Voices of Faith: For the love of God, pick our leaders carefully
As Muslims, we have been taught through the Quran that all we do should be for the Love of God. There are five core beliefs and practices that Muslims follow. These are called the Five Pillars of Islam. The first is profession or proclaiming your faith. As Muslims, our prayers include proclaiming our faith each time we pray so it is routinized into our daily prayers. The second pillar is doing five obligatory prayers a day. We follow a timetable that puts these obligated prayers in the routine of our day. The third pillar is fasting during the Islamic month of Ramadan (this year Ramadan begins around March 11). The fourth pillar is giving alms to the poor. Every year so we do this before the last day of Ramadan (April 9th).
These four pillars are routine ways of worshiping that are structured in our lives daily and allows us to show our love to God. But what about the daily activities that we do that are not structured, where we can show our love to God? How can we take care of and show our love to those around us – behaviors and practices that we can each do each day to show our love of God?
Getting up in the morning and greeting our people with happiness and joy can be done with the intention to show our Love of God. Smiling at a stranger who may need a friendly face to feel the joy of being acknowledged as a fellow human on earth is a way to show Love of God.
The Quran has taught us 99 names of God and many of those names also teach us ways to show our Love of God by practicing these behaviors with those around us. For example, some of the names include the following: the compassionate, the most merciful, the giver of peace, the exceedingly forgiving, the sustainer and provider, the kind. These are important qualities that we all can practice daily to show our love of God.
If we have the capacity to do these things or promote these practices, we can do that as a way to show our love of God. As a nation, we are in the year of electing a President. What qualities do we want of our leaders? The fallacy is that we should vote for someone who will win. I cannot agree with that practice. Showing love is having integrity in the people we vote into office. I pray that we as a people will use our votes to elect wholesome leaders, ones that shows they have the traits of being compassionate, merciful, promoter of peace and well-being, can work for sustainable practices that preserve our natural world to protect and provide for all people and animals in environments all around the world. We need leaders who will build environments for generations – environments that are sustainable and address important issues like peace, climate change, and sustainable energy sources. I would like to see these qualities in our next set of public leaders. Wars that only provide profit and well-being for a small elite group of people is not good for our world. Wars create trauma in children. Leaders must be dedicated to peace and diplomacy to practice one’s love of all people and thus show their love for God.
For the Love of God, let’s work to elect leaders other than criminals or ones that aid and abet genocide.
Dr. Lydia Rose is director of Public Relations for the Islamic Society of Akron and Kent and an associate professor of sociology at Kent State University.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Voices of Faith: For the love of God, pick our leaders carefully
