How can I broaden my awareness in order to help others?

By coming to know God through His attributes and trying to reflect them in one’s own life. Whoever, like God the Provider, does good to all, not only to family and friends, grows beyond themselves.

People differ in how far their view reaches. Some see only themselves and what they need at the moment. Others are more sensitive and also notice what moves others. One could say that every person lives with a circle of awareness around them. The wider that circle, the greater the person.

How does that circle grow wider? The Holy Qur’an gives a clear answer. One should come to know God through His attributes, and then reflect those attributes in one’s own life. Human beings come from God and return to Him. The more they resemble Him in their conduct, the more they grow.

The first verse above shows what this means. God is the Lord and Sustainer of all the worlds. He provides not only for one family or one nation, but for the whole of creation. Whoever wants to reflect this single attribute cannot limit their care to their own family and closest friends. They become kind to all people, including strangers, and even to animals and to nature.

In this way awareness widens in a very practical way. Someone who helps a neighbour they hardly know, who visits a sick person or feeds someone who is hungry, sees the world differently afterwards. The hadith above names exactly such deeds. Simply by reflecting one attribute of God, a person can grow far beyond themselves.

This is not just a philosophy, but a path anyone can walk. It begins with the question of what God is like, and leads to the question of how one can do good to others.