The Dignity of Labour (With Outline)

The Dignity of Labour

The Dignity of Labour (With Outline)

Outline:

• Introduction
• Importance of dignity of labour
• Impact on society
• Islamic point of view
• How to motivate the people

                Every living being that Almighty Allah has created struggles for its existence. There is nothing shameful in it. To think that labour is demeaning is just a false sense of prestige and honour. Manual labour elevates one in the estimation of all wise-thinking men. We have come to know that we can have nothing worthwhile without labour. It is our mental labour which led to numerous scientific inventions and discoveries. It is obvious, if the people had not tiled, we would never have built railways, motor, ships, aeroplanes, radios, TV. and Telephone etc. Similarly, if the farmers do not plough and cultivate the soil, there would be no crop and wide spread starvation would be our ultimate fate. Supposing the masons, carpenters and weavers do not labour, we will have no houses to live in and no costumes to cover our bodies.

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                The English ruled the sub-continent for about two centuries. It was due to their influence that we cultivated a desire or ambition for white color jobs and hatred for all types of technical work. Any thing which spoiled our hands and stained our clothes was detested by our youth. The people have least realized that in their own country the persons who posed as “Bara Sahib” and “Maim Sahib” did all their house hold chores with their own hands. They did not think it below their dignity to cook meals, wash utensils and clothes sweep the floors, whitewash the houses etc.

                Manual work in necessary not only for individuals, but also for nations, Japan and Germany were completely destroyed at the hand of world war-II, but they labored and toiled hard to regain their lost glories. Today the Japanese yen and the German mart are the two strongest currencies of the world. China has become a super power in a matter of a few decades. All this has been made possible due to hard work which the people of these countries have been doing for centuries.

                If then labour was so vital to our existence on earth, can there possibly be any shame or humiliation in it now? Is there anything in this labour for which people on earth and promotes the welfare of the world is a thing which every one of us should feel proud of.

                Honest labour, however low it might be, is no less than the dignity of a king. It is much better to be, an honest cultivator than to be a gentle beggar. Where the former wins the praise, the latter is looked down upon. ‘Work is worship’, the Holy Prophet (peace be upon Him) raised the dignity of work when he himself carried bricks for the construction of the mosque, dug trenches, even mended his own worn out shoes with his own hands.