With 2025 just around the corner, some of us might have already started drawing up our list of New Year’s resolutions. Others might still be busy in purchasing some last-minute gifts. As Muslims, we don’t celebrate the New Year as such, but we spend this time with our families and communities to express our gratitude to God. Our faith encourages us to remember, especially on occasions of happiness and success, the countless blessings of the divine being. On the other hand, regardless of if we believe in God or not, there is no doubt that a new year marks a new cycle, allowing us a deeper insight into our lives. It allows us to “start” new chapters, to “restart” existing ones and “update” other pending engagements and relations, even to “turn off” or “shut down” certain activities and habits.
With regards to this inner reflection and self-balance, there is a profound saying of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the founder of Islam, which is relevant and beneficial for all of us. The prophet stated that human beings in general are inclined to neglect the importance of two basic blessings in their everyday lives: health and (free) time.
Hence, let us all add these two very basic but essential elements to our New Year’s resolutions: being grateful for one more year of life and appreciating our health. However, the appreciation of these two blessings should not only be limited to our prayers, our sentiments or verbal expressions, but be converted into our actions. Wherever we manifest these blessings for our own mental, emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing, we should also put them to service for our other fellow beings. It is a golden principle of Islam that a believer should desire for others what he desires for himself – in other words, we need to appreciate our own health and time by such means that others who are deprived from these blessings can also join us and benefit from it.
Primarily, my thoughts are with all those who are suffering severe diseases and illnesses. According to our faith, it is a moral obligation to regularly visit the sick persons in your social circle and support them during that trial. Secondly, my prayers are dedicated to all those innocent civilians who have been dragged as victims into wars and have been deprived from the blessing of time. Instead of waking up each day with new ambitions and dreams, their sunrise consists in the mere hope to stay alive till sunset.
It is a paradox that, although we live in a global village where, thanks to technological advances, no place is far away, we have not managed to overcome distance in human relations. Keeping in mind the terrible consequences of the two world wars, it is impossible to understand the logic of such voices who instead of advocating for universal fraternity, prefer to return to the times of a “Cold War” and “iron curtain.”
Unlike the animal world, we were created with the gift of speech as a means of communication. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, there are still many of our species of ‘homo sapiens’ who instead of using dialogue prefer the animalistic method of force to resolve differences. There are more and more societies in which people prefer to argue rather than to dialogue, to assume rather than to communicate, and as a result decide to display more hatred rather than empathy.
Unfortunately, this deterioration in our relations and lack of communication has deepened over the last 12 months which has led to the construction of more walls, and less bridges. As examples, let me highlight the riots last summer in the United Kingdom or the recent scenario in Germany, the horrific attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg.
There are so many different clouds in the world overshadowing peace and harmony, but the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine seem to be just a few steps away from spilling over into a world war. During the last year, both regions alone have “polluted” the planet with the blood of thousands of innocent civilians, particularly children. The bombs have dynamited not only the lives and infrastructure of the people living in those regions, but also our relationships, our hopes and our dreams for a more humane world. These ongoing wars are creating unprecedented deep fissures and divisions in our coexistence and the further killing of each innocent life is comparable to another obstacle in the path of reconciliation.
While many of us will celebrate the New Year under a secure roof and around a table with abundant food and drink, let’s not forget in our thoughts and prayers those corners of the world that are facing the consequences of man-made suffering. May we all comprehend our responsibilities in attaining peace in the world while valuing each human life.
A happy New Year to all!
* Marwan Sarwar Gill is Imam (Islamic theologian) and president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Argentina.
Comments