NEW SERIES: How to Be a Productive Muslim | #1 The Muslim's Guide to Getting More Out of Life #AMAU

0:00How can I be productive? There's an entire industry, a self-help industry, where hundreds of thousands of people, thousands of books and videos, and a huge number of courses and billions and billions of dollars. The Shaitaan wants you to be unproductive. If the Shaitaan can't tell you to do a sin and take you away from it, he can even say to you, do this good deed, but just not the important one. Not the one that is really necessary for you. So you see someone busy with something that is not what they are supposed to be doing at that particular time. From Al-Mam bin Okhyeh, Mura'im Allah, to Ali, he mentions it in al-Jawab al-Kerfi. He said, a person's time in reality is his very life, and it passes like the passing of the clouds. Whatever of his time is for the sake of Allah, and seeking the help of Allah, that is his true life. Other than that, it's not counted as part of his life, even if he lived the way that the cattle lived.

1:00If he spends his time in heedlessness and distraction and false hopes, the best thing he can do in that situation is go to sleep. The death of such a person is better than his life. Al-Hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Al-Alamin Was Salat Was Salam Wa Ala Abdul-Lahi Wa Rasulihi Naviyina Muhammad Wa Ala A'lihi Wa Sahbi Ijma'in Ima Bajd. I would like to begin first of all by praising Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala for once again gathering us together in this house from the houses of Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala. And it's really a very, very great blessing that Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala gathered us together and that Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala allowed us and permitted us to remember him in this beautiful masjid together with my brothers

2:04and ask Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala as he gathered us together here today, that he gathered us together in the Firdous Al-Alamin Al-Jannah. My dear brothers and sisters, the topic that we have chosen to deal with at this topic in Sh.a'la is going to continue for a number of weeks and months, but in the Lahi Ta'ala is a topic that there is a lot of speech about. Many thousands of books have been written. In fact, there is an entire multi-billion dollar industry that exists primarily to deal with this topic. And that is the topic of productivity. How can I be productive? And of course for us, we want to say, how can I be a productive Muslim? There's an entire industry, a self-help industry where thousands, if not hundreds, of thousands of people, thousands of books and videos and huge number of courses

3:06and billions and billions of dollars. And actually, the one qualification the person needs is not actually to be productive. It's just to be able to convince you that you can be productive. And there are of course Muslims and non-Muslims who talk about this. And this can benefit us in the dunya and the ahrira and no doubt there is some amazing, amazing content. And that's because people crave the idea of being productive, maybe more than they imagine anything else. Some people imagine themselves being really, really wealthy. They imagine themselves maybe being really famous. They imagine themselves being really gifted at something. But more than anything, we like to imagine that I can be productive. I can be one of those people who is quote-unquote organized. I can be one of those people who don't forget things who effortlessly just go through my work, everything, all the deadlines are done on time. That dream, that temenny to a certain extent,

4:10that imagination that you have is what drives so many people to read books and give their time and so much effort to understand or to try to achieve this goal of being productive, organized, etc. Personally, I think my interest in this began when a brother mentioned to me a book. And this book was by a non-Muslim. I'm not going to mention the title of the book or the author because we're in a masjid. And we're not going to any, we're going with here to talk about the book of Allah and the son of the Messenger of Allah. But he gifted me a book, or he showed me the name of a book. And he said, I think you're going to benefit. This is about productivity, how to be productive, how to get more out of your time. I think you're going to benefit. Take it. And I read it. And me personally, and I would advise all of you to be like this if you can, whenever you read the works of the non-Muslims,

5:12you have to read it with a critical eye. You can't just accept, you can't just, you know, drink down what they tell you. In the her the el-madin, foundro am-man ta-chud-un-adin akum. This knowledge you're going to get is your religion. You can't just take what these people say and just automatically take it in. But what you can do is ask, okay, this is the principle of the book. Is this principle supported by Islam or not? Is there a better paradigm in Islam for this? Or how does Islam, what are the texts of the Quran and the Sunnah and the statements of the early Muslims tell me about this? And that got me interested. And I've done that for a few books now with Ameen you, where we've gone over some of the famous productivity books of the non-Muslims. And we've looked at them in the light of the Sharia. There are some things you cross out, you say, this is not true. And there are some things that you say,

