The Essence of the Holy Qur’an

Change yourself first

“Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.”
(Surah 13.Ar-Rad, Verse – 11)

Dear brothers and sisters,
This is an important verse which indicates that Allah, the blessed and exalted, in His perfect justice and wisdom does not change the condition of the people from good to bad or from bad to good, from ease to hardship or from hardship to ease, unless they change their condition themselves. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. You are responsible for your life. If you’re sitting around waiting on somebody to save you, to fix you, even to help you are wasting your time. Because only you have the power to take responsibility to move your life forward.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi, a great poet, said: “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” Actually, it does start with you – if you want to change the world, start with yourself first. The only thing we can truly change is within us. We dream of changing the world, but just like Rumi observe, we must first begin to change ourselves before we can even consider changing the world to be a reality.
Don’t change yourself because you are afraid of what the other people think. Change yourself because you want to be better. There are two ways to be happy: change the situation or change your mindset towards it. If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. But we also need to understand that trying to change someone else is an act of aggression, but trying to change yourself is an act of love. We must be the one to enact the change that we need. We must be the one to take the first steps and welcome change.
Jobayer Al Mahmud, Student, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey