Followers of the right path

Amirs  @ 35^th Jalsa Salana (Annual Convention) April 2011

Those who exercise their God-given potentials meaningfully to attain both their worldly and spiritual objectives are followers of the right path. They are the ones who shall be the successors of the prosperous, according to Brother Tahir Ahmad Touray.

Touray was speaking at opening of the 28^th 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