In Surat an-Nisa’, v.1, Allah Said: {“O Mankind! Beware of your Lord, Who Created you from a single soul, then Created his wife from him, and brought from them both many men and women…”}
There is a reality in this verse that can inspire you to do great things. Think about it: Allah addresses all of mankind to teach us that we originated from a single man and a single woman, existing alone, having intimate relations, and having children. Then their children had children. Then their children had children. Then those children had children, and so on, until 200 million people lived on Earth by the time of Christ. Then those people continued reproducing until the world population hit 500 million by the 17th century. This doubled to a billion by the 19th century, then doubled again to two billion by the 20th century, then more than tripled to seven billion today. By next year, there are expected to be over ten billion people on the planet. All of these billions & billions of people, speaking hundreds of languages, spread out over nations and continents in all corners of the globe, of many colors & races & backgrounds, - this overwhelming population can all be traced back to one man & one woman who lived thousands of years ago.
This shows us something deep: that a single, isolated, seemingly insignificant action you carry out on any given day can have a ripple effect by setting into motion a chain of events that eventually result in an outcome far bigger than could be imagined at the time of the action. We commonly refer to this as the Domino Effect, but the proper name for it is geometric progression. To clarify it further, many sociologists give the example of an epidemic. Suppose a tourist from Los Angeles visits London one summer carrying a strain of virus with a 10% infection rate (i.e. one of every ten people he comes across will be infected). On the streets of London, he comes into close proximity to about 50 people a day, so he infects five people on Day One. The next day, those five each come across 50 people and infect 10% of them. So, that’s 25 new cases plus the original five plus the tourist, making a total of 31. On Day Three, each of the 31 comes across 50 more people, infects 10% of them, and gives us 155 new cases, for a total of 186 (155 + 31). On the fourth day, these 186 cases each infect five new people, giving us a total of 1,116 (930 new cases plus the 186 of the previous day). So, within four days, we went from a single tourist introducing a virus strain, to having over a thousand Londonites carrying it. Imagine the exponential increase were we to calculate a week, or a month, or a year down the road! We’d have an astronomical figure that could not have been easily imagined when considering that one tourist on a plane from Los Angeles to Heathrow.
Today, after decades firmly entrenched in power, propped up by billions upon billions of American dollars, the Mubarak regime in Egypt has collapsed. The Tunisian regime of Ben Ali collapsed. An actual armed insurrection began in Libya (although they were unfortunately naïve enough to ask the West to intervene and help them). Once unthinkable, protests are raging on the streets of Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, and even parts of Saudi Arabia. The entire Arab world is burning with the fires of revolution against the tyrants who have tormented their people for decades. These are events that are precursors to the signs of the Hour, events that will continue to change the world day by day. How did all of this begin? This fire was born out of a single spark, a single, isolated, seemingly insignificant action that took place by one person on one day. All of this began when one day last December, a frustrated, unemployed young man walked onto a street in a town in Tunisia, poured gasoline on himself, and lit a match. While his action is obviously forbidden Islamically, the point is that this one, single act led to small protests, which in turn led to a large protest, which in turn led to the collapse of the Tunisian government, which in turn led to the collapse of the Egyptian government, which in turn inspired more protests in numerous other countries, including America (see the events of Madison, Wisconsin). Surely, when Muhammad Bouazizi walked onto that street and poured that gasoline, nobody on that day would ever have expected that one act to eventually lead to the entire Middle East transforming as a result. This is something for us all to ponder in our daily lives.
A few minutes’ drive from my home in Massachusetts is a town called Concord. It was in this town that over 200 years ago, a confrontation between locals and British occupying forces led to what would eventually become the American Revolutionary War, which would in turn lead to the birth of the United States of America as an independent country. How did this all begin? It began one day in April of 1775, when a man named Paul Revere (this was back when America’s leaders had some honor) received word that British forces were planning to march to the town of Lexington, arrest John Hancock & Samuel Adams, and move on the town of Concord to confiscate stored weapons belonging to the local militias. That night, Revere did something very simple: he jumped on a horse and rode from town to town warning the locals of the British plan. He would get off his horse in each town on the way to Lexington, knock on a few doors, and issue a brief warning, then move on. By the time the British army reached Concord the next morning, they were met with a militia that were forewarned and prepared. The Brits were defeated in Concord, and the American Revolution had begun, as colonial militias across the country began armed resistance against the British.
What the aforementioned examples each have in common with the other is that major, world-changing events were set into motion by a single, small action carried out by a lone individual who had no idea as to the impact his action would have later on. The specifics of these examples are irrelevant. Rather, what you can take from them and apply in your daily life is that concept of geometric progression: just like the American Revolution was the eventual result of one action by Paul Revere, and the Arab revolutions are the result of one action by Muhammad Bouazizi, and the proliferation of billions of humans around the planet is the result of the union between one man & woman, so too is it possible that that one conversation you had with a stranger last week, or that one lecture you presented, or that one book you gave someone, or that one act of generosity you undertook, or any of the other seemingly insignificant things you may have said or done on any given day will have far-reaching effects on the lives of others in a way you never would’ve imagined at the time of the original deed. Don’t you see the parable that Allah presented in v.24-25 of Surat Ibrahim: {“… a good word is as a good tree, whose root is firmly fixed and whose branches reach to the sky, giving its fruit at all times…”}
I want to close with one example from the Sirah to drive this point home. Before migrating to Madinah, the Prophet (عليه الصلاة والسلام) decided to send Mus’ab bin ‘Umayr to plant the seed of Islam there and see if it would be a good place to relocate. So, Mus’ab went, was hosted by a local Khazraji named As’ad bin Zurarah, and together, they were able to convince a number of Madinah’s residents to become Muslims. One day, this group sat at a well belonging to the Zafar tribe, and attracted the attention of one of the nobles of Madinah, Usayd bin Hudayr. Mus’ab convinced him to sit, listen, and eventually accept Islam. In turn, Usayd went and brought another noble, Sa’d bin Mu’adh (years later, when Sa’d was killed in battle against Bani Quraydhah, the Prophet said that he was such an important Muslim that Allah’s Throne shook when he died), who also became Muslim. Sa’d bin Mu’adh in turn brought another man, Sa’d bin ‘Ubadah, who also became a Muslim. Before long, the people of Madinah began saying to each other: “If Usayd bin Hudayr, Sa’d bin Mu’adh, and Sa’d bin ‘Ubadah are all Muslims, then surely we must also do so!” And as mentioned in ‘The Sealed Nectar’ (p.142): “Mus’ab stayed in Madinah carrying out his mission steadily and successfully until all the homes of the future Ansar had Muslims among them – men and women,” and thus, the emergence of Madinah as the first Islamic state, and the land of the Hijrah, and the base from which Islam was brought onto the world scene, can be attributed to the simple efforts of one man – Mus’ab bin ‘Umayr.
So, you never know when or with who your efforts and actions will pay off, and you don’t know how big the result of even the smallest deed will be when it finally does pay off. And always know that, as history shows, even one person can change the world…
طارق مهنا
Tariq Mehanna
Plymouth Correctional Facility
Isolation Unit - Cell #108 |