6:12this is already supported by an eye or a hadith. And there are other things that you say, we don't really have a proof for or against. So we're just going to be neutral about it. It might benefit us. But we're not going to. Commit ourselves either way. Beyond that, when I really wanted to deliver this topic and why I wanted to deliver this topic to you in the message for these number of weeks, is actually what I saw when we started the Ameen with Ameen you program, which is a Barnamist Tarsil Al-Alemi. It's a five year program for people who want to study Islam in a very structured way online. And we started it. And we realized that these issues of productivity are actually causing huge problems

7:12for students of knowledge every single day. And this is where the topic for me, it went from an interest, something that I like to read about to something that I really started to take it very seriously. When actually I looked and saw so many of our students dropping out, struggling, complaining, having issues because of things related to time management, productivity, how to be organized and things like that. And my own experience, I think I can also say studying, I think definitely the issue of test-weaf procrastination, you know, saying that I'm going to do it tomorrow, I'm going to do it myself or myself, that was a big problem for me. And I used to marvel at those people who would just, you know, we'd have like say 300 hadiths to memorize in a term or something. And there would just be one person who just, you know, does three hadith every day. And I would marvel at that person. Well, like I'm looking at something that I can't understand,

8:14but I'm so impressed with it. The dispersion is just three hadith every day and by the end they know all the hadith and they sit the exam. And he has me like three days before the exam saying, just 300 hadith, I can do 100 a day, right? And so that it resonated with me when I saw and we really looked at our students and how many people are struggling with this, that this is something that we do need to cover. And if it's such a problem, Islam must have a solution or solutions to it because there is no problem that Muslims face day in, day out, except that this sharia, the book of Allah and the son of the messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, have the solution to those problems. And so this is not about just being productive in your daily life. It's not about just your work life. This is really about being productive in your abada,

9:15being productive in seeking knowledge, being productive in coming close to Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala. As for me, I'm certainly not sitting here to claim to you that I am productive or organized. This is a journey. Anishya Allahu Ta'ala will be on this journey together. It's a journey that requires constant striving and constant reminders because the shaytan wants you to be unproductive. In one way or another, ideally the shaytan would love for the person to leave Islam. If he doesn't leave Islam, he would love for him to fall into innovation and serious, huge major sins that will distance him and perhaps even lead him out of Islam at one point in his life. And if not that, at least to become busy with sins as big as possible and if not that, then the smaller sins and if not that,

10:18to make you busy with the things that are permissible but not necessarily beneficial. Shaytan even goes to that level where he will try to get you to do something which is halal permissible, mubar. But it's not what you should be doing or it's not the best thing you could be doing. More than that, will Shaytan ever tell you to do a good deed? Yes, of course. If an akhiyam mentions Rahim Allahu ta'ala to the extent that the shaytan will tell you to do a good deed on the condition that it's taking you away from something better. So some there's some good deed which is really important if the shaytan can't tell you to do a sin and take you away from it, he can even say to you, do this good deed but just not the important one. Not the one that is really necessary for you. So you see someone busy with something

11:18that is not what they are supposed to be doing at that particular time. And if this is the case, then this topic is gonna be super important for all of us. Just 20 seconds until your video continues. That's enough time to ask yourself, are you investing in your growth? AMAU Academy gives you structured Islamic studies, Arabic and self-development courses all at your own pace. Don't miss out. Begin your journey today at AMAUacademy.com. And in that sense, we're gonna take it nice and slowly, we're gonna look at different areas, we're gonna go in a lot of detail, but today I just wanna introduce the topic, that's all. I just want to talk a little bit about the topic, the importance what it is, a little bit about some of the texts of Islam that we might wanna look into. And then week by week we take a specific topic and we look into it, we delve into it. Be izni Allahu ta-baraku wa ta'ala.

