“Life Makers” or “Sunaa’ Ul Hayah” in Arabic is a new term has been introduced to our daily vocabulary. It term was first introduced to the public in February 2004 by the 38 year old da’iah* Amr Khaled in a TV program broadcast on Iqraa TV channel under the same name.
The program works under the wide vision of Islam to life which states that man is Allah Almighty’s vicegerent on earth for a definite mission;to urbanise the it in order to gain the reward from Allah Almighty and enter the heaven in the hereafter. Or as expressed in the Holy Qur’an:
“And when thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am about to place a viceroy in the earth, they said: wilt Thou place therein one who will do harm therein and will shed blood, while we, we hymn Thy praise and sanctify Thee? He said: Surely I know that which ye know not.” (The Holy Qur’an , the chapter of Albaqarah: verse 30, Pickthall’s translation)
Under this framework, the program was introduced to the public in order to launch a revival plan for the Arab and Islamic nation to fulfill the goal of creation.
One might ask, how can this happen while the bitter situation in which Arabs and Muslims live predominates? We in a very critical situation where we had reached rock bottom taking nothing but the last ranks amongst other nations. The answer simply is that when a nation – any nation - starts the process of rediscovering its own potential powers, it can transfer those powers into kinetic energy which will eventually help in achieving a renaissance afterwards.
The potential powers of the Arab and Islamic nation are numerous both material and mental ones, but the main power resides in the minds of its youth who are the core of any nation as they shape its role. In other words:
- When you are aware about who you are, you can do everything because you have a clear vision;
- When you are unaware about who you are, you cannot do anything because you are in a fog or a coma.
In order to make this awareness process, a step-by-step recovery program should be established and launched in order to make youth rediscover themselves and their own abilities. And for that goal, the program – or we’d better call it the project – has been aired. It went through two main phases since February 2004.
Phase I : Breaking the Shackles
The goal of the firstphaseoftheprogram is to break the shackles that tie people to the ground and prevent them from rising up. The shackled areas are:
- Positiveness;
- Perfection;
- Seriousness;
- Fighting smoking;
- Say No to qat and alcohol;
- Say No to drugs;
- Preserving our resources;
- Set your goal in life;
- The value of time;
- Utilising our minds.
And by breaking the shackles, people will transfer from being negative watchers to positive actors by participating in some projects such as “Collecting Clothes”, “Don’t Harm Us with Your Smoke” and “Guardians of the Future.”
The finalproductwashavingpeople- youth in particular –come out from the dark room of despair by freeing themselves from the 10 shackles. Now they have self-confidenceintheir own abilities, and it seems that a new vision had been implanted there; everything is possible by will and work.
Phase II: Taking Off
In the second phase of the program, the goal is to invest the abilities the viewers discovered into energy which makes them able to participate in decision-making processes, a thing that rarely happens in the Arab world. We can even safely say that it takes place for the first time in the last 200 years.
For first time in the Arab world, this participation took place via asking the viewers to dream loudly. One of the forums in the website is titled “dream about your country’s status after 20 years.” And thus people – again for the firsttimein the modern Arab history – are called to participate via the Internet (www.amrkhaled.net ) to post their dreams in 23 fields which can shape the the future of the aspired renaissance.
People had posted over 775,000 suggestions and ideas so far. Those dreams have been then organised to be voted on also by people via the forum of the above mentioned site so that each suggestions will take a rank on the priority list for the projects, this is called long term projects for the renaissance.
While – in parallel – other short-term projects are being embarked everywhere by life makers teams who had been established by the Muslim youth in almost every country worldwide; Arab countries, Europe, Canada and the USA.
Phase III (Coming during February)
In the third phase of the program the priority list of dreams – which had been voted on by the viewers – will be given to the scientists and scholars to set action plans in order to start those projects throughout the next 20 years.
For that matter, the fields were categorised into 10 main themes:
- Industry;
- Agriculture;
- Environment and health;
- Women rights;
- Social peace;
- Technology
- Education;
- Unity of our countries;
- Art and culture
- Scientific research.
People are called to participate into those huge projects with total cooperation between international organisations and local governments in order to achieve the aspired renaissance after 20 years in sha’ Allah “God willing.”
If you are in front of your computer, go ahead and log on to www.amrkhaled.net to find a complete virtual world where people share their own ideas and dreams. They ,moreover, discuss how it began to change their lives.
This is the reason that www.amrkhaled.net is now listed in the top 500 global website according to Alexa.com, an authoritative websites ranking company. The website receives thousands of hits every day worldwide, either from visitors or from the participants in different projects there.
It is now clear why this is not a typical program, but rather a renaissance project that had unleashed the abilities of the Muslim youth worldwide with its famous slogan: “together, we shall make life”.