Statue of Lady Justice in London

There is a saying: ““Choose love and peace will follow. Choose peace and love will follow.”

As Muslims we also understand that justice and fairness are vital, and I think this is one of the distinguishing factors of our deen (our Islamic way of life). Other religions speak of love, but do not emphasize justice. But when people are brutalized and oppressed, what does it mean to speak of love or peace? When a man has has boot on another man’s neck, while he loots his home and hurts his family, does it mean anything to tell the victim to be peaceful?

No, without justice you can never have peace. That’s why Lady Justice carries a sword in one hand and a balance in the other. The sword represents the authority of law to enforce peace and punish criminals. But the sword would be meaningless without the balance, which indicates the principles fairness on which laws must be built. This representation of justice is common, and in some versions the lady is blindfolded, indicating the justice should be applied equally to all regardless of race or social status.

War, bigotry and hatred are not the original condition of humanity. They are not inevitable. They don’t represent the natural state of the human heart.

1. War is almost always a product of greed and selfishness.
2. Bigotry is not a natural human trait, but is usually bred and whipped up by cynical leaders looking to exploit people’s ignorance for personal aggrandizement. People like Hitler, or Slobodan Milosevic, or the politicians and radio hosts who whipped up genocidal hatred in Rwanda, or even Sarah Palin. These people exploit ignorance, and not only cater to it but feed it, for political gain.
3. Hatred is not the original human condition, but a product of oppression and suffering.

Treat people fairly, be honest, and do not covet what is not yours, and there will be no war. Peace is not an elusive dream, or a mysterious goal at the end of some obscure path. The road to peace is obvious, but it takes radical honesty, and total justice.

So I would amend the saying to, “Act justly and peace will follow. Choose peace and love will follow.”

Passion and stamina are among the essential qualities of great innovators

This is an extremely interesting and inspiring essay that appeared in the BBC’s online news magazine. And since changing ourselves, and thereby changing the world, is a frequent focus of my articles here at IslamicSunrays.com, I felt this piece was a good fit. Maybe later I’ll use it as a springboard for a similar piece with a specifically orientation, Insha’Allah:

The secrets of changing the world

Transforming society is a feat that only a select few of us will ever accomplish. In the second of a series of articles about innovation, Stephen Sackur looks for common qualities that unite the genuine revolutionaries he has encountered.

I paid a brief visit to my teenage son’s school the other day. The sun was out and the air was thick with restless, hormonal energy.

If only we could tap into these kids’ hopes, dreams and creative urges, I mused, we could reinvigorate our jaundiced adult world.

It’s a tempting proposition, is it not? That all of us, in our youth, have the capacity to be innovators, free-thinkers, resolute refuseniks when it comes to accepting the status quo.

Tempting, but alas, illusory. Most of us figure out from a very early age that it’s safer to conform than rebel. We tend to go with the flow, rather than ask why it has to be so.

That’s why so many young people today tell pollsters their ambition in life is to be a celebrity, a sports star or a glamorous model. Yes, they want to be rich and famous, but they want success simply to fall into their laps. Change the world? Sounds too much like hard work.

But without innovators we’re stuck. Every new generation needs people determined to find a better way. Of thinking, doing, and living.

So I’ve set myself a task. I’m going to try to distil what I’ve learned from years of encounters on my TV interview programme, HARDtalk, with some of our planet’s great contemporary innovators.

Is it possible to find a common thread which runs through these diverse and daring minds whether it be in business, science or art?

Well, it’s worth a try. Here are the qualities that seem to separate us sheep from the innovative goats.

1. An indestructible will

True innovators know how to take a punch. When they get knocked down they come back stronger.

"True innovators know how to take a punch” Stephen Sackur

No-one better epitomises this thick-skinned obstinacy than James Dyson, one of Britain’s most innovative entrepreneurs.

For years he tried to persuade the world’s biggest manufacturers of household appliances that he’d invented a better, bagless vacuum cleaner. They didn’t want to know.

