Why Muslims can’t stay indifferent towards the sufferings of other Muslims…

During many of my conversations about Islam and situation of Muslims around the world with my non-Muslim friends, I am asked that why do Muslims have to worry about another Muslim even though the other one may be thousand of miles away in a country whose language I can’t understand and whose people I have never seen? Sometimes such feelings of mine are even labeled as unpatriotic..
I am sorry that I haven’t been very good at verbal discussions and hence unable to clarify my stand and defend my patriotism. I am writing this as another attempt to try explaining the reasons to my non-Muslim friends.

Why the Muslims are so attached to each other has many reasons and for a non-Muslim these may be something he is completely unaware of. The reasons for compassion among Muslims are not to ensure social security or political gains, the reason lies in the religion of Islam itself and the way Islam is structured. These reasons may be completely absent or almost vanishing among people of other religion or nationality.

For the start, take the example of Muslim greeting, whenever we meet we say Assalamualaikum wa Rehmatullah which means ‘Peace and Mercy of Allah be upon you’ and the other person replies Wa Alaikum Assalam wa Rehmatullah wa Barakatuh meaning ‘Upon you be Peace, Blessings and Mercy of Allah’ and then they shake hands and move on. Though a small act, it is different than just saying a hello because here you are praying to Allah for the other person and this automatically creates affection in him for you. It is unlawful for a Muslim to not speak to another Muslim for more than 3 days without a just reason for it. So all the small ill feelings that could add to create rift between two Muslims vanishes when they meet and say salaam to each other.
Take another example of the salah (Muslim prayer), its a duty of a Muslim to offer prayers 5 times a day and though today many failt to comply most of the Muslims pray at least one time a day or at the worst once in a week on Friday. Now, in the salah you stand together and pray to one God in the same fashion as any single Muslim does anywhere in the world. So 5 times a day you meet your brothers in faith and exchange greetings, shake hands, ask for his well-being etc… though a small act but if you do this you become friend at the first instant even if the other person is from Timbuktu.
Similarly, when a Muslim sneezes, since sneeze relieves you, he says Alhamdulillah meaning ‘All praises are for Allah (who relieved you of the inconvenience)’ and then the person next to you says Yarhamuk Allah i.e. ‘May Allah have Mercy on you’ and the first person replies Yahdeekum Allaahu wa yusliha baalakum ‘May Allaah guide you and correct your thinking’. Again an exchange of prayers for each other.. and tell you what, exchanging prayers is like exchanging gift, you may buy yourself a big gift but when your friend gifts you even a small thing it makes you more happy and makes the friendship stronger. For a Muslim a prayer for him is the best gift another person can give him.

The list goes on with such small things which doesn’t seem to carry enough weight but add up to make a big difference. The Muslims all around the world have the same exact faith in God and His Messenger (saw), they read the same book, pray in the same manner and language and have very similar cultures. So when a Muslim goes to any far away place he without a moment fits into the local Muslims there even if he doesn’t understand their language! At the worst he can atleast exchange greetings and offer salah together and this commonality opens the gate for further social interaction. A Muslim is never an alien in presence of other Muslims!
Let me quote a saying of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (saw):

The similitude of believers in regard to mutual love, affection, fellow-feeling is that of one body; when any limb of it aches, the whole body aches, because of sleeplessness and fever

Sahih Muslim, book 32, Hadith 6258

..and this is the reason that whenever there is a suffering for any Muslim anywhere in the world the heart of another Muslim feels the pain. Its not that we don’t feel the pain of non-Muslims, in fact in a hadeeth Muhammad(saw) said:

The best of companions with Allaah is the one who is best to his companion, and the best of neighbours with Him is the one who is best to his neighbour.

and he didn’t say that this neighbour should be a Muslim! There are numerous such hadiths regarding the rights of neighbour on a Muslim. But with a Muslim we have a relationship of humanity as well as of faith so we may seem to be more compassionate to Muslims..!

These are some of the things that people from other faith may not comprehend because in their faith they generally don’t have a daily congregational prayer or even they have it they all have different ways to offer it and depending on the region they belong, different languages also. The expanse of the Muslim world can only be compared to the Christian faith but there they have moved more on atheistic/liberal path to ever come together for the cause of religion. In Hinduism, the devouts pray to God but their prayer is mostly done in private. The religious gatherings in temple are also more of a personal affair unlike lets say Eid when one of the aim is to meet and hug people you never met before..

Now when it comes to patriotism no Muslim is less patriotic than his non-Muslim compatriots. Any Muslim in world is a an entity of two sets, one is his country and other is his faith. For an Indian Muslim, he has on one side a set of 1.2 billion people called Indians and on the other side a set of another 1.2 billion people called Muslims. The biggest problem is that due to our history (read partition) these two sets are in constant friction and we get crushed in between. However patriotic you be but when it comes to India and Pakistan all Muslims are seen as traitors. Just for example, I was never a fan of Pakistan in cricket but I was forced to become one because my own friends wouldn’t believe me if I said that I want India to win in an Indo-Pak match… sigh. That is one of the bitter realities for Indian Muslims. We’re as much Indians as any one can be, we were born in India and raised here, we ate Indian food and we breathed Indian air… we work as hard as any other Indian does, Muslims are farmers, businessmen, officers, policemen and everything else an Indian is but still we are seen as aliens! Just because we also belong to a set called Muslims?! We do feel bad when Muslims suffer any where in the world, won’t an Indian feel bad if Indians living in some otehr part of the world are harrassed or killed?
I bet you’d rarely find a Muslim who’d support Taliban or Kasab or any act of terrorism done by a Muslim, what we support is the right of the general Muslim who are killed in the name of anti-terrorism acts…