in Advice, Islam, Life, Motivation, Self-Help

I am who I am because of my surroundings

Our family and society largely determine who we are. We are born to our parents that none of us can choose. We grow up in a country, culture, religion that none of us can pick. We seem to have some ability to choose some of our education, our profession and spouses, but that too is determined by what’s acceptable to our family and available in the society.

The fact of the matter is, we hardly have a choice in these matters. What we have are choices to make between doing the right things (not lying, not cheating, not overcharging, not underpaying, not hurting others etc.) which are universally regarded as the right things by every human society no matter where we find ourselves living.

Therefore, to think of others as inferior based upon their cultural background, economic status, color of their skin, level of their education or some such arbitrary measure is arrogant and insane.

In Islam, we are taught that no one is better than the other except those that are closest to Allah, our Creator. And no human being can claim to know who is closer to Allah and who is not. Therefore it makes no sense to discriminate. It also makes no sense to be boastful about ones own self, our abilities, our social status, our financial standing, our educational level, cultural background or the color of our skin. Largely because we didn’t acquire these things on our own, but also because we are not qualified to determine who is better.

We should therefore, embrace our differences, come together as one humanity and make this world a better place for everyone. If we don’t, then we only have ourselves to blame. We cannot individually solve world hunger, but we can each do our small part and contribute to the common goal and together we can solve it with the help of Allah!

Please follow and like us: