Page 30 - Beauties for Life in the Qur'an

28 BEAUTIES FOR LIFE IN THE QUR'AN

ing a reliable companion. The company of another believer en-
sures their security, for one who fails to foresee a danger may be
rescued by the other one's action that seeks to prevent possible
risks.

The Division of Labor
Allah swears upon some issues in the Qur'an in order to indi-
cate their importance. One of these is the division of labor.
Swearing on "those apportioning each matter" (Surat adh-
Dhariyat: 4), Allah points out the benefits of cooperation.
Complying with this advice by distributing work among believ-
ers saves time and enables them to finish their task faster than
they would if they worked alone. In fact, a task that takes one
person 10 hours to complete can be finished by 10 people in
only an hour.
Another benefit is the higher quality of the final result.
Indeed, such cooperation allows each participant to benefit
from every other participant's wisdom, knowledge, skill, and
experience.
In addition to this, when several people are involved in fulfill-
ing a task, the potential errors and damage liable to arise from
being in a rush are minimized.
In societies of ignorance, however, people generally tend to
undertake a task by themselves so that they will not have to
share credit for its success with others, for their overall aim is to
monopolize the people's appreciation for themselves. Indeed,
the division of labor blunts this sort of greed and eliminates a
person's inherent desire to take sole credit for a project's suc-
cess. After all, given that this success is the result of several peo-
ple's wisdom, knowledge, and experience, no individual
contributor has any reason to boast or become haughty. In fact,