DARE TO TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY: BETWEEN DEVOTION AND SACRIFICE

People sometimes need to be reminded about their responsibility, but only those responsible one who do not need it (Anonymous).

In the social context, human is a social creature. He cannot life alone. He must play a certain role in his society in which requires a responsibility toward the social values. Those social values played by someone should be accounted in order to keep the harmony and balance in human life. But, people sometimes forget that during taking part on their role in society they neglect at glance about responsibility.

Responsibility is closely related to someone’s obligation. It is something imposed on someone; something accompanying the right. Responsibility is someone’s consciousness toward their intentional or unintentional behavior and action. Responsibility does also mean doing something or duty as a manifestation of someone’s consciousness. Someone wants to be responsible because there is a consciousness or awareness of any actions and results for others’ interest.

Responsibility itself is natural. It means that it has become a part of human life. Everyone must be the one who has responsibility; if he doesn't have it, then some others will give him a responsibility. As Rasullullah Muhammad (PBUH) stated in his Hadith, “You all are a leader and accountable to the people you lead. A king leads his people and his leadership will be questioned. A husband leads his family and will be asked about his leadership also. A mother leads her husband’s house and her children, and then she will be asked about her responsibility. A slave is to manage his/ her employer’s property and will be asked about his responsibility. Remember that all of you will be asked to lead and will be accounted for your leadership.” (Al-Bukhari Hadith)

The above hadith shows that Islam upholds someone’s responsibility. There is a correlation between the rights and obligations in someone’s responsibility. The rights and obligations always exist along with human life. The rich one is responsible for his property and obliged to pay zakat/ infaq for his property. Besides, he also has the right to manage and use his property as he wants accordance with Allah’s rules.

The hadith also explains that basically all people are a leader. Thus, everyone will be responsible for everything which has been counted on him. It has been mentioned as an example that a maid/ slave is a leader for his employer’s property. In addition, the hadith is also talking about the basic ethics of leadership in Islam. It has been explained that the fundamental ethic in Islamic leadership is a sense of being responsible. All people in the world are referred as a leader. Therefore, as a leader, they all bear the responsibility, at least being responsible for himself. A man is responsible for his family, wife and children. An employer is responsible to his employees and subordinates. A president is responsible to the people whom he leads, and so on.

However, the responsibility here is not merely a meaningful task which must be done, be completed, and be left without giving any impacts or effects for the people whom be led. But more than that, it is a more meaningful attempt of a leader to realize the people whom he leads to be more and more prosperous. That is the breakdown of basic concepts of Islamic leadership.

Thus, because the essence of leadership is a responsibility and the form of responsibility is prosperity, so if parents are just to feed their children but do not meet nutritional standard and do not facilitate their children educational needs, then it cannot be concluded that those parents have acted as a responsible one. Similarly, if an employer provides salary to his employee under the regional standard of minimum salary, then he cannot be said to be responsible. It is same if a leader, take a president for example, leads his country merely as a “government”, but he has no serious efforts to lift his people from poverty to prosperity, the he cannot be labeled as a responsible leader. That’s why; being responsible is not just a simple thing in which everyone can act as he performs a responsibility; it’s hard to be implemented on daily life.

Therefore, to remind us, we have to remember about two essential things in performing a responsibility in our life; devotion and sacrifice. The embodiment of sense of responsibility can be embodied in the form of devotion and sacrifice. Devotion and sacrifice are good deed for the benefit of human himself. Both are good deed in the form of thoughts, opinions, or power as the embodiment of loyalty, love, affection, norms, or the bonding of everything that be done sincerely. When people work hard all along day to meet their basic needs sincerely, they have already been responsible for what become their role. Sacrifice is the result of devotion. Sacrifices may be in the form of possessions, thoughts and feelings, even can also be soul. Sacrifice willingly submitted unconditionally, without any agreement, without any transaction, whenever needed. Devotion always demands sacrifice, but the sacrifice does not necessarily require devotion.

Finally, it is a common thing that being responsible doesn’t exist by itself in every person. But, whatever the social role, the position, the background and the intension responsibility must be a part of human life. Human cannot escape from this one. He must realize that whatever he did, he will be responsible for it. Responsibility is a form of devotion and sacrifice and it will take human position be more respectable on their social life if they remember about it. Because people sometimes need to be reminded about their responsibility, but only those responsible one who do not need it. (Ibe)