Building Love in the Ummah

United

Firstly, we should know that to build love in the ummah means to purify the hearts of the people in the ummah so that they feel nothing but love for one another. We should be the change we want to see in others, consequently, we should commence this task by purifying our own hearts first. We shouldn’t be like the corrupt leaders of today who urge sacrifice from the masses while they keep looting. We must purify our souls as ALLAH urges in the Qur’an; “He has succeeded who purifies it(soul), and he has failed who instills it with corruption”(Suratul Shams:9-10). To purify our souls, we must try as much as possible to remove anything that has to do with perpetual sinning (e.g envy, greed, arrogance, pride, jealousy, e.t.c) and replace those vices with compassion, mercy, benevolence,  e.t.c.

Secondly, the family is the smallest unit of the community hence, if there is to be love in the community then there must be love in our families. A bulk of this task lies on the shoulders of the husbands/fathers. Injustice and love cannot live in the same house, there must therefore be justice between man and wives, and man and children (ISLAMIC EQUALITY). If injustice thrives in the families we should expect animosity in our ummah. Families must bury unneccessary dispute, grudges, malice and other worthless attitudes. The Prophet (SAW) said; “it is not lawfull for a muslim to have estrained relations with his brother for more than three days”, in another hadith the Prophet (SAW) said; “Do not break-off ties with one another, do not turn away from one another, do not hate one another and do not envy one another. Be O slaves of ALLAH-brothers”.

Thirdly, our children must be brought up to know the essence of al-Islam and we will achieve greater success at this if our children do not find us negating what they have been taught at Islamiyya, this will help remove doubt in their hearts thereby strenghtening their faiths. The more  people with strong faith we have in the ummah, the greater would be the love amongst us.

After putting our souls, families and children in check now we are prapared to build love in our ummah. ALLAH (SWT) and His Messenger (SAW) have given us clues and hints on how to achieve the great attainment of a loving ummah, all that is left for us is strategy, home work and implementation. ALLAH (SWT) warns us in the Qur’an; “Shaytan  only wants to cause between you animosity and hatred  through intoxicants and gambling and to avert you from the remembrance of ALLAH and from prayer. So will you not desist?” [Suratul Ma’ida(5:91)]. This verse gives us a clue on factors that hinder love in the community, we must therefore see that we promote virtueos acts and desuade from ignoble acts in our communities. 

ALLAH uses this quality to describe muslims in the Qur’an; “The believing men and believing women  are allies of one another, they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and establish salah and give zakah and obey ALLAH and HIS Messenger. Those-ALLAH will have mercy on them. Indeed, ALLAH is Exalted in Might and Wise. [Suratul Tawba(9:71)]

In this era of ours, sectarianism seems to be the biggest impedement to love and unity among muslims with muslims always looking for the slightest oppurtunity to carve a name for themselves in a bid to make them stand out (unnecessarily) from the rest of the community. The most unfortunate aspect in this is that the people we refer to as the most knowledgeable scholars are the pioneers of this destabilizing trend (may ALLAH guide us). As observed, sectarianism this days is often influenced by tribe which creates an even deadlier scenario but, all the same, deviants will exist till the final hour so that the best we can do for this set(s) of people is to pray for them and not wait for them for the latter might very well turn-out to be extravagance with time.

As stated ealier, the change should begin with our individual selves. If love is what we want to establish then common sense will tell us that it is wrong to wear stony faces in the mist of your brothers and sisters. The Prophet (SAW) said;   “Every good deed is charity and verily it is a good deed to meet your brother with a smiling face”. It is worthy to note that; loving one another is beneficial both in this life and in the hereafter. The Prophet (SAW) taught us that; there are seven groups of people who will be under the shade of ALLAH on the day when there will be no shade other than the shade of ALLAH (The Day of Judgement) and among them  is two men who love each other for the sake of ALLAH (it also applies to women). 

The Prophet (SAW) said in a very strong and emphatic hadith; “You will not enter paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Should’t I invite to something that when you do will increase love among you? Spread the greeting of salam amogst yourselves”. It is so unfortunate that these days we have thrown away the greeting of salam and replaced it with all sorts of innovations that’s  if we even bother to greet at all. The Prophet (SAW) told us that among the signs of the last hour is that people will only greet those they know. Meaning you would see people about whom you are 100% sure are muslims but you will not greet them because you do not know them (subhanallah).

Virtually all muslims know and agreed that it is virteous to say salam but, problem arises as reguards the guide lines for saying salam. We need to stop complaining “so and so person does not say salam”, islam teaches us that the first person to say salam has more reward so, wouldn’t we want to grab the oppurtunity to get rewards. Other guide lines are give below;

• The younger person says salam to the older person
• The smaller number of people say salam to the larger number of people
• The one walking should say salam to the one sitting
• The one on a ride (camel, donkey, horse, bicycle, motorcycle, car, truck, e.t.c) should say salam to the one walking
• It is also best for the man to say salam to the woman (according to some scholars)

It is a known fact that when we sway from the path of ALLAH (SWT) then we are bound to go astray, everyone should therfore try his best to see that the aim of a loving ummah is achieved from the youth to the elders. No one is ever too elderly to reply salam and sounding the horn of your motorcycle or vehicle is never a replacement for salam  once it has been said. ALLAH (SWT) and HIS Messenger (SAW) have giving us all the ingredients for building a loving ummah so, if we have hatred, animosity, envy, fault-finding and all sort of evil trends in our ummah, then no one is to blame but you and me.