12:18Ultimately, we're gonna start from the principle, ala ya alamu man khalak, wa huwa l-laltifu al-khabir. Doesn't the one who created you know best, no doubt he does. And that's why whenever you're gonna read what this person said and that person said, ultimately, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is your creator and he knows what is best for you. And he knows what is optimum and what is the most productive and the most effective for you. All of that has been given to you, we just have to look for it and take it out and present it in a way that we can understand. Be izni Allahu ta-baraku wa ta'ala. And we have to remind ourselves, I have good days and bad days, some days I feel like the productivity's going the right way. And some days I feel like it's not. And that is the norm of life. Wa tilke alayamu no dea wiluhabaininness.

13:19Is days we alternate between the people. And that's the nature of life, right? Victory, defeat, success, failure. I thought we'd start with a bit of a, and this is probably the only part that is not directly connected to Islam, but there's a reason for it. What is productivity? So if you look at the word productivity and this is a benefit in this, which is that, tahrifat, often definitions, depend on the subject that you're talking about. A given example, the word sunna, means a different thing in the general meaning of the language, in the science of akhida, in the science of hadith, in the science of osolulfir, in the science of al-Furwa al-Fakhida, the word sunna might mean something different to all those different people. And so sometimes you find words that are very subject-specific.

14:21So generally productivity originally, maybe you can say in economics, the ratio of output to input. You don't have to write any of the stances. I'm gonna come to the Islamic definition in a minute. The ratio of output to input, the efficiency with which resources are converted into goods and services. So we're looking at output versus input. I'm looking at generic here, because I'm gonna come to the Islamic definition. So generically, if I take a benefit from this, I'm looking at output and input, how much I put in, how much I get out, and I'm looking at efficiency. In a business context, the effectiveness with which an organization converts labor, capital, materials, and energy into products and services of value. I like the word effectiveness. We're gonna talk about, is there a difference in effectiveness and efficiency? I like the idea of value. And we want an output which is valuable to us. That's gonna be important for us, Islamically. We want an output that is valuable for us,

15:22and we want to convert some raw resources that we've been given by our law into a valuable output. So keep that in your mind. We're just gonna go through a few because I'm trying to get to the point of an Islamic definition, because we don't really have one, I'm gonna suggest one to you. So we're looking at some limited resources we've been given by our law, and we're looking at producing valuable output. Okay, in systems design, they say maximizing value and minimizing waste, delivering with the fewest unnecessary steps, delays and resources. Okay, I like maximizing value, minimizing waste as well. You can't maximize your output till you cut down some of the stuff that doesn't need to be there. In Islam, we call it zuhut, right? That's a part of zuhut, the idea of cutting out things that don't need to be there, for sure the haram doesn't need to be there, and the doubtful matters don't need to be there, but also quite a lot of the halal and mobile hat

16:23also don't need to be there. So cutting things out, taking things away that you don't need, in knowledge work, the capacity to produce high quality intellectual output, ideas, decisions and solutions, not merely volume of activity. So it's not about the volume here, like we say the famous statement, it is quality, not quantity here. So we're not looking at necessarily maximizing the number of rak'a at we pray each day, but we're looking at the optimum quality. In psychology, the sustained application of deep concentration, on cognitively demanding tasks that produce valuable outcomes. What I like about the idea of that is concentration, like really being able to apply yourself to, for example, Abadda, really being able to apply yourself to it, and not just doing it in a robotic way. Individually, this is probably the most relevant

17:24to us from the definitions. The ability to consistently produce meaningful results by managing one's time, and energy, and directing attention towards high value activities. So I like the word consistently here, because that's what we're looking for, right? Consistency, not just one good day, but lots of good days. And we're looking at managing time and definitely we're looking to putting our energy and resources into what we consider to be high value. If we took all those definitions, and just made them into one thing, it's not doing more, it's about doing what matters most with the least wasted effort. I don't put many quotes of the non-mostens, but there's one I quite like. There's nothing so useless as doing efficiently, that which should not be done at all. I like that quote, even though, I mean, I don't look at a lot of their quotes, I don't quote, but I like that one. There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently, something that should never have been done in the first place. You might be super efficient at it.

