The Prophet sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam said: “None of you shall believe until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
How is it that 52 human beings left Senegal perhaps on their way to the Canary Islands, went off course and 11 bodies were found somewhere in the waters off Barbados? Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon. This is one reason I find it difficult to countenance the complaints about immigration or anything else from people that live such cozy lives.
Who said that the circumstances of birth which none of us had any part in make us more worthy of living in land such that we feel comfortable to exclude other groups? Aren’t we all human beings, brothers and sisters in humanity, subhanAllah how indifferent we are to each other’s plight.
Ify Okoye 
Salaam,
“Aren’t we all human beings, brothers and sisters in humanity, subhanAllah how indifferent we are to each other’s plight.”
Isn’t that the truth. I’ll avoid the news, and hurry to change the channel if I hear the latest about how over a hundred people were murdered by a truck bomb in Iraq, just more bad news after bad news and escalating body counts. It is a recent thing for me, because I’m usually such a news junkie. But it’s like now I just can’t bear it.
Is it indifference, or is it protecting yourself because thinking about it too deeply is too much for the heart to take? I don’t know, but it’s probably a little cowardly as well, at least on my part. It is important to know, to force yourself to know, what people have to live through, and to acknowledge that it matters. Otherwise you forget or you become too desensitized, and that is dangerous I think.
Asalamu alaykum wa Rahmatullah,
I am also a recovering former news junkie, not only do I not miss hearing much of the news or what was considered news, I feel it was a form of protection for myself to withdraw from it.
I think there is a danger to having or seeing too much information and in being ignorant or indifferent to the plight of other human beings.
An example of too much information: Watching the videos of kidnapped westerners being executed in Iraq or the blood and gore of dead bodies killed in conflict zones around the world.
An example of too much indifference and willful ignorance: Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Congo.
inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’oon. A boat carrying Somali and Ethiopian immigrants in Yemen capsized drowning 112 people. I don’t understand how I can sleep at night.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070216/ap_on_re_mi_ea/yemen_capsized_boat
“The bodies were in a very bad condition, as many of them were missing limbs or mutilated because they were crashing against stones,” Mohammed bin Mubarak, a Shabwa resident who helped bury 10 bodies, told the Associated Press by telephone from the region”
“Many of the survivors said they were fleeing violence in Somalia, where government forces recently battled a radical Islamic movement with the help of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, according to the UNHCR. The deaths highlight the plight of thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians who try to escape to the Arabian peninsula each year, many hoping to eventually reach Europe. UNHCR says more than 27,000 fled last year and several hundred died making the perilous crossing.”
La huwla wa la quwwata illa billah.
ثُمَّ لَتُسْأَلُنَّ يَوْمَئِذٍ عَنِ النَّعِيمِ
Then, on that Day, you shall be asked about the delight (you indulged in, in this world)! (102:8)
MA, we have to do something inshaAllah. We’ll talk about it tomorrow bi’ithnillah. If we cannot help with our hand, then let us do something with our tongue inshaAllah.
On the authority of Abu Hurairah radiAllahu anhu that the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said:
“Whosoever removes a worldly grief from a believer, Allah will remove from him one of the griefs of the Day of Judgment. Whosoever alleviates [the lot of] a needy person, Allah will alleviate [his lot] in this world and the next. Whosoever shields a Muslim, Allah will shield him in this world and the next. Allah will aid a servant [of His] so long as the servant aids his brother.” (Muslim)
Asalamu alaykum,
Inna lilahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon. In sha Allah, we’ll meet tomorrow.