palestine with charity? Build a house for the Palestinians today so that tomorrow an Israeli bulldozer tear it down? It is like a man that has several illnesses all coming from one virus, you are trying to heal each illness on its own and yet you ignore the very virus that is causing all the trouble. Each time you heal something and start with the next, the one you just healed comes back again, because the virus is still there. In this case, the virus is the absence of the Islamic political leadership. Why is there hunger in the Muslim world when Nile alone used to feed the whole of North Africa, and that was more than a century ago. Is your charity going to solve this problem? It will certainly help, but it is extermely foolish to think that it will solve anything.
As for duaa, it is the weapon of the believer. But duaa alone without action is also wrong. Allah (swt) said in a hadith qudsi, “work my servant and I will work with you”. Your work should be related to the objective you’re trying to reach. So in other words, do not expect to pass your engineering exams if you pray and read the Quraan the whole day. Do not expect for your business to work out well if you grow a beard and roll up your trousers. And finally, do not expect Palestine to be liberated if you do hajj every year.
As Muslims we work for the reward, the results of our work is in the hands of Allah. If you have personal problems, you have to work to solve them. If we have problems as an ummah, then again we have to work to solve them. In this case, alot of our personal problems could even be solved by solving the larger problem.
wassalam
To everyone:
One of the things that really saddens me is that the important points above I brought up are completely missed because of conversations like what Abdur-Rahman is bringing up (Khalifah and other movements) that happen in the masjid all across the country and take brothers' eyes off the ball.
Brothers that have been around know that issues like what Br Abdur-Rahman is speaking of are TALKED about CONSTANTLY in the masjid. I have been to masjids all over this country and can confirm this. You can't get the brother off his TALKING POINTS long enough to go pay his electricity bill. (He is at the masjid to borrow money for that)
Brothers are constantly being recruited to different theoretical movements, spending years moving from one to the other while their children get lost from all the confusion. .
These converts who COME INTO ISLAM WITH MASSIVE PROBLEMS are taught what? Not personal responsibility and problem solving, but more scapegoating, hatred, and given more ready made excuses for why they are not doing anything with themselves ("It's Whitey's fault!" becomes "It's the Kufaar's fault!"
They drop contact with their non-Muslim family, and are taught to alienate everyone around them and form a bubble around themselves, while spending years at the front of the zakah line. Years pass with them talking about these theoretical issues while their daughters grow up and become STRIPPERS and sons join GANGS. Brothers so buried in their movements that they return home one day and find that the wife has left with the kids and have no idea where they went. Brothers so buried in their movements that they can't pay the rent. Their children can't read at grade level. I can go on and on. But they sure have those TALKING POINTS down pat!!!
These brothers were not taught the value of getting a good education and did not have good families around them like people like Abdur-Rahman have around him, Insha Allah. These converts need to be taught these virtues so that they can pass them to their children, yet they are told to ignore them. "Hey brother! YOU HAVE WEAK IMAN if you are not sitting around TALKING ABOUT the problems of the Muslim world like me!!!"
Let's have some concrete solutions to concrete problems that are right in front of us. Problems that are being ignored, because we are buried in theoretical issues and TALKING POINTS.
Abdur-Rahman:
Masha Allah you are doing a good thing in developing yourself and getting and education. Insha Allah after you are married and have children, perhaps you will begin to see my point that you can not move away from the fire in your own backyard to LOOK AT the one from afar.
The Khalifah (even if one is established) is not going to raise my kids. I have to do that regardless. And FYI, charity does a lot more for poor people than TALKING POINTS do.
Bro Tariq
Once again great points. I wish that when I was younger someone had talked to me about these things.
bro tariq
i totally understand your frustrating apprehension.
i have seen people in similar wretched circumstances in canada. refugees who arrive into the country with $10 and desperately spend the following years to bring their kids into the country. meanwhile they get no support other than the meagre amount from govt that pays few expenses. the only other support they get are from the churches which some demand some of gratitude such as regular attending of mass sessions.
i have also seen women in distress such as widows, divorcees or those seperated or abandoned by husbands. they are either converts or immigrants/refugees and hence they really have no family whatsoever to turn to. no other form of assistance within the community either.
i can go on naming other examples. to summarize all this, basically what we are seeing is that in Muslim communities in North America, when minority Muslims go into helpless situations there are no mechanisms that can readily react to assist those distressed Muslims. in the traditional Muslim societies it is the individuals/community as a whole, mosques and other institutions such as waqf trusts that serve as such relief SOS mechanisms.
i understand your frustration because i myself was screaming my lungs out urging the community that lived in my former university town in Canada to set up a kind of pro-active mechanism to assist the flood of refugees being sent there. the sad part of the reality is that those running the organisations were more interested in day to day operations of their orgs or like what you said ideological issues. the interesting part is that there are individuals, even those who isolate themselves, who come forward to render help.