18:27Like super good at it. And just you're just doing it so fast and so well, but it's something that in the first place, you shouldn't be doing, or it's not the biggest priority. So really here, if we wanna convert this into something Islamic, I think we're gonna need two things. We're gonna need to define an outcome or a goal. What is our goal? What is our outcome? Cause these guys talking about, I wanna produce products and services and goods and delivering value and intellectual output and all of that, but Islamically, what is our goal? And the second thing is, what resources do we have to produce it? Cause we're not talking economics. We're not talking about the GDP of a country, or we're not talking about the concentration that a person has, we're not talking about a company taking raw products and producing something out of it. We're talking Islamically, what resources do we have

19:27and what output do we want? For me ultimately, the statement of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala Famanzuh Ziharani Nari wa Uduqil Al-Jalna Tefakat Fas Wa Mal Hayatud Dunya illa Mata'ul Huraoud Whoever is saved from the fire, taken away from the fire and entered into gender, that is the person who has succeeded. Don't say success is about your dunya or about your education or about your salary. Success is that Yom al-Kiyama, your face is turned away from the health fire and you become from the people of gender. And the life of this world is nothing but a deceptive and temporary enjoyment. It's a matter, but it is Mata'ul Huraoud. It's deceptive and it's temporary. So this world you can seem like I want to achieve this,

20:29this and this and this and this and there's nothing wrong with achieving something good in this world if it helps you in the Aachiyama. But ultimately, what we really want in the end of it is we want gender. And most specifically, then that. The Hadith of the Messenger, Allah, O Messenger of Allah, has sent down the name of Allah, so ask him the Holy Spirit. So, he is the first of the gender and the next of the gender. And he is the first of the companions and from him, he is the first of the gender. If you ask Allah for the gender, ask him for the next of the gender. We ask Allah for the next of the gender. For it is the best of gender. And the highest of gender, the narrator said, I believe he said, above it is the throne of the most merciful and the rivers of paradise spring forth from it. That's what we want. Anything that is going to get you and me closer to that

21:31in the best way possible, that sounds like productivity to me. What about the resources? Really the resource that we fear wasting is the resource that can never ever come back to you. It can never be reused, it can never be recycled. It's never ever coming back. And that is time. So, if I said, when the time of a person comes or a people comes, they will not be able to delay it by even a small amount of time and they will not be able to bring it forward. You have a set amount of time. No doubt we can bring in their money and health and all of those other things that Allah has given you, your intellect and so on. But in reality, those things can come and go.

22:32You can be poor one day and wealthy the next and poor the next and wealthy the next. You can be healthy and sick and healthy again. But one thing that is never coming back to you is the time. That hour that just went, that hour is never coming back. Whatever you pray and beg and ask and do, that hour will never ever come back to you. So really the ultimate resource is time. If we can use our time effectively, along with the other blessings given by Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala, and we can use that to effectively work for and strive for the causes of Al Ferdousa Al Al A'lamina Al Jannah, the causes I don't say, strive for it directly. Because we can't enter our self into Jannah. Whatever actions you do, you can't put yourself into paradise, that's how hard you work. But there are actions through which Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala

23:36bestows His mercy upon a person and through that mercy the person enters Jannah. So maybe we can say, and this is just an initial idea, we could improve it as time goes on, but an initial idea. But in Islam, perhaps we can say productivity is the ability to effectively perform the actions that are the worldly causes of attaining paradise by using every blessing that Allah has entrusted you with, time, health, energy and wealth in the most beneficial way. That is not set in stone, that's not an eye, it's not a hadith, it's just an idea. Something like that. Effectively perform the actions that are the worldly causes of attaining paradise. By using every blessing that Allah has entrusted you with, especially your time, in the most beneficial way. And maybe we could add something in the fact that,

24:37we could even say, and perhaps instead of paradise, we could even say the best of both worlds, perhaps we could say attaining the best of both worlds. In the sense that it doesn't stop you actually from benefiting in your dunya, it doesn't stop you actually from doing well in your job or doing well in your education. So maybe we could say the causes of the best of attaining the best of both worlds. Listen to the statement of Allah, Azawajal. In the advice of many isra'il to Karun, wa betagifima atak Allahuddara al-akhirah. Wa latansanasiba kamin al-dunya wa ahsinkama ahsana Allahu ilayk wa la taba'il fasaadafil ard inna Allahalaihi wa habbalmufsidhiin. Just as a general thought, use what Allah has given you to seek the aakhirah.