“They simply couldn’t see that what I had was different and better”, he reflects.

The pin-striped execs at the top of industry and finance told him his idea would never work, but he simply refused to believe them.

As a youth Dyson excelled as a long distance runner, and it was his “stamina and obtuseness”, in the face of repeated rejection which, he says, turned him into an inventor with a billion in the bank.

2. Passion beyond reason

Innovators have to have passion. Something more than greed, or a lust for power; they need to believe heart and soul in the value of the change they’re seeking.

Fazle Hasan Abed's passion has given hope to millions of disaster-hit Bangladeshis

Fazle Hasan Abed is perhaps not a household name across the globe, but he should be.

A Bangladeshi from a well-to-do family, he was a young executive in the oil industry when conflict and natural disaster left his country in ruins in the early 1970s.

His response? To leave his comfortable life to create a new kind of aid organisation.

He called it BRAC. It began making small loans to individuals desperate to launch a small business or give a child a chance of school.

“Microfinance” has since given hope to millions and allowed BRAC to become one of the world’s biggest development agencies.

Abed, a soft-spoken, unassuming man, acquired a knighthood and significant influence in his native Bangladesh.

Is that why he created BRAC? “Of course not”, he says. “It was just something I felt I had to do.”

3. Outrageous optimism

Innovators have to be optimists. And not just about their own ability to triumph over adversity.

Consciously or not, they have to have faith in the human race.

Otherwise, why bother?

Jimmy Wales built Wikipedia on the notion that human beings could be persuaded to share knowledge, not for material reward, but for the collective good.

When this open source encyclopaedia of the web was launched in 2001, it was dismissed as nothing more than a platform for fanatics and loons. Now it’s in the top 10 most visited websites in the world, and the only one which has steadfastly remained not-for-profit.

Wales’s belief that he could “create and distribute a free encyclopaedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language” no longer sounds so far-fetched.

As for the notion that the human collective would find a way of distilling wisdom without distortion, manipulation and downright deceit… well, it sort of works.

There are errors and falsehoods in the Wikipedia, but not enough to make it useless, nor to make it vastly less reliable than the encyclopaedias put together by highly-paid experts.

4. A super-sized ego

Innovators do not suffer from low self-esteem. You want living proof? Spend an hour in the company of controversial bio-scientist Craig Venter.

Ego-nomics: Craig Venter's self-belief has done him no harm

He has the bulk and the macho presence of an ageing military veteran. Which he is.

He has an ego powerful enough to penetrate an underground nuclear bunker.

“A doctor can save a few hundred lives in a lifetime”, he once explained, “a researcher can save the whole world.”

Venter was a key player in the effort to map the human genome, but he fell out with fellow scientists, not least over his desire to patent and profit from man’s genetic blueprint.

Some scientists agonise about the ethical issues raised by genetic engineering; Venter appears to relish the prospect of “playing God”.

Already his team of researchers has “created life” by inserting a computer-generated genome into a pre-existing cell.

His determination to make money out of his cutting edge biology and his impatience with the scientific establishment have made him plenty of enemies, but this is a man whose steely gaze delivers a simple truth: He doesn’t care.

After all, he’s already created a life form that carries his name, and there’s no bigger ego trip than that.

5. The rebel yell

"I was messianic about punk, it was a way to put a spoke in the system” Vivienne Westwood

At its crudest innovation delivers a loud **** you” to the status quo.

In the mid-1970s the clothes designer Vivienne Westwood came up with one of the most innovative middle finger salutes ever delivered to the fashion establishment with her punk chic.

This working class girl from Derbyshire drew inspiration from, bikers, fetishists and prostitutes as she introduced the Sex Pistols and their hordes of followers to a world of chains, pins and bondage trousers.

“I was messianic about punk, it was a way to put a spoke in the system”, she says.

Westwood, who has turned her deeply idiosyncratic designs into a thriving worldwide business does what pleases her, rather than what is expected.

