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Social Media: Discovering Values

(source: http://invoke.sg)

.. Trust

In the early stage of the internet, most people used the internet for fun, chat and entertainment. Internet has evolved over time and now becoming an important platform to find information & engage with people, or in another word, social networking. And in this social media world, one has to be ‘real’. Once, nicknames were so popular but now most users use their real names or rather real identity in the cyber space. This indicate that nowadays people are willing to share his real name hence building the trust among other internet users.

As the founder of Facebook said, “Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment.” – Mark Zuckerberg

In Islam trust is one of the fundamental aspects in human relations. In the early stage of Islam, Rasulullah Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH) gathered His companions, the people of Makkah, and later his follower, and preached about Islam. People started to trust Rasulullah (PBUH)’s teachings. They believe and trust every word from Rasulullah (PBUH) even on things unseen by human beings such as angels, heaven and hell. Even with no source to prove what he said, yet amazingly the trust that Rasulullah built among the locals of Makkah made them believe his mesasges. Indeed, he was then known as Al-Amin (trustworthy).

Social media has changed our lives and the world (in meaningful ways). What else can we learn from social media which also reflect Rasulullah (PBUH)’s teachings?

.. Share

The other value that we can learn from social media is ’share’, which undoubtedly was also practised by our own Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

There are lots of sharing knowledge site, such as twitter, facebook, digg, wikipedia and the list goes on and on. Today, people will simply share stuff that they find useful and interesting. And that is the core foundation of internet today. People will then follow and trust people who contribute online information. That’s the rule of thumb for internet today.

Rasulullah (PBUH) will always update his followers about Islam, knowledge, and messages that Allah had given him. He had also stressed on the difference between knowledge and wealth. The more knowledge we share the more we’ll get whereas the more we share our wealth the lesser it gets. And in the case of social media, the more generous we are with our findings and sharing, the more we’ll gain people’s trust.

Social media is all about sharing information, ideas, thoughts and feelings. By adding value in our sharings especially, will lead to a more people following us for latest updates. Creating this value in the internet space is the key to expedite the message across. Also, sincerity is one of the elements that motivates people to share. That’s what our Prophet teaches us on lesson learnt from hijrah (migration).

..Conclusion

Islam prohibits hiding knowledge. Let’s build trust and share our knowledge, findings, and wealth. Social media is about sharing something that is value to you, hoping that it will benefit others too. Secondly, is to share with passion and sincerity, while bearing the responsibility of the messaging and information shared with others.

We believe that there are many other values we can learn from the social media. Do share with us your thoughts and views on this issue, through the comment box below.

“ballighu ‘anni walao aayah” which means, “convey (my teachings) to the people even if it were a single verse” – Hadith