humanity in islam

HUMANITY IN ISLAM

Man is born with a heart of compassion which reacts in accordance to the feelings of fellow humans. Compassion, love, affection and care are the innate qualities which make a human. These qualities define man. The development or suppression of these qualities entirely depends on man himself. From time to time, philosophers and religious scholars have tried to encourage people to increase these innate qualities in themselves. Humanity is one such aspect which has been stressed upon in all parts of the world. "Service to Mankind is service to God" is the proverb highly prevalent all over the world. Serving and treating fellow human beings with courtesy and kindness is an essential part of a good moral conduct. All world religions share and support this concept.

Humanity is what you say to someone when you think no one's watching. It's what you do when you are all by yourself. Humanity is what you feel when you watch another person suffering and decide to either do nothing or do something. Humanity is the ability to reach out and hug someone. Humanity is being grateful for your family, your friends, and your ability to do something in this world to your society.

Humanity is the ability to trust, the ability to connect, the ability to touch. To be human means we can move, create, love, share and laugh. One example to inculcate the ability to serve mankind in humans is about the "Good Samaritan" who has helped a sick man and did not even care to reveal his identity to the people.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. - Dalai Lama

Islam has put much emphasis on serving humans, but providing merely food and shelter to fellow humans cannot be considered as a service to Allah (SWT) on the whole. It is inappropriate to think that we are serving mankind as a whole by simply spending a huge amount in charity.

Every human being is a problem in search of a solution. - Ashley Montagu

Service to Allah (SWT) is being obedient to Him in a way that He expects humans to be. The first stage of this obedience is our acceptance of Tawhid. Once we give our acceptance of the oneness of Allah (SWT), we are expected to obey Him in a way that He has prescribed to us. This is the stage where man fulfills all the mandatory acts like prayers, charity, pilgrimage etc. It is the stage where man develops the bondage between himself and Allah (SWT) directly.

The third stage is serving the family and relations: fulfilling the rights of his dependents and of people closely related to him. Here again, man attains further closeness to Allah (SWT) through his family, by pleasing them.

No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished? - Lee Iacocca

Then comes the fourth stage, which is about service to human beings. Man attains closeness to Allah (SWT) by serving his fellow beings.

But the main question is, in what way should the fellow beings be served, so that the service could be termed as service to Allah (SWT) as a whole? Ayatullah Murtada Mutahhari in his book, The Perfect Man, says: "Serving people is fine and we should serve them. But if we provide them with food and clothes alone, we would be treating them like animals, especially if we suppose no higher values exist for them. If service is confined to this, what would be the difference between Abu Dhar and Mu'awiya?" Definitely, mere provision of food and shelter does not fulfill the purpose. There has to be an additional form of service. Every Muslim is expected to render his duties towards the society in which he lives. The actual service to human beings lies in treating them as humans first. We need to help our fellow human beings in nurturing and growing their innate qualities which define them as humans. Man is different from all the creatures of both the worlds and so are his duties and responsibilities towards his Creator. Surely, service to this special creature has to be by helping him understand and render his responsibilities towards his Creator.