DO YOU SEE the world only as it is, or do you also see it as it should be?
There is an incident from the seerah that struck me deeply when I first came across it many years ago. It took place in the early days of Makkah, when the believers were few and facing severe persecution.
Khabbab ibn al-Arat (ra) narrates: “We complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the persecution we were suffering, while he was sitting in the shade of the Ka‘bah leaning over his cloak. We said, ‘Will you not seek help for us? Will you not pray for us?’ He replied, ‘Among the nations before you, a believing man would be placed in a ditch dug for him. A saw would be put over his head and he would be cut into two pieces, yet this would not turn him away from his religion. His flesh would be combed with iron combs, removing it from his bones and nerves, yet this would not make him abandon his faith. By Allah, this religion will prevail until a traveller from Sana’a to Hadramaut will fear none but Allah, or a wolf for his sheep, but you are being impatient.’” (Bukhari)
What amazed me about this moment was not the hardship they were enduring, nor even the call to perseverance, both of which appear often in the seerah. What truly struck me was the vision the Prophet ﷺ had. In a time of weakness and oppression, he saw a future radically different from the present. He did not see only the world as it was; he saw the world as it should be.
Can we strive to be like the Prophet ﷺ in this way? To inspire others? To instill, even in small measure, that same hope in those around us? Is that not a gift worth giving?
It is easy to see only the world as it is. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the challenges that confront us. It is easy to let our thinking become confined by the dominant ideas of our society.
When I was a child, my father used to tell me a story about a toad living at the bottom of a well. All it could see was the dampness and darkness around it. It had no idea that a vast, bright world existed beyond that narrow space. In his own way, my father was urging me to think beyond what was immediately in front of me, to imagine something greater.
Islam offers us that broader, brighter vision of the world, not merely as it exists today, but as it should be.
Of course, we cannot ignore the world as it is. Understanding our present reality is the starting point of our journey. But we must look further. We must see, and help others see, Islam’s vision of the world as it is meant to be.
Living For Islam 