At this moment as you read this line, many people are suffering oppression ... Others are starving ... Some are made to work from an early age ... Still others have lost contact with home, family and children and have been exiled from their lands ... One can see images of such people just about every day, in newspapers and on the television.
Yet most of us forget the very existence of these people as we turn the pages of our newspapers or change channel on the television. So long as people continue to behave so thoughtlessly, the injustice and suffering in the world will never end. The solution is an ethical understanding aimed at helping people with no expectation of anything in return.
The only source of such an understanding is religion. People who sincerely believe in religion can make sacrifices to earn God’s good pleasure and stretch out a helping hand to others.
God describes the believers possessed of such a fine model of morality in these words in the Qur’an:
They give food, despite their love for it, to the poor and orphans and captives: “We feed you only out of desire for the Face of God. We do not want any repayment from you or any thanks. Truly We fear from our Lord a glowering, calamitous Day.” (Qur’an, 76: 8-10)
The morality that God has chosen for people requires love, compassion and sacrifice. Only when people adopt such a moral model can they achieve true peace and justice. Otherwise, injustice will continue to fill the world. As it does today ...
