Amirs @ 35th Jalsa Salana (Annual Convention) April 2011 |
Touray
was speaking at opening of the 28th Annual National Ijtema
(Convention) of the Majlis Khuddamul Ahmadiyya (Ahmadiyya Male Youth Wing) of
The Gambia held at Masroor
Senior Secondary
school, Old Yundum, Kombo North District of the
West Coast Region.
The
three-day Convention attracts hundreds of youths from across Gambia and Guinea Bissau.
Discussions are mainly bases on contemporary social, moral and spiritual issues
affecting them.
However,
Touray, who is the President of the Ahmadiyya religious sect’s male youth wing,
said: “often when we read the Holy Qur’an, we tend to relate the concept of
wrong and right path only on spiritual matters. However, the spiritual and
physical worlds are parallel.”
“The
concept of right and wrong paths mentioned in the Holy Qur’an applies to our
worldly matters too.”
Nonetheless,
he said hell always lies in ambush for man, hence man’s heart is in love with
things disastrous to him and one such thing is laziness, which he described as
poisonous and a precedent to failure, saying one of the purpose of the Islamic
teaching of five daily obligatory prayers is to serve as “an antidote to the
latent poison of laziness”.
He
challenged the youths to be productive in order to attain success.
“Laziness
is disobedience to the law of nature and those who disbelieve this natural law
by being lazy and believing that success comes overnight have been described in
the Holy Qur’an as someone following a mirage thinking it is water,” Touray
said. “When he finally reaches it (mirage), he finds it to be nothing and then
he meets his full reward of sorrow.”
He
also told the gathering that “Allah Almighty has created us in the best image
by endowing us with great strengths. If we fail to explore them, He reduces us
to the lowest of the low”.
Speaking
on behalf of the minister of youth and sport, Hon. Sheriff Gomez, a Senior
Assistant Secretary at the ministry, Mr Kawsu Fadera said “it is strictly in
line with government’s policy for youth development that the association of
Ahmadi Youths has a planned focus to enhance the entrepreneurial skills and
competences of its youth”.
Mr
Fadera noted that the youths constitute a significant proportion of the driving
force needed for the country’s socio-economic development.
But
their participation in this process cannot be enhanced without investment in
the appropriate knowledge, skills and technologies to enable youths overcome
their development challenges and responsibilities.
“An
economically and socially advance nation must have a productive and vibrant
youthful population as a major engine of growth and development,” he said.
Author: Modou S. Joof
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