The beginning of every new year is filled with tremendous festivity,  warmth, and good  wishes.   It is normal to hear the average person wishing almost everyone they come into contact with, a happy new year. People wish their family members, relatives, friends, neighbours, co-workers and even strangers happiness and prosperity. Countless people throughout the globe wish themselves, their countrymen and women and people in other countries, peace, harmony, and a brighter and better future. They desire the world to be free from wars, sufferings, exploitation, corruption, marginalization, manmade darkness and ignorance.

This year 2017 is not different in that sense from all the other new years before. With all the good wishes and all the good will, our world, apart from little progress here and there, continues to progressively slide into further and deeper manmade darkness and sufferings.

The outstanding scholar and scientist, Albert Einstein, opined that the wrongs in our world continue unabated not necessarily because of the people who commit them, but most importantly because of the silent majority who do nothing meaningful to prevent them from reoccurring.

Warm and good wishes are important parts of positive psychology but they do not, just like that, make things happen.  Our world does not work according to mystical or magical ways as is believed in by religious people, including most Muslims. Our environment works according to the laws of nature and does not cater to religious rituals, prayers, sacrifices, and beliefs. Rain, sunshine, moonlight, heat, and cold, etc. are not influenced by the religious beliefs, rituals, and invocations of religious priests and followers.

The Qur’aan in Surah 53 Aayaat 39-41 teaches us some of the fundamentals to human success:

Human beings will not achieve anything purposeful by mere wishful thinking. Hard work and due diligence are the prerequisites to results and outcomes.

The appropriate steps based on the right guidelines coupled with hard work will always stand out in the life of the one who honestly pursues his or her dreams.

All things being normal, hard work and due diligence will produce the most becoming results.

Sense and substance translated by Mohamed Saffie

The Qur’aan further tells us in Surah 2 Aayah 202:

Those people who work hard and employ due diligence will earn what they worked for, irrespective of the nature of their goals.

Sense and substance translated by Mohamed Saffie

We now understand that magic and mystery are mental illusions.  Resurrecting and empowering inspiration, resolute aspiration, and endless perspiration is the must for growth and development. Even the popular religious understanding that people can literally call upon Allaah with empty words and have their wishes, needs and wants fulfilled, is not established in the Qur’aan.  The practical sense of the message in the Qur’aan, for ages now, has been conveniently given a religious interpretation. No wonder, the supplications continue unabated with insignificant or no results.

The Qur’aan further tells us in Surah 13 Aayah 11:

——Undoubtedly, Allaah does not and will not alter the situations and conditions of any people until they, first and foremost, alter what is within their power to change for their benefit, that of their fellow human beings. Additionally, they must change their outlook of the things they consider very precious.

Sense and substance translated by Mohamed Saffie

Thus, as we embark on the year 2017, let us be good to ourselves, our family members, our friends, our neighbours and all our dear fellow human beings, by continuing to extend warm and good wishes to them but simultaneously initiate, participate and support projects that will make our good wishes and warm greetings a reality. This will certainly have an immediate and long-lasting positive effect on ourselves, our family members and all others of humanity.

Let us all believe in the good and great powers that are latent in each individual.

The Qur’aan teaches us in Surah 5 Aayah 32:

—-Whoever renews and rejuvenates his or her life and then the life of another person, it is as if he or she has given life to the entire humanity.

Sense and substance translated by Mohamed Saffie

The website is our hand of good will and warmth to you and all humanity.  Let us evaluate it objectively for all the meaningfulness and goodness it offers.

May we all start with ourselves and make 2017 a blessed year for everyone.