Friday, October 9

Do you honor people below you?

I came accross this verse from the Quran and thought I should share:

In the Name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful

No! But you do not honor the orphan
[al-Fajr (Daybreak) 89:17]

In this short ayah, Allah is giving us a statement about the disbelievers in Mecca on how they didn't treat the orphans well.

However, the translation of "yateem" (orphan) is misleading. "Yateem" literally means someone who has no support. Therefore, Allah is giving us advice that we should at least honor those people who don't have any support, whether they're an orphan or not.

Notice how Allah didn't say "you don't help the orphan", rather He says "you don't honor them." It's easy to honor someone who is above you in society (your boss, the Imam of your masjid, etc), however it's a challenge to us to honor those who are "lower" than us in society.

Practically speaking, how many of us have seen when a new Muslim literally gets kicked out from their family after converting to Islam? What support do they have? Or how about the one who's responsible for cleaning your local masjid? How about the one that mows the lawn at your house? These are the individuals that we should be honoring and giving our attention to first. They are the ones who demand our respect and support.

Specifically speaking about the orphan, the prophet (saw) said, "Whoever supports the orphan in this life, I will be like this with him (putting his index and middle finger together) in the Hereafter."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

m really inspired, believ me it makes me thinking about my behaviour 2 othrs .specially , orphans...