25:38Hwani Allah has given you resources. In the story of Karun, it's money, but Allah subham Allah has given every one of you resources. It's given you life. A life's man is given you a certain amount of health. A certain amount of money. A certain amount of time, a certain amount of intellect, a certain amount of physical strength. Allah subhan Allah has given you to you. Now what does Allah want you to do with that which is given? Wa betagifima atak Allahuddara al-akhirah. Use it to get the aakhirah. Wa latansanasiba kamin al-dunya. This is an ayah when you read the tefsir of the ayah, you actually find sometimes it happens. When you read the tefsir of an ayah, the tefsir surprises you. And the reason it surprises you is often, you presume something about the ayah, which might be a view, but it might not be the mainstream view of the ayah. Whenever you hear a wala atansanasiba kamin al-dunya,

26:41doesn't your mind go towards, don't forget you're allowed to have a part of the dunya. Like we're not telling you to leave your dunya, right? Wala atansanasiba kamin al-dunya. But that's not the main tefsir of the ayah. It's what sometimes you just think it, right? We hear the story like, so get the aakhirah and you're allowed to have something from the dunya. Like many of them said, wala atansanasiba kamin al-dunya means don't forget to worship Allah in the limited time you have in this dunya. And you don't forget to do your nasib of ebadah, your nasib of personal worship. In other words, spend your money, but don't forget as well to make do a, to cry before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to do your salat, to don't forget your personal worship in this world. Don't think that just pay, you can pay your way to gender with just buying and giving charity, use what Allah has given you

27:42and don't forget to do your personal worship in this world. And some of them said, wala atansanasiba kamin al-dunya, don't forget your portion of what Allah made halal for you in the dunya. Wala atansan kamin al-dunya, and be good to others as Allah has been good to you. Wala atab-e-ghil-fas'at-e-fil-a'r. And don't seek to cause corruption on the earth in Allah, la yuhibbul mufsidhi in Allah, does not love the ones who make corruption on the earth. Iqwani, awa time in this world is so, so limited. Listen to the statement of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. When Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, asks the people, the disbelievers, yumukhi yama, khala kamin al-abithtum fil-a'rdiya'adad-a-siniin, khalo labithna yaman, aubah abayyawmin, fas'al al-aad din,

28:43khala illa abithtum illa qalilan, louanna kun'tum ta'alam, afah hasibatum, anna maqhala kunaqum abathum, wa anna kun ilayna, la turjahun, fatah ala'al-lahu l-melikul hak, la ila'a illa'a'il-lahu wa rabbul arshil-kalin, Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and ask them, listen to what Ibn Kethi said, ya'kul ta'ala'a', munabihan lahum, ala ma'a'adahuhuhu, fi'umurihim, al qasir, dfiddunya, min ta'atillahi ta'ala'a'ibadatihe wahta, wa lausabaruhu, fi'muddatid dunya'a'al qasirah, la fazuhkama faza'a'a'ulia'uhun muttakun, Ibn Kethi'sa'abaatiz ayat, Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala', subhanahu wa ta'ala', tells us about the people who wasted their life, their little life in this dunya, their short life in this dunya, they wasted it. They didn't obey Allah,

29:43they didn't worship Allah alone, if they could just have been patient, the length of this short dunya, they would have been successful, like Allah's beloved muttakun, the people of Takua, was successful. So then is it fair for us to say that those people didn't have enough time, no? As Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala', Ibn Mu'ammir, Qumayye tazakqarufihi mantezakqar, wa jaa'aqunun na'zir, fazuku fa ma'aliyadh al-Zalimina min nasir, did we not give you a life that was long enough for the one who wants to remember, to remember and did not a woman come to you? So taste the punishment, because there is no helper for the oppressive people. Look at how they might answer that. Look at what they say, to begin with, what do they say? So we can do righteous deeds.