Famously, she wore a revealing dress with no knickers when picking up an honour from the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

And that’s an image that has somehow stuck with me. Innovators across cultures and continents share that rebel spirit – metaphorically, if not literally, they’re ready to go knickerless in front of the Queen.

By Wael Abdelgawad for IslamicSunrays.com

Faith, love and kindness are not imaginary concepts, or cute ideas, or naive catchphrases. They are elemental forces with the power to alter human hearts, and to change the world. They are transformational emotions and behaviors that were bestowed upon us by Allah, who is Al-Rahman (The Most Merciful) and Al-Wadood (The Most Loving). They are stronger than hurricanes or typhoons, and they transcend the birth and death of individuals, and the rise and fall of nations. Don’t we still have love for the Messenger of Allah (pbuh), and for the Sahabah, all of whom lived many generations and nations ago?

Faith, love and kindness are the secret weapons that Allah has given us to conquer corruption, cynicism, hatred, racism, and evil, in ourselves and in the world.

These ideas are not childish or naive, as some might say. Was the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) naive? He suffered in the cause of his mission, but he persevered. His mission was rooted in faith and love of Allah, and expressed through kindness to all people. There are so many stories about him showing tremendous kindness to rude and even murderous people, and changing their hearts in the process. He succeeded in the face of frightening, some might say impossible odds. His success is a testament to the power of these noble emotions and behaviors.

That’s why I illustrated this piece with a photo of sun rays shining on a dark and snowy world. Because these powerful emotions and behaviors are not the stuff of sunny afternoons, cotton candy and daisies. They are like a guiding star that is only seen in the darkness. They come into their own and show their true power by confronting and overcoming hatred, bitterness, painful loss, war, poverty and despair.

I describe them as emotions and behaviors because faith that exists only in the heart is not true faith. Faith is proven by action. Faith is defined by the way you live your life. The same is true for love and kindness. Love is a verb, not a noun. It’s not an abstract feeling in your heart, but a matter of behavior, the way you treat people, the way you help, forgive, and show mercy to people.

Do you want to see something different in the world? Show it.

Do you want to see things moving in a better direction? Then get stepping and walk it, and I guarantee that others will follow, because they have seen the problems as well, and they are waiting for someone to lead the way.

Do you want to be a better Muslim, father, mother, son, daughter, sibling, or friend? Then be it. Now is the moment. The past is prologue leading to this moment.

Are you waiting for someone else to show love and kindness first? Are you waiting for someone else to be vulnerable or brave, to put himself out there, to take the first step, to show the way? There is no someone else. You are the someone else. You…  are…  someone.

Le’ts open ourselves to faith, love and kindness. Let’s change the way we move in the world, the way we behave with Allah, the way we treat people, the way we interact with every person. Let us become testaments to the power of these transformational behaviors, not through our words but through our actions. Let’s express a new sincerity from our hearts and walk through the world like believers. Let’s become people of Allah, people of Jannah, people of imaan, love and mercy.

Sunrays shining through the trees in the Westonbirt Arboretum, UK. Photo by Terry.

Wael Abdelgawad for IslamicSunrays.com

The Prophet Muhammad (salallahu alaihi wa sallam) said,

“Whoever relieves a believer of a hardship from the hardships of this world, then Allah will relieve him of a hardship from the hardships of the Day of Resurrection… Allah is helping the servant as long as the servant is helping his brother, ” [Hadith Tirmidhi /Muslim].

Do you need help? Help others, and Allah will help you.

Helping others doesn’t have to consist of anything grand. Even a smile is sadaqah. Removing a harmful thing from the road is sadaqah. Speaking gentle words to someone in distress, or feeding a meal to someone who is hungry, or making a donation to help an orphan… or donating blood, or working a few hours a month for a charity, or visiting someone who is sick… all those things are valuable. They are not nothing. They are important and worthwhile acts.

Changing the world starts with every person doing one small thing. And in the process, you help your own soul, and you bring happiness to your own heart, and you get the blessings and barakah of Allah. What a deal!