Muslims Demonstrate How Investing in Your Community Can Mend Your Heart
By Naazish YarKhan
Mar/Apr 25
The news continues to leave many of us feeling powerless. Anxiety, loneliness, and depression are rampant among Americans. But there is an antidote, albeit an often overlooked one. According to Psychology Today, no matter our age, finding ways to “exert your positive energy and positive power” keeps us from sinking into the quicksand that is negativity and despair. Helping others and doing good counteracts despondency by triggering dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, our brain’s “feel good” chemicals.
For some, this comes in the form of picking up a friend’s child from school when they can’t or delivering a meal when a neighbor is ill. For others, it’s driving a friend to the airport, or smiling and waving hello as you cross paths. Every good deed we do for others, no matter how big or small, has the power to alleviate our own feeling of helplessness.
Community, Belonging, Purpose – Ingredients for Wellbeing
Community nurtures a sense of belonging, creates a support system, and provides purpose, all elements that fuel wellbeing. The National Alliance on Mental Illness states, “We’re social beings, and we are not meant to live in isolation. Community is critical for us to thrive, especially for [those] already experiencing the common symptoms of loneliness and isolation.”
Naz Hassan of Downers Grove, Ill. finds purpose by investing in her community. “After being a wife and mother for 27 and 24 years respectively, I’d come to a point where household responsibilities felt humdrum, mundane,” she said. “With my volunteer work, I fill a hole by connecting with others. I return home as a much better wife, a much better mother. Plus, I get household responsibilities done with a lot more heart.”
Hassan, a mother to five, recently accepted a volunteer role as co-chair of the Interfaith and Outreach Committee at the Islamic Foundation mosque in Villa Park, Ill. She also decided to renew her involvement in community organizing with DuPage United, an interfaith organization where volunteers create systemic change by engaging with local politicians and townships. Though her avocations take up relatively little time, her interests already feel like life savers, Hasan shared.
“DuPage United’s advocacy for mental health initiatives reeled me in ten years ago,” she said. After a decade-long hiatus from DuPage United, Hasan resumed volunteering with the organization once her older children had grown and flown. It was DuPage United’s affordable housing initiative that drew her in this time.
“DuPage United gets to the heart [of] where the need is for people on the fringes, those who are suffering the most,” Hassan said. “Volunteering is important to me because serving humanity is important to me. We are put on this earth to do good. All of humanity are the people of Allah.”
Indeed, finding a sense of community and “using our personal strengths can make us healthier, happier, and more successful”.
Bloom Where You Are Planted
In the shadow of George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests, principal software engineer Fatima Azfar could have succumbed to the nation’s shared feelings of helplessness and overwhelm. Or she could be a force for good.
At her first job out of university, at the Chicago-based West Monroe Consulting where she had only been working a year, Azfar, a resident of San Jose, California, had a proposal. In an industry that required employees to wine and dine clients, practices that were contrary to Islamic values and those of some non-Muslim co-workers, Azfar wanted to serve as a catalyst for change. With encouragement from the founders of the Black Employee Network, she became the co-founder of the Interfaith Employee Resource Group (ERG) at West Monroe. The group’s intention was to bring Muslims together in mutual support.
Her employers’ response surprised her. “It was wonderful to see the company welcoming the endeavors of their only hijabi employee striving to create a space for her community,” she said. It took twelve months from introducing the idea of the ERG to its official launch.
“I sought out the support of key figures within the company and built a strong network of leaders through one on one coffee chats,” Azfar said. “I explained the idea, the purpose, and got not only their agreement, but their passionate support. Engaging them personally was key.”
She made sure to incorporate their feedback and personal passions into the initiatives the ERG planned. “It allowed our first year to be filled with excitement, and engaged ERG leaders,” she said.
She explained that grassroot initiatives often prevail through key supporters. “If someone has created something similar [e.g. the Pan-Asian Network Employee Resource Group (ERG) or Women Leadership Network at West Monroe], harness their leaders for your own initiative. Learn wisdom from their experiences. Follow their example.”
By 2021, the ERG expanded to become an interfaith organization. The group’s wins include a Ramadan campaign, “Acts of Kindness,” an iftar and a “Fast for a Day” event in several of the company’s offices. Azfar’s ERG hosted an Abrahamic Faiths panel to share religious texts while also co-hosting intersectional events with other ERG chapters. They held bi-annual, virtual, firm-wide employee town halls including a talk by speaker Dalia Mogahed (Director of Research at Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington, D.C.) to address issues facing religious minority groups in the U.S. “Office operations opened up prayer rooms in all our offices, and the Interfaith ERG stocked them with hijabs, prayer rugs, tasbeeh, and religious texts,” Azfar said.
Azfar’s decision to lean into her positive energy and sense of personal power earned her recognition as one of EqualityX’s Top 50 Influential Muslims of 2024 in America, an award for Muslims who’ve embraced their faith in the workplace as a catalyst for positive impact in their communities.
Practice Corporate Social Responsibility for Good Health
Helping people and changing lives provides us with health benefits, according to the Mayo Clinic. “Research shows that people who are part of strong communities tend to have lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol levels, and a lower risk of obesity,” the institution said. “They are also more likely to exercise regularly and eat a healthy diet.”
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in Hicksville, N.J., Acutis Diagnostics launched its Social Responsibility Response Committee. It helped counter some of the collective helplessness felt across the country.
One of its most impactful initiatives was Letters to Elders, during which staff wrote letters of hope and cheer. Also, during the quarantine, employees made 40 wish lists come true through the KiDS NEED MoRE Holiday Cheer Bus event. They also visited 11 local families whose children were battling cancer. Crucially, they learned that in some families more than one child had a life-threatening illness, while others fought financial hardship.
Encouraging self-agency, the company had employees decide which initiatives to support. “Instead of the typical top-down approach to corporate citizenship, the company put the team in the front seat,” CEO Jibreel Sarij wrote on LinkedIn. “Our colleagues set the agenda and carried it forward from the hallways of our offices to the communities we belong to.”
Through the years, Acutis Diagnostics has sponsored a single mother’s rent for a year, conducted blood drives for the New York Blood Center, and raised school supplies for Wyandanch School District. Staff have donated personal care products and food to ECLI-Vibes on Long Island and to the South Brunswick Food Pantry in New Jersey through their Thanksgiving Initiative. In addition, the company recognizes Earth Day with an Annual Campus Cleanup on grounds at their headquarters. Acutis Diagnostics was also among the first companies to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday, according to its LinkedIn Profile. The company’s efforts dovetail with a research paper titled “What Do Muslims Say About Corporate Social Responsibility?” which states, “[Muslims] must utilize their potential by shouldering the responsibility of maintaining and developing the universe.”
The Hidden Power of Sadaqah and Zakat
Muslims in the U.S. donated approximately $1.8 billion in zakat in 2021, according to the Muslim American Zakat Report. In 2019, the Muslim American Philanthropy Report found that American Muslims are 81% more likely to contribute to organizations that address domestic poverty outside of their own faith. This trend was corroborated again by the 2021 Muslim American Giving Report that found Muslims had donated an estimated $4.3 billion to non-religious causes that year. The report also shared that Muslims donated more to civil rights causes that weren’t faith-based initiatives as compared to the general public.
While giving is often motivated by a sense of religious duty and a belief that those with more must help those with less, the psychological and health benefits are still other reasons for Muslims to continue being the good neighbors they are.
Naazish YarKhan is a writer and educator. She teaches online writing workshops for grade 3 to 12 and coaches applicants on college essays as founder of WritersStudio.us. Her writing has been featured in NPR, PRI, Chicago Tribune, and more.