[Reflection] Kiran Ashraf on personal responsibility in creating a fair and just society

Kiran Ashraf presents a personal account of spiritual inspiration on the importance of individual and collective duty in creating a fair and just society. In her piece she presents what inspired her to take action and calls on others to become aware of  their responsibility to help others."This country is a failure""I don't know when the poverty around the world is coming to an end""It’s the fault of the rulers. Obviously they are the ones to correct things"Sounds familiar? Each and every one of us in our lifetime has either come across or ourselves have been caught uttering such hopelessness. We either blame the rulers, the system, some person and many of the times God as well for such misery surrounding us. By no means I am suggesting that we are wrong in pointing out the faults of the ones responsible but the question remains that have we ever tried to correct the situations ourselves? Have we ever even tried a little bit to come forward and take this responsibility on our very own shoulders? I don't think most of us would be nodding their head in agreement right now. To tell you the truth, I myself at one point in time was the same sort of a person who would just be critical about the circumstances around. I was circled by cruelty, bias, injustice and other malign practices and all I did was to sit at home and cringe about them.The best I thought I could do on my part was to post about them on the internet because physically getting into the mess to clear it was nowhere near my mind; it was more of impossibility.Then came the day when I heard a Hadith of Prophet Mohammed where he declared that, "Your leadership will be a reflection of you [the people]." It literally shook me from inside. I felt burdened and responsible for all the wrong doings that I have been witnessing for so long. It was the moment of truth, a moment which changed my view a great deal regarding life. It is advised to us from Allah Subhanwatallah and we get lessons from Prophet Mohmmed’s Sunnah as well that when we come across a positive message, it is advisable to spread it among fellow human beings which helps in creating a harmonious society. When I did that, I was so glad to see that many people were very interested to come forward and help the ones who are suffering. Before that I was of the opinion that not many would be interested to participate and take out time from their lives for people they don’t even know. But thankfully, I was wrong. It made me connect to different volunteer groups and with them I had a chance to become witness of ordeals people go through every day. To be honest, it’s really easy for us to just talk about them or sympathize but once you get to see that with your own eyes, you won’t stop crying. I don’t not much words to describe the kind of brutish society we are part of where some beings actually enjoy inflicting misery upon the weak. A whole lot more is needed to be done in this sector because there are millions of misfortunate going through adversity and pain and are in desperate need of support. I just want to conclude by requesting to everybody reading this that its high time to play our pivotal role. We cannot waste more time and let the tyrant keep suppressing the weak. Bringing up an impartial and righteous society is our duty as human beings because God has assigned each and every one of us with the responsibility to help our fellow beings. 

The reflection was orginially posted on Kiran's blog: Within My World 

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