Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

particular zip code, in this neighbourhood, there’s some family who has that
problem. How are we supposed to know? If we don’t get to know one another
and we don’t make the effort to know each other’s families. If we don’t just give
salaams to each other in a grumpy way after 
Jumuʿah
and walk away, but
actually make friends with each other—our families get to know one another.
Then we really become a community, and when someone has a problem, they
don’t have to go begging, they don’t have to hold their hand out—we would
know already. We would know somebody lost a job. We would know somebody
got diagnosed with a disease. We would know somebody has too many medical
expenses. We would know those things and we’d help them privately, right?
This is the idea of a community. That’s what we’re supposed to do.
We cannot live by this 
āyah
if we don’t have the idea of 
taḥābbū
whereby
the Prophet (
ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-sallam
) said—you’re not going to have 
īmān
until you love one another. We have to love one another. And the idea of 
afshū
al-salām
in that same hadith—spread the salaam. Why spread the salaam? It’s
not just: ‘
Al-salām ʿalaykum
’. ‘
Wa-ʿalaykum
al-salām.
’ Okay, you get your
shoes, I get my shoes and we’re out of here. That’s not the only salaam. Salaam
means you introduce yourself to each other. You get to know one another. Then
you get to know who the 
masākīn
are.
The next idea is: 
wa-ibn al-sabīl
. The one they call: ‘the son of the path’,
that’s literally the term used in the Arabic language. The idea of son is the idea
of someone who’s associated with something. In other words it’s the one who’s
constantly travelling; the one who can’t afford to live for long in one place. Like
in ancient societies the Bedouins used to travel all the time. They could not stay
in one place for long; they had to keep moving along. One kind of person this
includes is the 
musāfir
—someone who is travelling and going through the city or
whatever. But the other category of 
wa-ibn al-sabīl
is people who can’t afford
stable housing. They’re living in a motel, then they’re living in somebody’s
house, then they’re living somewhere else, then somewhere else; because they
are in such a dire situation they are not able to stay in one place. They don’t have
a permanent home, they can call their own. We have to identify those kinds of
people, and if there’s an opportunity, to help them.
For example, if you have a family member who lives in say, North Carolina,
who calls you and says, ‘Listen, we’re having a bit of a situation. Can the

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children stay with you for a few weeks?’ It’s inconvenient because you have
your own family, you have your own things to take care of and they’re saying
can we come over for a few weeks? Actually we are supposed to understand
that, that is their right. That your house, the house that you live in, is actually not
only your house; when they are in need, a piece of it is for them, according to
Allah. This is their 
ḥaqq
and we have to give it. We can’t say, ‘Oh, well, you
know, it’s a busy time right now. I don’t really know if I can do that. I can give
you some phone numbers for local hotels’. No, no, no! We have to have the
attitude of giving.
Now Allah says all of this: 
wa-āti dhā al-qurbā ḥaqqahū wa-l-miskīn wa-ibn
al-sabīl
—but the ending of this 
āyah
is remarkably a completely different
subject. He says: