When living in the West, we quite often find our brothers very laid back. They don’t pursue an active lifestyle. They come home from work or school (that’s if they are doing either) and don’t do much except perhaps play and enjoy the rest of their evening. Maybe they will go to the local Masjid, but that’s about it.
Then there are brothers who just don’t do anything. When you see them, you can almost see the dark cloud over them. You can see right through their personality. Justifying their lazy behavior with ‘Islamic work’ is usually what we hear. They know they are being lazy and they know that they are losing out on time that can be used for beneficial deeds.
The Muslim should never be satisfied with a life of weakness. He should constantly be searching to do more. A brother will graduate from college, finishing all those hard years and gets a job. He thinks his pursuit for knowledge and activism stops there. When I look at our Prophets and more specifically the last of them, I come across a contradiction. They were hardworking all throughout their lives, constantly finding something to do in order to benefit themselves and others. The key words? Constantly finding something to do.
Take the Mujahideen for example. From what we see and hear all the time, they don’t chill all day in a cave wasting their time. No, they are not satisfied with the minimum. They will keep pushing their way to the top of the ranks… the ranks in Paradise. Look at the qualities of our Shuhada’ in the past ten years. You hear of one that was a hafidh, another that’s an ‘Alim, another that was mastering Arabic, another that was active in his pursuit for authentic knowledge, another that memorized the Sahihayn, another that mastered the art of guerilla fighting, another that mastered technological communications, another that learned to be a doctor on the battlefield, another… another… and the list goes on.
You don’t necessarily have to push yourself to do only Islamic work. No, you should push yourself to achieve beneficial worldly knowledge such as the Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, Technology and so on. Keep yourself busy and remain hardworking. As I said, the Prophets were known to be hardworking beings; so should the Muslims. The Muslim in the workplace should be the hardest working person. He should be the most trustworthy one. He should be a leader and not a follower; at the same time, he should not be an attention seeker. Any person who looks at him will remember that Muslims are hardworking, strong-willed people that keep on moving forward even if the storm blows hard.
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Then there are brothers who just don’t do anything. When you see them, you can almost see the dark cloud over them. You can see right through their personality. Justifying their lazy behavior with ‘Islamic work’ is usually what we hear. They know they are being lazy and they know that they are losing out on time that can be used for beneficial deeds.
The Muslim should never be satisfied with a life of weakness. He should constantly be searching to do more. A brother will graduate from college, finishing all those hard years and gets a job. He thinks his pursuit for knowledge and activism stops there. When I look at our Prophets and more specifically the last of them, I come across a contradiction. They were hardworking all throughout their lives, constantly finding something to do in order to benefit themselves and others. The key words? Constantly finding something to do.
Take the Mujahideen for example. From what we see and hear all the time, they don’t chill all day in a cave wasting their time. No, they are not satisfied with the minimum. They will keep pushing their way to the top of the ranks… the ranks in Paradise. Look at the qualities of our Shuhada’ in the past ten years. You hear of one that was a hafidh, another that’s an ‘Alim, another that was mastering Arabic, another that was active in his pursuit for authentic knowledge, another that memorized the Sahihayn, another that mastered the art of guerilla fighting, another that mastered technological communications, another that learned to be a doctor on the battlefield, another… another… and the list goes on.
You don’t necessarily have to push yourself to do only Islamic work. No, you should push yourself to achieve beneficial worldly knowledge such as the Physical Sciences, Social Sciences, Technology and so on. Keep yourself busy and remain hardworking. As I said, the Prophets were known to be hardworking beings; so should the Muslims. The Muslim in the workplace should be the hardest working person. He should be the most trustworthy one. He should be a leader and not a follower; at the same time, he should not be an attention seeker. Any person who looks at him will remember that Muslims are hardworking, strong-willed people that keep on moving forward even if the storm blows hard.
Please don't hesitate to comment about this issue.
