Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 88
88 islam’s response to contemporary issues the poor with whose emotions and desires modern media plays havoc. Day in, day out it brings to their squalid dwellings, rosy images of a glorious lifestyle with palatial homes, fabulous gardens, fleets of luxury cars, helicopters, private planes and an army of attendants. The lifestyles of Hollywood and Beverly Hills with revelries, dances, merry- making parties, or the life in casinos, gambling houses, or all that soap operas can conjure up, are temptations to which the poorest have access. Yet few, even amongst the richest, can ever dream of achieving this heaven on earth. Such people would most certainly lose interest in their poor coarse surroundings. The home and hearth would no longer have any appeal to them. Lack of culture and civilisation stand juxtaposed to this rosy vision, and, in this context, the realities of their own life begin to lose all meaning. If this were the ultimate achievement of a society fed on vain pleasures and unreal visions, warmth and the peace of home and hearth all become increasingly illusionary. Then there would be nothing left for them to live for in the future. It would take more than one measure to restore the traditional family unit so essential to bind its members together with mutual trust, reliance and warmth-generating peace. But, perhaps, we are already too late to talk of this. Islam has a clear message. It has a well-defined plan to protect, guard and preserve a universal family system or to rebuild it wherever it has been totally demolished. According to Islam, discipline must be inculcated through conviction and understanding in every sphere of social activity, and lost balances must be restored.