there is no magical wand that can yield a solution to change this miserable situation. but what is required is concerted long term social action from people like us. what is required is a social reform. not political action either.
the first and foremost thing is that there must be an awareness across Muslim communities in NA that this is quite the reality and that this truely is a problem. as long as they turn a blind eye to it or brush it below the carpet it wont change. to create this awareness if you are willing, lets start a letter campaign that i am willing to fund from here (singapore). lets write to communities, mosques, institutions, orgs and get the people talking first.
frankly the solution to this will not eventually come from a strong big organizations or institutions but rather from individual Muslims who will pro-actively and empathetically reach out to other fellow Muslims in distress. these individual Muslims that i am talking about will act from their heart and not their mouth and will always remain unobserved within the community, wanting to be nothing more than mere numbers.
i have been thinking about this last night and realised some of the issues are issues that not inherent just in Muslim communities but all communities. as an economist from the time in university till now working as one, these kinds of issues always surface continually. throughout history mankind also has been implementing various solutions but the best of it comes from the perfected religion.
lets look at the world today as to how mankind today has responded to tackle these issues. the first and biggest confidence everyone has and champions for is the governmental response. the concept of nations itself is rather recent over the hundred years whereas in the past the globe was more divided by kingdoms, empires, communities, societies, etc. the concept of government has today is a little different from then. today should the problems that bro tariq highlights arise in a muslim country,everyone generally will point the finger to the government expecting it to remedify the situation due to the confidence and belief that the government is an entity that can adequately deal with it.
in some countries, we see its the Non-governmental organizations that people rely on and expect to be the problem fixer. sometimes people rely on social organizations which also include religious institutions. sometimes people rely on rich people naively claiming if they only contribute generously, money will solve all problems.
this is why you see different people championing for different things based on their perceptions, values and biases. we always see (even in this blog) instances of how people make the following claims
“only if the government is blah blah blah, all these problems can be resolved”
“”only if the ummah has a caliphate, all these problems can be resolved”
“only if our community leaders are good blah blah blah, all these problems can be resolved”
“only NGOs can resolve the problems in our ummah”
now what those who articulate this fail to see is that should what they claim be implemented, the positive outcomes may be true but wont be to the extent as they imagine.
even during the history of Islam, we had bad leadership and leaders majority of the times. this wont be apparent unless one truely spend time to list the leaders from time of Prophet(pbuh) till now and look at them and discover that most of them were pretty distant and opposite to the standards set by the Prophet(pbuh) and his rightful Companion Caliphs. the challenges faced today surfaced by bro tariq also existed all along and this was made difficult by the fact that good leaders and leadership were not always present. yet traditional muslim communities and societies dealt were able to deal with it because of the socio-political hegemony that Islam dictates where even when the political leadership is faulty, the social mechanisms such as the sense of brotherhood will be able to readily address the various problems inherent in any community/society at any time.
three hadith summarizes this
‘A believer is like a brick for another believer, the one supporting the other.” (Reported by Imams Bukhari and Muslim)
‘The similitude of believers in regard to mutual love, affection, and fellowfeeling is that of one body; when any limb of it aches, the whole body aches, because of sleeplessness and fever.” (Reported by Imams Bukhari and Muslim)
None of you [truly] believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself. (al-Bukhaaree and Muslim )
These three hadiths sets out three interesting mechanisms. Firstly the society supports each other, secondly the society shoulders the burden of each other and lastly the society individuals share their individual successes and endowments with fellow brothers.
Now to achieve this we dont need governments, democracy, caliphs, NGOs, communism, socialism, military, police etc etc. its just needs us. the each one of us stepping forward. also we need not bother if the other participates or not. when this happens, some problems are pro-actively avoided due to the more priviledged individuals growing at the pace of the less priviledged ones as he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. some problems are kept into control without developing into a crisis or serious propblem when one continually supports the other like a brick. lastly when a crisis or serious problem break out for someone, another responds emphathetically just like a limb responding to the pain of the other limb.
This post sobered me, but also left me feeling very depressed and hopeless. This is a problem that has no one solution. It takes us as Ney Reed said, and it takes money, and it takes a political system, as well as a more sociable culture.
But we fail to understand that the money it takes comes through a job, and the job comes from Allah. But if we cannot solve this problem completely in our lives, then we should do as much as we can and leave the rest to Allah, because after our maximum effort, we’re no longer at fault individually. If you find the problem has no solution, then consider the one solution that the non-Muslims like least, that five letter cussword through which resources are siezed and then re-distributed for the pleasure of Allah, to solve problems such as these. Some problems can only be solved by violence, or not at all. You have all mentioned different things needed to solve the problem, so I might as well mention this one. Not fighting for wealth or vengeance, but to remove injustice and make Allah’s word supreme, in which case these other problems eventually get taken care of if Allah wills. We as an ummah do also need good leaders, but Allah gives a people the leadership they deserve.
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