Dr Bakary Samb: “Sharing is not a charitable option, it is a divine command which structures life in society”
On the sidelines of the solidarity day organized Thursday by the Amicale des femmes du Soleil, the director of the Timbuktu Institute, Dr Bakary Samb, launched a vibrant plea in favor of solidarity and living together.
Placed under the theme “Religion and values of solidarity and sharing”, his intervention was intended to be much more than an academic presentation. “This is not just a conference. It is an urgent call,” he insisted, in the middle of the period of Ramadan and Lent.
According to the researcher, “faced with the headwinds of our time – possessive individualism, growing exclusion, social fragmentation – it becomes important to draw on common spiritual resources to cultivate mutual aid and solidarity”.
Basing his remarks on the teachings of Islam and Christianity, Bakary Samb stressed that “sharing is not a charitable option, it is a divine command which structures life in society”.
“Solidarity is a shared value. Religions, like African cultures, carry the same powerful message: he who gives is enriched spiritually and socially, he who withholds becomes impoverished and isolates himself from the community,” he recalled.
From the prophet Muhammad to the Gospel according to Saint Luke, the message is, according to him, universal: “We have two traditions, certainly, but one eternal truth”. Zakat in Islam, like Christian charity, reflect the same requirement: that of social justice and collective responsibility.
This requirement, he added, echoes the teaching of the Prophet of Islam, who compares believers to a single and indivisible body: “The believers, in their love, mercy and mutual compassion, are as one body. When one limb suffers, the whole body experiences insomnia and fever. »
Finally hailing “the Senegalese miracle of tolerance and resilience”, the speaker called for “more solidarity towards the poor”, inviting everyone to make sharing a structuring principle of social life.
