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In the previous chapter we were talking
about the elder’s responsibilities of reactivating themselves in
this changing world. They, first of all, need to soften their
approach as Allah says in Quran, “Always preach with politeness
and rational arguments”.
The politeness will come from you and
rationality from your knowledge of religion and modern
subjects. You cannot get the new generation to accept anything
easily. They will ask you all kinds of questions and you
should be prepared to rationally answer them. If you don’t have
patience and politeness then you will not be able to satisfy
their curiosity. However if you do have these qualities and are
kind to them, then they will come to you and would want to learn
from you. In the olden times there was not much close contact
between elders and youth. In Quran Allah has said this about
the prophet (pbuh) and his companions (RA) that, “they are kind
to each other and tough with the strayed people”. The
condition that we are in presently is that, we are tough with
everyone else but ourselves. It is not considered to be
impolite to ask questions to a speaker, rather it is encouraged,
and if someone can not give answers then he is not considered to
be lacking knowledge. If the speaker does not know the answer,
he politely tells the person that he will get back to him with
an answer or frankly acknowledges that he does not know the
answer. In community in large quite often the speakers
distribute their cards with phone number or e-mail address for
the people to get in touch after the lecture. If a logical
answer is not given then the questioner thinks that you are not
knowledgeable, or if you misbehave then the audience will try to
deduce the lack of ethics in what you are preaching and he may
become doubtful.
I remember a story from my childhood.
There was this person who got really mad if he saw some child
without wearing a cap. All the children became afraid of him
and would run away whenever they saw him approaching. However
some of the naughty kids would go to him without wearing a cap,
just to have fun. I do not think that any child wore a cap
because of his preaching. So we should stay moderate in our
behavior because this is the teaching of Islam. So much so that
prophet (pbuh) says, “In leading a congregation do not recite
long Quranic chapters lest people turn away from you”. The
prophet (pbuh) cared so much for kindness to people, while we
have created difficulty in it. This could be an example for how
we should behave in a foreign culture that we do not become
totally absorbed in them and neither should we totally ignore
their ways. We can part from their ways where they cross with
our religion and we should not be shy in explaining this to them
so that they understand you and the image of Islam does not get
tarnished while you keep your friendship with them.
To understand the western people seniors
need to join the senior’s organizations so that they could
increase their knowledge about this society and its ethics and
accent, as the communication with them is very important.
Furthermore, we will get into habit of volunteering our
services. There are thousands of associations here that are run
by volunteers, who if paid will cost millions of dollars. I
will give the example of Vancouver, which has a population of
about two million, and non-profitable registered organizations
are seven thousand there. Only the directors of these
organizations are about seventy thousand apart from common
volunteers working with them. I will give the example of the
organization for which I serve as a director. In this
organization there are 12 directors and three hundred
volunteers. From these examples we can guess how much work is
being done voluntarily. This used to be our way in the olden
times. Islam gave the concept of welfare society. Medina was
the first state where a stipend was given for the babies, widows
and senior citizens. This is where the loan without interest
was introduced for the poor. These things were adopted by the
west to counter the communism. Now since the threat of
communism has been lifted the material west is reverting back
from it. Islam is the system, which does not take advantage of
the poor, like the materialistic society, it rather helps them.
Unfortunately we now only pay a lip service to the virtues of
Islam. So taking advantage of the seniors organizations, do
take some training courses and increase your knowledge so that
you can become capable of helping your own community and make a
seniors association within the community. |
