SPIRITUALITY
EMPATHY
A Trait that Can Transform The ability to recognize Your Life Definition: and understand the feelings of another. By Sheima Salam Sumer
In Islam The Prophet (PBUH) would always feel our suffering and is praised by Allah for his empathetic nature. “There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves. Grievous to him is what you suffer; [he is] concerned over you and to the believers is kind and merciful.”
One account of the Prophet’s (PBUH) compassion in action is when he was sitting with his companions one morning, and poor members of a tribe approached. They had no shoes and their bones were visible from hunger. Immediately, he and his companions took up a collection for the tribe, generously helping them.
[Qur’an: Chapter 9, Verse 128]
[Muslim]
The Prophet (PBUH) himself also encouraged us to feel empathy for each other; he was reported to have said: “The believers in their mutual kindness, compassion and sympathy are just like one body. When one of the limbs suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.”
There is also the famous hadith about the Prophet’s (PBUH) empathy for mothers in mosques that was narrated by Anas bin Malik: “The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: ‘I start prayer and I want to make it long, but then I hear an infant crying, so I make my prayer short, because I know the distress caused to the mother by his crying.’”
[Bukhari]
[Ibn Majah]
74 DESTINATION RIYADH AUGUST 2015