Seizing Opportunities
The writer, Ayyad Dilawar Padhani is in Marketing at his family optical practice. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Marketing and related support services. He has been rendering community services from a very early age.
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his article wishes to explore not only the issues that muslims and the religion of islam face today, but also the unique opportunities we are presented with so as to maximise our impact in helping others, whether it be with knowledge or belief systems/frameworks, or with charity (ie food, clothing, housing, etc).
There are multiple challenges that islam and muslims faces today, some of which include the following but are not limited to:
Unity and Togetherness Arguably the most important thing in islam is our power of Unity and togetherness. Regardless of differences of opinion in whatever matter, all muslims believe in the same Lord, in the same messenger, have the same Quran, pray the same 5 prayers, and make Hajj to the same place.
Studies have found that community life has the most profound effect on life satisfaction, longevity and overall physical health. Reduced human interaction and loneliness have adverse impacts on our health both mental and physical, which is where the world wishes us to go today. However Islam wants us to be with our fellow brethren regardless of any differences, praying in congregation 5 times a day.
Misinformation / information overload – with the nature of social media being such that it promotes creators that post often and keep the viewer on the platform for longer, content creators have to resort to manufacturing loads of content to keep up with the algorithms. This has created a social media feed that has majority useless information, which keeps us stimulated or information that is simply not true.
In order to combat this issue, it is pertinent to arm ourselves with solid information and principles of arriving at, or formulae for thinking. These include logic, thinking from first principles and knowing logical fallacies and biases to avoid in our reasoning.
Moving on to the final challenge is our inferiority complex to the western ideologies. We should try not to sacrifice our beliefs and practices to be likeable or relatable to peoples of other religions. It is perhaps since the Qatar World Cup that Muslims have felt so united and strong on certain issues that the veil of the blind acceptance of western superiority has been lifted. Good economic outcomes, better taxing systems and overall safety in some of the more prominent Muslim countries have done exceptionally well in showcasing heights the muslims can attain too.
Our inferiority complex to the western ideologies has therefore begun to deteriorate as we as an ummah continue to improve ourselves in the realms of education, scientific discovery, and worldly achievement. In a world where material wealth is especially valued, and huge followings get you to bigger events, muslims are in the limelights sharing information on the religion. Of course there are challenges associated with that, however we move as we strengthen ourselves with point 2 discussed above.
We must not let any of our potentials to waste, and attempt to maximise what we can achieve in this world. This is not to say we should become worldly, overthink about gaining material wealth or worldly possessions, rather it is to push us to add value to the body of knowledge if possible, such as in research and education, or add value to people’s lives such as in business, invent things, write award winning, impactful books, give powerful talks to inspire people to action, become astronauts even.
For we may be asked on the day of judgement, what we did with all the capacity we had. May Allah (swt) grant us strength and perseverance.
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