Salaam
I was a speaking with a dear childhood friend in Kuwait and he was telling me that the people in that region, for as long as their leadership and daily provisions are preserved and no one is killing their women and children, are quite tolerant with murder and genocide of their neighboring brethren just a few kilometers away!
Had the Dubai governor been Christian or Jew, the golf course in question would have been embargoed!
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/08/golf/trump-comments-will-not-impact-dubai-course/index.html
“We would like to stress that our agreement is with the Trump Organisation as one of the premium golf course operators in the world and as such we would not comment further on Mr. Trump’s personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene,” DAMAC Properties’ Senior Vice President Niall McLoughlin told CNN.
Development of empathy for others, Muslims or not, is a big part of Sufi spiritual endeavour, for we are not living in a bubble, people around us are as much belonging to Allah as does our own Nafs, while Allah watches every move we make so carefully.
The end outcome of such lack of empathy is the widespread remorselessness as we have eye-witnessed in extreme measures among Syrians. Syrians sat in their homes content with their jobs and daily bread, while all around them their very brothers and sisters were murdered in droves e.g. in Hama, Halab, Iraq, Kuwait, Kurdistan, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt, meanwhile invested and applied for jobs and vacationed and made deals with all kinds of war criminals who were killing their brothers, in complete remorselessness which finally caught up with them in manners never recorded in human history. The rest of us to follow soon along the same path.
This incessant yearning to socialize with the rich is a defect (‘Aib) of Nafs (Self) :
http://www.untiredwithloving.org/defects_of_nafs.html#69
Sixty Nine: Love to socialize with the rich
Defect: Nafs (Self) loves to socialize with the rich and is inclined towards them and is benevolent and generous to them.
Therapy: To make the Nafs (Self) to socialize with the poor, and to know that nothing comes to him from them, poor or rich, since his provision is portioned and sent only by Allah to her, and this way it may cut her greed/love from the rich, and to know that Allah blamed the Prophet to socialize with the rich: As to one who regards Himself as self-sufficient, To him dost thou attend, Though it is no blame to thee if he grow not (in spiritual understanding), But as to him who came to thee striving earnestly, And with fear (in his heart), Of him wast thou unmindful [Abas:10-5].
The Prophet addressing the poor said: To live the life is to live like you and to die is to die like you. I have been ordered to make my Nafs (Self) patient with you. And again the Prophet has prayed: Allah let me live poor, and take me poor and resurrect me amongst the poor. And the Prophet ordered the Imam Ali: You have to love the poor and be near to them.
ومن عيوبها: محبة مجالسة الأغنياء وميله إليهم وإقباله عليهم [وإكرامه] لهم.
ومداواتها: مجالسة الفقراء والعلم بأنه لا يصل إليه مما في أيديهم إلا مقدار ما قدره الله له فيقطع الطمع منهم فيسقط ذلك محبتهم والميل إليهم، ويعلم أن الله عاتب نبيه صلى الله عليه وسلم في مجالسة [الأغنياء] فقال: أَمَّا مَنِ اسْتَغْنَى 5 فَأَنتَ لَهُ تَصَدَّى 6وَمَا عَلَيْكَ أَلَّا يَزَّكَّى 7 وَأَمَّا مَن جَاءكَ يَسْعَى 8 وَهُوَ يَخْشَى 9فَأَنتَ عَنْهُ تَلَهَّى {عبس:5-10].
© 2015-2002, Dara O. Shayda,