1. Are you Passive?

Are you a passive person? When you see something wrong, do you try to fix it or do you wander on comforting yourself that for sure someone else will fix it? When you're walking down the street and you see something on the sidewalk and you know that someone might slip on it, do you pick it up, or do you look the other way as if you didn’t see it? When you see someone smoking in a non-smoking area, do you kindly bring the persons attention to what he's doing wrong, or do you just cover your nose, or leave the place? When was the last time you participated in a public poll or in elections? Remember the last time you saw someone double parking and you knew that he's going to cause a traffic jam, did you go and ask him politely to park somewhere else so that the traffic flow wouldn't be disturbed? Or did you just say to yourself, "Isn't there an officer around here to see this?" and then you just walked away. Why are we so passive? Why do we always believe that "someone else will do it"?


Why don't WE take an action? I'll tell you why, because if it doesn't directly affect us, then why should we care? Or, "we won't change the world, so why should we care?" Right? Isn’t that the reason? That's not the Muslim mentality, that's not how a Muslim should act. The Muslim community is ONE body; if one organ is not functioning it affects the rest of the body.


Do you think for example that as long as you don't do drugs then your safe? Think again, because your duty isn't just to prevent yourself from taking drugs, but to help prevent it on a larger scale as much as you can. How many people are robbed by addicts that are desperate for money to buy drugs? How many people are killed by addicts? Those that were robbed or killed, they didn't do drugs, but it still affected them indirectly. Does this mean that if we see wrong we should get aggressive and force people to do what's right? Of course not.


Our Lord, The All Mighty says, "Invite (all) to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for your Lord knows best, who have strayed from His Path, and who receive guidance." (16:125). We must maintain the balance between "taking an action" and "being wise and not offending people".

Some examples:

The Companions asked the Messenger of Allah, "Will we be destroyed even if the righteous ones are amongst us?" Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) replied, "Yes, if corruption increases."

It was also reported that Allah ordered Jibreel to destroy a village that had become extremely corrupted, but Jibreel asked Allah, "O Allah, in this village is your servant that constantly prays to You", Allah replied, "Start with him! For his face never changed with disapproval to what had been going on." Because this righteous man was passive, he too was punished with the sinners.

Omar ibn Al-Khattab said, "If a sin is committed in private, it only harms the one that does it, but if it is committed in public and no one objects and changes it, it will harm everyone!"


The Messenger of Allah (pbuh), the greatest teacher, gave us a great example to demonstrate the importance of this Islamic behavior. "The likeness of the man who observes the limits prescribed by Allah and that of the man who transgresses them is like the people who get on board a ship after casting lots. Some of them are in its lower deck and some of them in its upper deck. Those who are in its lower deck, when they require water, go to the occupants of the upper deck. The occupants of the lower deck said to themselves, ‘If we make a hole in the bottom of the ship, we shall not harm the ones who are in the upper deck.’ If they leave them to carry out their design they all will be drowned. But if they do not let them go ahead (with their plan), all of them will remain safe."