For as long as he can remember, Ron Amen has been inspired by the actions of a man who lived more than 1,400 years ago.

“He never passed up a beggar or someone who was in need without giving him something,” Amen said. “If it was the last coin he had, he would give it to him.”

“He” was Imam Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

“I try to fashion my life after him,” Amen said.

The third generation Muslim-American couldn’t forget his inspiration when he and a few of his fellow sheriff’s deputies ran across a street beggar years ago.

“Buddy,” the beggar asked, “you got a quarter?”

Amen pushed a dollar bill into the man’s palm.

His co-workers went off: “What’s the matter with you? He’s going to go buy a bottle of wine, or use it for drugs.”

“Look at the guy;” Amen said. “You don’t know what kind of life he’s had.”

When Amen retired, he could not forget what he had seen. That man on the street was always on his mind.

“When I see people downtrodden like that, I say, ‘But for the grace of God, that could be me,’” he said.

For Amen, compassion and sensitivity is something he learned early on from his family and faith.

“I remember some of my dad’s closest friends were African-Americans,” he said. “They used to come to our house in Dearborn. That just didn’t happen in those days. I never heard the ‘n’ word spoken in my house. That came from my parents. My faith teaches it. It taught it to them. It worked its way down from them to us.”

Amen learned that understanding was foremost during a 32-year career with the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, where he conducted diversity training. His training was tested at Fordson High School nearly a decade ago, when Muslim girls were picked on for wearing head scarves. The teasing sparked violent brawls between Arab and non-Arab students.

So, Amen took a couple weeks off work to volunteer his time patrolling the hallways at Fordson, talking to students, and eventually helping to build bridges of understanding amongst all students – through words, not weapons.

“I want them to learn that there are other ways to settle problems,” Amen said.

This month, the annual “Community Peacemaker” Awards will take place on the Wayne State University campus. And at some point, the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies there will announce one of the winners of its personal achievement award. Guess who it is.

The same guy who got ripped for tossing a dollar to a street beggar. A guy who is fighting for a more humane world.

“(The award) is very gratifying,” Amen said.

By the end of our interview, I left Ron Amen thinking, in many ways, he is the biggest hero I’ve ever written about because of his actions and what he said before I left his office, regarding his family’s history of fighting for a more peaceful world:

“None of us got rich, but we’ve all lived very satisfying lives.”

Amen.