NOVEMBER 24

Working Together

One particular quality of true believers has been pinpointed in the Quran. It is that when they are with the Prophet—or in other words the person responsible for Muslims’ affairs—“on a matter requiring collective action, they do not depart until they have asked for his leave...” (Quran, 24:62). Here collective action means any activity involving a group of people working together. And the “asking of leave” is indicative of the wider spirit in which the work is done—a spirit of deep commitment, like the commitment one feels to some personal work.

A high degree of motivation is required for a person to become so deeply involved in a task that he will not leave it until the work in hand has been accomplished. Such motivation is inherent in work involving personal profit: it is in one’s own interest to see the work through to the better end, and so one does so. One is moved by a sense of personal responsibility: if one does not accomplish the task oneself, who will do if for one? With work involving a group of people, on the other hand, one tends to lay the onus on other people. If I don’t carry on, one thinks, there are plenty of others who will continue in my place. Seeing that there is no personal profit to be gained from the work in hand, one tends to see it as a burden best laid on others’ shoulders. Only when one has come to think of the common good as one’s own good, of the profit of society as one’s own profit, will one become fully committed to collective work. Such commitment requires, above all, a deep sense of social consciousness; it requires one to be oriented towards the needs of the community, as anyone would normally be oriented to cater for his own needs.

A Muslim is required to possess just such a sense of social consciousness, moving him to throw himself heart and soul into collective Islamic work, whenever such work is required of him. Then, when he has involved himself in it, he will see it through to the final stage. When he takes leave from the authority under whose direction he is working, he does not do so in order to desert the cause to which he is committed; rather, he has some valid reason for going away, and will return as soon as circumstances allow. For this reason the Quran says that, if possible, such requests should be granted. But both the request, and the granting of it, should be made in the correct spirit, with both parties praying for the other, even as they part.