We are living in a better world than our forefathers

Have you ever pondered the fact that we are better than our forefathers? If you think otherwise, I’ll explain why I think this way. The present time is the age of science and technology. Man is no longer a prey to superstitions and foolish customs. There is less ignorance. Oppressive customs and cruel practices are steadily dying out. The working classes are better off than in the past when they had to work for the whole of their lives as slaves. The percentage of literacy has gone up. The status of women has improved and they are considered equal to men. In short, we are living in a truly civilized society.

Most people say that our forefathers’ lives were very peaceful. We have technology at our hands and we have made atom bombs and weapons. For destruction you might say, but that’s not true because we are making these for our protection. The fact is that today’s world is far more peaceful than last century. There are less than a dozen wars going on throughout the world, while a hundred years ago, every city was fighting every neighbouring city.

Our forefathers lived without many modern amenities and inventions such as electricity, aeroplanes, microwave ovens and more, whereas we cannot even imagine life without computers and cellular phones. Even children play with such things. There life was a life of boredom which they resolved by listening to stories by old people, but today we have so many ways of entertainment that we have no time to be bored.

The greatest drawback of the lives that our forefathers led was that of education; the people were mostly uneducated.  They had very limited technical knowledge. The education was not available to girls, and even boys could not learn only that which was known to the village elders. Nowadays, you can access the knowledge of the whole world in a click by internet. This allows you to solve problems of agriculture, transport, construction etc.

Our forefathers had virtually no medical facility. The local hakeem had little knowledge and scanty medicine. Now we have the help of the latest medical information to improve our health and treat diseases. This has resulted in longer life expectancy for all of us.

We are not only living a more comfortable and healthy life, but we are also more beautiful than our forefathers. Their skin was exposed to sun and dryness, while we have so many lotions and creams, their lack of nutritional knowledge resulted in poor growth of bones but we are stronger, they had no vaccination but we have eradicated small pox, leprosy and other diseases that scarred our faces. And of course they could not imagine about plastic surgery.

Today, we can communicate with people in different countries within no time — thanks to telephone and email. However, in the past it would take months to send message from one country to another or one place to another.

Today, people possess knowledge about every layer within the earth whereas our forefathers living in the past were only familiar with well water. We can even touch the skies, thanks to the major strides that have been made in the field of transportation.

When our forefathers went for Hajj, they could not be sure if they will ever return alive. But today so many of us can fly to Makkah Mukarramah and Madina Munawwara and return quickly and safely to our homes. And some of us have even gone for a second time. This could not be imagined before air travel.

The sky is the limit when it comes to development and progress in our age. We have overcome time and space and are covering large distances in a short span of time. While in the past people travelled on foot or in horse driven carriages now we have bullet trains and supersonic aero planes.


No less remarkable is our progress in social sphere. Oppressive and unjust social practices have been discarded. Women are no longer looked down upon as mere goods.

Finally, let us do an experiment. Suppose when you wake up tomorrow, you will have no electricity in your home and no toilet, no Sui gas in your kitchen, you will not go to school any more, you will not see television, you will not sit in a car, you will not use mobile phone, there will be no chocolates, no Pepsi… I know you are already scared, but this is exactly the world in which our forefathers lived.

Of course, all these facts prove that we are leading better lives than our forefathers but it is also a fact that the next generation will live in a world even better than ours.