Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 208
208 islam’s response to contemporary issues Man cannot live by bread alone is a profound maxim. Add to this the requirement of healthy water, appropriate clothing and a roof over his head. Yet, all these requirements put together cannot make life complete. Man will always be in search of something more than the bare necessities of life. So there has to be something else to be done by the society to remove the drabness, add some colour to the life of the poor and to make them share some of the pleasures of the wealthy. Again, it is not enough that the more fortunate members of society should share their wealth with the less fortunate members of society. But it is also necessary that they share the miseries that go with poverty, which afflicts a very large number of human beings. There has to be some system of the intermixing of the rich and the poor whereby, of their own volition, the upper layers of society mix with the people at lower levels to personally witness what it really means to live in poverty. Islam proposes many measures, which make it impossible for the various classes to be compartmentalised and insulated in their own spheres. We have briefly mentioned some of these measures earlier. Worship as a Means of Economic Unity 1) Commencing with the affirmation of there being no god other than the One God, establishes the unity of God and His creation thereby uniting mankind under the Almighty Creator. 2) The five daily Prayers which are to be said in congregation is perhaps one of the most effective of all the measures in this regard. The rich and the poor and the small and the big, are required, without exception, to say their Prayers in mosques, if accessible. If not all, at