Everyone Has a Direction

     Everyone has a direction toward which he turns. So vie with one another in good deeds. Wheresoever you are, God will bring you all together. Truly God is Powerful over all things. Quran 2:148

I know I've discussed this Quranic verse before, no doubt in the year I devoted to writing about faith every day. However, it's just one that is so near and dear to my heart, and how I try (too often unsuccessfully) to approach my life. I've been carving off dedicated time each morning for more intentional spiritual time and study, and this popped up again. To me, it speaks to so much of what is good and pure and central - and should be more good and more pure and more central - to Islam, and, for that matter, all faith. Every religion has its own qiblah or, more generally, its own direction, its own way of approaching the divine. And you need to accept that while yours may seem the best, in the end it's only one of many. How then are you to address those differences? Mainly you should be working on your own faith, fighting your own internal battles, trying to be a better person every moment of every day. And others? "So vie with one another in good deeds." You "compete" with them only in the goodness that you work to produce, the help that you give to others, the kindness with which you treat all living creatures. It's such a simple concept, but how much better would the world be if that pursued that simple goal? As I've often proposed, most of the world's problems would begin to sort themselves out before the day was out.