Why do parents forget what it was like to be a child or an adolescent?
Why do the newly rich forget what it was like to be poor?
Why do the healthy forget what it was like to be sick?
Why do the married forget what the struggles were like to be single?
Why do we forget and become ungrateful for all the things we now have? Worse. Why do we start pointing fingers, looking down upon and hurting people who are now in the position we once were? Where has the empathy gone?
Why do friends forget what it was like to have none? Why do they suddenly start avoiding the friends who are in need, inspite of them being there through thick and thin? What makes us act this way? So selfishly. As if the world revolves around us. As though we are right and everyone else is wrong. Our pain is pain but someone else’s pain is nothing. Someone else’s loss is meaningless.
How can we deal with people in such a selfish manner and then face Allah in prayer each day and cry in our duas asking for help and beg for mercy? Is that what Islam taught us? Do we even know Islam if this is our behaviour? If we can’t want for our brother/sister (in Islam) what we want for ourselves, are we really good Muslims?
May Allah place mercy and empathy in our hearts. Ameen.
Roy Tomkinson said,
June 13, 2009 at 4:11 pm
What you say about Islam, is what I would like to think it is about, but the way many people interprete makes me feel sad. Especially the way in which they treat women, I find that impossible to justify. Why do they do that? Could someone give me an answer. And please, don’t say women like to be treated that way.
Nasreen said,
June 16, 2009 at 5:38 am
Actually, if you look into Islam, the teachings give alot of rights to women and require men to treat their wives with love, kindness and in a just manner even in the worst case scenarios, such as divorce.
And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your [hearts]: verily in that are Signs for those who reflect. (Ar-Rum 30:21)
Live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If ye take a dislike to them it may be that ye dislike a thing, and Allah brings about through it a great deal of good. (An-Nisaa’ 4:19)
I would suggest reading about Islam from Islamic sources rather than heresay, if you are really interested. As for what people do and say, there are bad apples everywhere but we are all responsible for our own deeds. We have our role models – our Prophets (peace be upon them) and their companions to look upto and we try to seek guidance and imitate their actions as they were the best of people.