This is a rant so I thought I’d better make that clear from the beginning.
Within the last few days have been bombarded with “Islamic” reminders, e-mails, text messages, facebook tags and all sorts of things since the start of Ramadan. I’m not knocking reminders or messages with Islamic content in any way. My issue is with people sending anything they get to everyone they know.
Reminders are good, by all means, however I think there’s a culture of guilt-tripping people into sending the messages to as many people as possible. I genuinely hope the motivation to forward such things isn’t derived from those bogus statements (usually found at the end of the e-mails) that claim that “if you send this to 7 people the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) will meet you smiling on the Day of Judgment” or some mess like that. The only way I can rationalize it is by people probably thinking “If I send this to loads of people, and a handful actually take some sort of action, I’ll get some good deeds for it.” That’s all well and good, but sometimes the stuff people forward is just nonsense. To make it worse, no one can even tell you where the e-mails and texts originated from because it’s been spread so far.
Some of these messages are truly rubbish, one that comes to mind (which infuriated me when I saw it), had images of Rachel Corrie’s friends crying and was labeled in Arabic, ‘Israeli woman cries for death of friend’ or something to that effect. Totally ignorant and utterly misinformed. Yet the person who forwarded it to me actually speaks Arabic and still sent it along anyway. Either they didn’t know who she was, which is a shame them being the diligent activists they are (although their activism is limited to spamming acquaintances with similar messages) or they didn’t read the thing in the first place. Not sure which is worse, but in both cases I think it’s apparent that we have an issue here.
The bottom line is that we need to reevaluate our perception of what it means to contribute to these causes in a meaningful and effective way. Forwarding images of bleeding Gazans may hurt and disturb the recipient for a few hours, or even the rest of the day if they’re really sensitive. But the real question is what really comes out of it at the end of the day? The best thing I can think of, is if someone were to see it and make sincere dua for them and the ummah, and how many people do that? Otherwise we just kid ourselves into thinking we’re doing something. When in reality, our little pity episodes don’t help the Palestinians or anyone hurting, in any meaningful way.
Again, I’m not scoffing at compassion, it’s the failure to follow it up with meaningful action that is getting to me.
There have been text messages going around urging people to protest and do this and do that. I’m all for protesting when it’s appropriate and when there’s no other viable plan of action. But in this case it isn’t the only option. Far from it, it’s the lack of leadership, insight, vision and direction on the part of local communities to address the issues. People choose to tag along and are told what to do by the anonymous creator of the text message, that spreads to hundreds of people within an hour. No one thinks to themselves, “Should I be sending this to people?” or “Is there a better way to handle this situation?”
Muslims shouldn’t be a bunch of easily provoked hooligans that jump at every opportunity to call themselves victims to others’ actions and injustices. Muslims need to think for themselves and be the ones making moves and not reacting to them. Even though in this case, unfortunately we are the ones that have to react (be it with silence, protest, counteraction, campaigning or whatever)that being said, we should make it’s done in an organized manner. Not as a mindless response to a text message from the invisible man with questionable content and reckless requests.
Be cautious of forwarding unverified, questionable or otherwise shady stuff. Even when things are legitimate, think about what you see coming from sharing it, if no benefit will come from it then don’t.


