JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty can, through char­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty work, con­tribute to chang­ing so­ci­ety. Those were the views shared yes­ter­day at two sep­a­rate Eid ul Fitr events by Imam Sadiq Al Razi and busi­ness­man In­shan Ish­mael.

Both men said the in­flu­ence of the com­mu­ni­ty can ben­e­fit the coun­try.

At the end of his khut­bah at the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen on Mu­cu­rapo Road, Al Razi said char­i­ty, a pil­lar of the Is­lam­ic faith, is need­ed.

“As Mus­lims we un­der­stand that be­cause Al­lah has made it com­pul­so­ry up­on us, de­spite hav­ing the food, to aban­don the food dur­ing a time so that we will learn and have more em­pa­thy with those who are in need,” he said.

“That is based on the im­por­tance that we as Mus­lims have at­tached to char­i­ty. Char­i­ty is a pil­lar of this re­li­gion. Help­ing those who are less for­tu­nate, those who have give to those who do not have and if we as a so­ci­ety im­ple­ment­ed this con­cept, that those who have help those who do not have, we would find a way to al­le­vi­ate many so­cial dis­eases that are preva­lent in the so­ci­ety to­day.”

At the Barakah grounds in En­deav­our, Ch­agua­nas, Ish­mael said Mus­lims are will­ing to as­sist in im­prov­ing the coun­try and he called for mem­bers of oth­er faiths to join in.

“At the end of the day, I think every re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion should start to work close­ly with their com­mu­ni­ty so that they would be able to de­vel­op a bet­ter re­la­tion­ship and get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of how change can come about from with­in the church it­self and then to the wider com­mu­ni­ty,” he said.

The two men, who spoke hours and miles apart from each oth­er, shared the view that uni­ty is key to im­prov­ing the coun­try.

With elec­tions four weeks away, the men ad­mit­ted that more can and should be done.

Al Razi said the ex­tra push need­ed is root­ed in em­pa­thy for the less for­tu­nate. He es­ti­mat­ed that some crimes can be elim­i­nat­ed with gen­eros­i­ty.

“If we could find a way to say, al­right, I have ex­tra this and ex­tra that, so I’ll make it avail­able to this per­son so that they wouldn’t have to go to that ex­tent to live, then I would have helped so­ci­ety. I would have pro­tect­ed some­body from be­com­ing a vic­tim of that per­son,” he said.

“Is­lam teach­es us about do­ing rather than speak­ing and just say­ing things. It’s easy to make ut­ter­ances and talk­ing about, you know, al­ways have the moral high ground and the pon­tif­i­cat­ing.

“No, no, no. Is­lam is about prac­tice. It’s about he who be­lieves and does good deeds. We be­lieve that Al­lah wants us to be gen­er­ous be­cause he is gen­er­ous.”

Ish­mael said the call for Mus­lims to as­sist com­mu­ni­ties is not po­lit­i­cal as they are will­ing to work with any­one if the goal is na­tion­al up­lift­ment. He ex­plained: “The fact is that the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty is con­cerned and should right­ly be so, like every oth­er com­mu­ni­ty, no mat­ter what re­li­gious back­ground you are be­cause pol­i­tics af­fects the well-be­ing of the na­tion, it af­fects the well-be­ing of the com­mu­ni­ty, the in­di­vid­u­als.

“As Mus­lims, we are con­cerned be­cause we have been af­fect­ed, our com­mu­ni­ty has been af­fect­ed by crime. My busi­ness­es have been af­fect­ed by no for­eign ex­change, so the fact is that these are the kinds of things that we’re look­ing for in terms of im­prove­ments where pol­i­tics is con­cerned.”

In his ad­dress at the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen mosque, Al Razi re­mind­ed the gath­er­ing to re­main com­mit­ted to their faith and not lose the spir­i­tu­al gains they achieved dur­ing Ra­madan. He said the most im­por­tant les­son is to fear Al­lah.