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A total of 468 suicide cases were reported in Malaysia for the past five\nmonths in 2021 alone. People are now tired not only because of the COVID-19\npandemic that has affected their lives for over than a year now, but also with\nthe Movement Control Orders imposed on them again and again that consequently\nforced thousands of people suddenly too loose jobs or continuous sources of\nincome. On top of that, the perceived immaturity and selfishness of certain\nleaders construed rightly or wrongly to be \u201cpower crazy\u201d are also seen to be\ninsensitive to the helplessness and well-being of the people. This has further rubbed\nsalt into the wound. All parties, be they politicians from both sides of the\ndivide, NGOs, religious leaders and everyone should work hand in hand and\nclosely together to ease the burden of the community from their emotional and or\nfinancial sufferings by all means. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Islam, being a religion of mercy revealed to the\nProphet of Mercy (rahmatan lil-alamin<\/em>) enjoins that Muslims must love\nothers as much as they love themselves. The\ngreat jurist of Shafi\u2019i school of Islamic jurisprudence, Imam Nawawi (d.1278)\nhad mentioned in his famous work on \u201cThe Forty Hadiths\u201d of an important\nProphetic tradition (hadith<\/em>). \nHadith number 13 in the work was narrated by Anas bin Malik, who\nreported the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: \u201cNone\nof you [truly] believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for\nhimself<\/em>.\u201d This hadith wass reported by Imam al-Bukhari, Muslim,\nal-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa\u2019i, Ibn Majah, Ibn Hibban and numerous other narrators. The\n hadith clearly provides a golden\nprinciple that can be applied in all walks of life and create a harmonious\nsociety especially during this critical situation. The first generation of the\nMuslim Ummah<\/em> as reflected in the\nMadinan community during the time of the\nProphet Muhammad (pbuh) is undoubtedly the best generation as proclaimed by the\nProphet himself in one of his sayings. It is an exemplary society in the\nhistory of mankind in terms of altruism, compassion, generosity and other\nvirtues. To have a complete faith according to the hadith, one must love one\u2019s\nbrother what one loves for oneself. The companions of the Prophet have demonstrated\n\u201cthe love of others\u201d or altruism and selflessness during their life time as\nrecorded in history. But, perhaps the best exemplars of altruism and\nself-sacrifice of the first generation of Muslims took place in 636\u2014more than 1,500\nyears ago\u2014with three Muslim warriors (mujahidin<\/em>) who favoured the lives of others over their own. Huzaifah al-\u2018Adawi recalled his personal\nencounter on that day when he went looking for his cousin. He relates: <\/p>\n\n\n\n I went searching for my cousin on the battlefield of\nal-Yarmuk (Jordan). I brought with me some water and said to myself, \u2018If he is\nstill alive, I will give him some water to drink.\u2019 I found him alive and wanted\nto give him water, but then we heard someone gasp, so he signalled to me to\ntake the water to that man, who was Hisham ibn Al-\u2018As. When I wanted to give\nthe water to him (Hisham), we heard another man cry out, and Hisham made a sign\nto me, telling me to go to that man. When I went to him, I found that he had\nalready died. When I returned to Hisham, I discovered he, too, had passed away;\nand when I returned to my cousin, I saw that he had died as well, may Allah\nhave mercy on all of them!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, this is altruism (Arabic: ithar<\/em>) of the highest order when one\nprefers saving others more than one\u2019s\nown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Altruism means putting others over oneself. It is\nsimply to think beyond yourself, beyond your ego, and instead sacrifice your\nown needs and welfare for the sake of others. Undoubtedly,it is the highest\nform of virtue which in today\u2019s materialistic and egoistic societies, is scarce\nand rarely to be found. The famous British historian, Arnold Toynbee (d.1975),\nused to observe that civilisations fell because they failed to respond to the\nethical challenge of altruism versus egoism. Indeed, altruism is an indispensable\nmoral value to establish a civilisation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our religion, Islam\u2014 a religion of mercy\u2014holds such a noble virtue in\nhigh esteem. It is a sign of perfect faith to God. Unfortunately, this\nvoluntarily ethical virtue of altruism has gradually disappeared in our society. Thus, a society based on\nsocio-economic justice and humanitarianism would be out of reach. There are\nnumerous verses of the Qur\u2019an and Prophetic hadiths which commend altruistic\nbelievers, and revealed in conjunction with certain incidents. Everyone should\nbe taught and trained to have such a virtuous quality instilled in their hearts\nand live with it in their daily lives. And it begins with their own neighbours.\nIt was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbas who informed Ibn Zubayr, “I heard the\nProphet (pbuh) says: ‘He is not a believer whose stomach is filled while his\nneighbour goes hungry.<\/em>\u201d (Adab al-Mufrad<\/em>, al-Bukhari). If everyone in\nour society takes care of their own neighbours\u2019 welfares and be altruistic, we\nwonder whether there would still be a need for campaigns to raise white flags\nfor help. Indirectly, we can also help minimise suicide cases in the society.<\/p>\n\n\n A total of 468 suicide cases were reported in Malaysia for the past five months in 2021 alone. People are now tired not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has affected their lives for over than a year now, but also with the Movement Control Orders imposed on them again and again that consequently…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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