Peace
Sometimes a class full of children misbehave and the teacher comes in. She tells one child off, possibly the one who is misbehaving the most, but then all the other children get in line and become silent and begin to behave. On behalf of the class the one was punished. But it meant all the children sorted themselves out.
From another angle … a person is walking towards a cliff, it is necessary to beat his leg for him to change direction to avert him from falling. Though the whole of his body was bound for the cliff edge only a part of him was struck.
Such should be considered the case with the Ummah …
Our brothers and sisters around the world are in strife. Yet, what we do is appeal and complain to our secular and often non-Muslims authorities that not enough is being done. Yet, we cannot see our responsibilities on ourselves.
Just like a class full of children who all start to behave on seeing one of their class fellows scolded, why can we not take a lesson from this and improve ourselves in our Islamic lives?
When we see innocents die, we should supplicate for them, read extra salat, understand and implement extra Qur’an. Avoid a sin or two, be extra vigilant on ourselves. Make it known that we acknowledge this aggression as a warning on us, even if it might not be. Our prayers might be answered. But by expecting help from others when a matter is out of their hands is like asking someone else to turn back from the cliff whilst we continue to walk towards it ourselves.
Lets assume the hardship is not falling on our brothers and sisters, rather lets assume it is falling on our own heads, how then will we react? I can bet we will mend our ways with Allah(SWT) and have done our best to be forgiven.
So I ask in these hard time that everyone who reads this … please next time you go to do something useless, sinful or spiteful … stop and don’t do it because of your brothers and sisters who are dying and in hardship. Then supplicate to Allah (SWT) saying ‘O Allah (SWT) I mend my sinful ways so I can turn to You for forgiveness and ask You to help my brothers and sisters’