Recently, Imam Khalid Latif, Executive Director and Chaplain of the Islamic Center, wrote an article published by the Huffington Post entitled The Power of Unconditional Giving . To read the entire article in full, please click here.  

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Imam Khalid Latif

HuffJummah: The Power of Unconditional Giving

A story that I was told when I was younger involved a woman who could best be described as a traveler. Her travels would take her all over the world and on one occasion she finds herself trekking through some hills and a forest. As she is walking she comes upon a stream, the water of which she uses to wash up. While washing she notices at the base of the stream a shiny jewel that she picks up, inspects for a moment, and then places into her backpack before moving on.

Some time later she comes upon another traveler, but this one is not doing so well. He is need of some food and water and appeals to this woman for it and she opens her bag to look for something to give to him, he notices the jewel from the stream. He asks her if he can have that and without any hesitation she gives it to him. The man is most ecstatic as he runs to the nearest town, thinking how wealthy he will now be.

A few days later he comes back to the same hills looking for the woman. When he finds her, he returns the jewel and says he needs it no longer. The woman is confused and says that he seemed to be so happy with it, and becomes even more confused after he tells her that she has something else that he is need of. "I am a simple woman and don't really have so much. What is that I could possibly have that you would want?" He responds, "Take back your jewel -- I don't want it any longer. What I need from you is the thing that exists inside of you that helped you give it to me in the first place."

The prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, "Richness does not come from having an abundance of things from the earth, but richness comes from having a richness of the soul."

The satisfaction that stems from service and giving to others is something that is quite unmatched. The unfortunately reality is that most of us don't always see that we have something to give. At a time when selfishness have become more normal than selflessness, many of us are not giving our time, our wealth, or really any of what we have the potential of giving to others. We look at what we will lose instead of what others will gain and that becomes our primary motivation. An absence of figures around us demonstrating qualities of selflessness makes it that much harder to realize as a quality that should be embraced. The ones who end up losing the most though are we ourselves.