As-salāmu ʿalaykum, European is quite known with their good value in greeting and have a small talk with strangers. They are very friendly. Some of them will treat you like their long-lost friend, asking about how are you doing and things like that.
I reflected on this and I believe that we could actually create a better world by spreading love. Even in Islamic teaching, spreading salam is one of remarkable good deeds. To dig deeper on this, we need to always go back to the root meaning of it. Salam means peace. I wish we could store peace all over the world because that is only how we could live a beautiful life without hatred.But commonly, even though we already knew the meaning of salam, everytime the words flowing out from our lips, we often forget the meaning. Not literally forget, but we just have it on our tongue and not in our hearts. From now on, I hope I would utter the words by truly saying it by heart.
Islam also highlights the smile as sadaqah (charitable act). There are also few things that you can easily do it daily and the act will be counted as sadaqah, inshaallah.
Abu Dhar reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said:
“Your smile to your brother is a sadaqah (charitable act) for you. Your commanding the right and forbidding the wrong is a sadaqah. Your guiding a man in the land of misguidance is a sadaqah for you. Your seeing (showing the way) for a man with bad eyesight is a sadaqah for you. Your removing a stone or thorn or bone from the road is a sadaqah for you. Your emptying your bucket of water into your brother’s (empty) bucket is a sadaqah for you.” {tirmidhi}
This beautiful hadith is the perfect sign of peace. Spreading love for people around you, be it they are someone you know or a complete stranger. Your simple act would leave a big impact to other people. I read it somewhere, the possible reason why smile is categorized as Sadaqah ; because of the power of the smile. It is contagious. It would make someone who burdened with their problems feels better when you smile and sending them positive energy. If the power of smile is this significant, I wonder how huge will it be for the power of salam. Because you are literally duʿāʾfor a peace upon that person. It just like a trade. Whenever you meet the eyes, you interchanging the duʿāʾfor the peace. SubhanaAllah, How amazing this way of life (deen). :)