30:48What does Allah say? We didn't give you enough time, let's have a little extension. We gave every one of you enough time that you could have remembered. And the one who came to you, because if the one who didn't come to you, and we were not punished until we sent a messenger, the one who came, and you had enough time to remember. So there is no excuse. The reality is that we deceive ourselves in regard to time. In the Hadith of Abdelayb, the messenger of Allah, the messenger of Allah, said, two blessings, many people are deceived. They are losing out and they are being deceived regarding them. Health and free time.

31:50And a person believes they'll always be healthy, right? You never ever imagine the point will come. Like in your planning of your life, right? We'll talk about this later in Shahr al-Tarif, in the future lessons, when you plan out your life and what you're going to do, you plan, I'm always going to be healthy and wealthy and plenty of time. You don't plan to die tomorrow. You don't plan to have no money. You don't plan to be so sick that you can't come to the messaged. So people are deceived by these blessings in thinking that there's no way they can ever lose them. And I love the statement of Al-Hassan al-Basri who Rahimahullah, Abu Nuh'am narrated it from him in the first verse, that he said, Ya Bana Adam, Inna Ma'antaaayyam, fa Inza Haba Yawmuk, The Haba Baaduk, All son of Adam, you are just a few days. You're just a few numbered days. You don't like they say in English, your days are numbered. You just have a few number of days.

32:50If one day goes, part of you goes with it. Ammaidea brothers and sisters, we know that all of us have jobs to do in this world. Didn't Allah Subhanahu Ta'ala address the messenger to Allah, O Salam, and say, Inna Laqafinna Haadi Sabahantawila, You have O Muhammad, Salam, in the day, a prolonged occupation with worldly duties. And you have jobs to do, it's part of your worldly life. And we have to find a way to manage all of this effectively because in Allah, it's Allah's, Ammaidah, with a quote, it's a bit of a long quote from Al-Mahmub-Nukayim, Rahimahullah, Allah, he mentions it in the answer to the question. He said, Rahimahullah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah,

34:17He said, Very young. 发 He said, Yes, in my case, you are the one He invented in me, this will be for you. You will notice, these things go with us. There are our differences. The difference between playable issues was a useful and free and non-smart but selfish ones and it passes like the passing of the clouds. Whatever of his time is for the sake of Allah and seeking the help of Allah, that is his true life. Other than that, it's not counted as part of his life, even if he lived the way that the cattle lived. And he ate and he drank and he slept and he walked around, but we don't count that as part of his life. If he spends his time in heedlessness and distraction and false hopes, the best thing he can do in that situation is go to sleep.

35:20Sleeping and idleness, the death of such a person is better than his life and a person who lives their life like that and he death is better than life. But this just really, it hammers home the importance of this life that Allah has given you and this time that Allah has given you and that you owe it to yourself, that you try to maximize and take the most benefit from it possible. And if these lessons can help all of us myself first of all and then you that we can get more out of this limited time that we have in this world and we can do more or we can be more effective in getting closer to Allah's subhanahu t-Ala. And we even if we can get more productive in our dunya to help us in the aqyara, any in the sense of if I can be a bit more productive in my dunya, I can give more time to my aqyara. Then that will have been time well spent, but isn't Allah it abarak o ta'ala.

36:23And like I said, I think that when we looked at the students and how much people are suffering in this and how many people struggle to learn and struggle to memorize and struggle to read the Quran and they struggle with so many things that they need to do and these struggles come back to a time management and organization and things like that. So we have to give the subject the best that we can in sh-Allah o ta'ala. That's what Allah Azza wa Jalla made easy for me to mention and Allah Azza wa Jalla was best. Assalamu ala anabina Muhammad wa aala aalihi wa s-sahbihi Ajma'in wa jazakum allahu khayran