Dear God,

What is it about power that makes us crave it so much? This insatiable appetite for being correct, for people to be under our authority and for them to respect and give way to our greatness.

Why?

Why did you create us with such attributes? As I look around the world I’m shown the same portrait, that of Napoleon ready to assert his authority.

However, that lust for power doesn’t make us qualified to brandish it. Oftentimes as we dance to the tune of power we end up hurting ourselves, meanwhile awkwardly stepping on the toes of our partners.

People get hurt because so many of us deem the other incompetent to lead, and so we must. How many of your servants have overthrown each other throughout the ages because the former was not strong enough to lead his people? How many communities have been destroyed because egos were left unchecked? How many hearts broken by greed and lust masked by pretty faces and articulate tongues?

You sent a man, the master of your servants in this life, Muhammad (s), and it was by his hand that you performed miraculous events that changed the surface of the Earth forever. It was by the hands of many before him that you did the same.

Each and every time there is a story to be told, either one can learn to follow, and to place their hearts in the hands of the trustworthy. Or they can stand opposed, calling people to themselves as they become the Musaylimah’s of their time.

That submission to authority instead of wishing to become the authority is the process that created phenomenal human beings. Figures that went on to become the sages of hearts and sovereignty of limbs.

Lord, what I’m saying is to make me a servant. Enable me to give up my claims and titles. Make me of those who wish to follow, and do not put me in the hands of those who would ruin me, unless it is through that process that you make me whole.

Place fear in my heart in leading your servants, and make me of those willing to serve the leaders.

Raise up from among us Imams with righteousness in their hearts, mercy on their tongues, and make their limbs submissive to your will.

Jumada Al Thani 14th, 1440
February 20th, 2019

Your servant,
Arthur K. Richards

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