Qur'anic Reflections

Day 20 : Your responsibility

In the previous lesson, I wrote about how the responsibility of spreading the message of the Qur'an is everyone's responsibility in the ummah. It's not just limited to the clerics or the scholars. 

This is yours and mine too. 

Especially ours. 

Because we're the youth, the young minds, the bright future of tomorrow. 

Ibn Abbas reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Take advantage of five before five: your youth before your old age, your health before your illness, your riches before your poverty, your free time before your work, and your life before your death.”

We can't think of ourselves as incapable or worse, weak. Remember the people of Kahf! They were young men who had believed only in Allah and were not scared to take a stand and they've now been immortalised in the greatest book of all time! 

To carry out any responsibility, one can not go about haphazardly. One needs to understand one's opportunities, assess one's prerequisites and then finally, carry out one's responsibility. 

Let's divide that again : .

1. Your opportunities

2. Your pre requisites and personality development

3. Your responsibility 

1. Your opportunities : 

If I could list out the three most important and abundant opportunities that the youth today are gifted it, it would be 

»our health 

» our time 

» our talents 

All of us have these three blessings to be thankful for, that maybe our elders don't. When you get older, your life isn't yours only. You become a part of your spouse's and their family's and your children's lives. Your responsibilties increase, your free time isn't just yours anymore. 

It's going to happen. 

But as of now, as youth, as young women, we have free time and talents that are getting rusted due to our uninvolvement in society. We waste our free time in social media not knowing that the ummah is in dire need of people like us. 

So make an intention, make a plan, don't go into your day without a to do list. Be productive and make time for Allah's Deen. It's only the time we spent working for Him that'll save us on the day we meet Him. 

2. Our pre requisites and personality : 

To carry on the work of Dawah, we must have two basic pre requisites : 

» Iman 

»Aqhlaq 

The Prophet peace be upon him was able to bring about a revolution because of his unshakeable faith and his lovely manners. He was so kind and generous that even his enemies would have nothing bad to say against him. 

These two are the foundation on which on we build our personality. 

Personality development : 

We need to actively engage in building ourselves and not just live on with chaos around us. 

Us youth need sound bodies, minds and souls to carry on this Prophetic work. 

Every night before you sleep, ask yourself this question : 

»Did I fulfill the rights of my body? Did I give it enough rest? Did I fully use my capacity to be useful to myself and others? 

»Did I fulfill the rights of my mind? Did I learn something new today?

» Did I fulfill the rights of my soul? Did I give it the provision it needs? Did I enrich it with my salah, Qur'an and dua? Am I better than I was yesterday? 

The more we become conscious of ourselves and evaluate ourselves, the better people we become. 

3. Our responsibility : 

As you read this, you might wonder. 

"Why me? I've got to study! I'm a busy person!"

Why us? Because we are the ummah that were chose to continue the work of the Prophets.

Baqarah 143 : 

And thus we have made you a just community that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you.

Our purpose of being sent here, is to pass on the message to the rest of the world. And we can't do that unless we make use of all our opportunities and prepare ourselves for this blessed work. 

Ask yourself this instead. 

If not me, then who? If not now, then when? 

You should feel privilged and honoured that Allah has chosen you out of all the people in the world, to carry on His work! 

You and I, as we go to our schools and colleges we come most in contact with Non Muslims and it is our responsibility to Show them what the Qur'an is.

You can't always tell them huge huge verses from the Qur'an, but you can show them. You can show them what you were without the Quran and what you are with it now.

How it changed you into a Hijabi. How it changed you into someone who values her time and uses it to be productive. How it got you from heedlessness towards light.

It must show in you.

The Quran must change you, so you change the world.

And you can change the world. Each and every one of you, you don't have to be a cleric or a scholar to change the world. 

We just need to make time. Balance Deen with your dunya. Take the knowledge of the dunya to benefit the Deen.

If you do this, even if you don't change the world, you can change your own little home and the people around you and that is the biggest contribution you can do to the Ummah.

One more thing I'd like to add as to why our responsibility with respect to the Qur'an has increased in recent times is because the outside world, the media portrays so many misconceptions about Islam, the people around you, your own friends will have questions about Islam because their first source is the news.

In such a case, you have to step up. You have to be their first source of contact. You have to clear their doubts. It is your responsibility to clear those misconceptions because the biggest weapon for the media and the anti-Islamic forces is your ignorance.

We can not afford to be ignorant anymore. The youth can't afford to stay quiet and waste their free time with television and social media. We must all educate ourselves, so we can fight the media, so we can fight the anti Islamic forces.

You need to fight ideology with ideology. Knowledge with knowledge. And if we do not have that sufficient knowledge and do only do not have the Islamic ideology,  we will become a joke in front of the world.

I pray to Allah that He saves us before this happens. That he saves all of us from heedlesness and grants us all enlightenment about our own responsibilities

So go ahead and prepare yourself! Build a relationship with the Qur'an! Look up for organisations that do dawah work and join them.

Be the person the ummah needs you to be!

P. S. Anyone from Hyderabad PM me! :)