In the West, we glorify being self-absorbed and individualistic. This is illustrated by our admiration for people who have the ability to throw everyone and everything aside to obtain their desires. We praise it by calling it heroic, sacrificial, and bold. We say with enthusiasm about such people, “he gave up everything to follow his dreams!” So, to prioritize another person, to treat their needs and feelings with more importance than our own, almost sounds crazy to someone from the West. “Why on Earth would I ever prioritize another person? It’s my life and I’m going to live it for me.” We don’t realize how pathological this is. 

To treat selfishness like virtue is a horrendous mistake and the consequences of this way of thinking are now raging across the West. Friendships are shallow or nonexistent, marriages are hollow or falling apart, and parents and children are strangers (even enemies) to each other. People cannot trust one another because everyone’s highest calling is to serve themselves. By refusing to value the needs and feelings of others with equal weight to our own, we are removing love from society. 

Anas ibn Malik reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said,
“None of you will have faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”

Source: Sahih Al Bukhari 13, Sahih Muslim 45

In the West, our markets are colossal and our potential for wealth generation is tremendous, but we are becoming impoverished when it comes to love. It is so unfamiliar that many of us even struggle to define it. Some say that love is a feeling. Others call it a cocktail of hormones. But love is not just a feeling, nor is it just our primitive biology. Love is a principle and it defines a way of treating other people. Love is to invest your heart and life into the wellbeing of other people’s hearts and lives. It is to want for others the good that you want for yourself. It is to say, “my needs are important, but they aren’t always the most important because you matter, too.” Love is to take turns being the priority - sometimes it’s you and sometimes it’s somebody else. It is the exact opposite of what we glorify in the West. 

If we always have to be the priority, then our hearts are incapable of giving love. As such, we are also incapable of receiving love. This is because giving is the first step to receiving - this is the inescapable law. If we desire love, then we must learn to invest our hearts and lives into others so that we can invite  those who are capable of love to invest their hearts and lives into us. This is how the Prophet (AS) was able to turn people to Islam - he wanted nothing from others except that they would allow him to show them what love actually looked like (Islam is Allah showing us how to be healthy humans so that we can better love one another). He lived modestly, but his heart gave with such tremendous generosity that it literally transformed the entire world. Millions upon millions of people around the world still honor him, still love him, today. If you want love, learn to give it, first. 

Again, as The Prophet said,
“None of you will have faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”

Source: Sahih Al Bukhari 13, Sahih Muslim 45