Update for 25th August 2022

as Salaamu Alaykum,

My intention with these newsletters is to synthesise beneficial information for you in sha Allah.

Podcasts coming up in order of upload in sha Allah: Muttaqi Ismail from the Islamic History podcast; Muhammad Saqib - Muslim Performance Psychologist; and Imam Tom Facchine of UTICA Masjid. Having these kinds of conversations is one of my favourite things. I learn a lot and generally spend a few hours before the podcast going through the prospective guest's content so once the interview is done, I'm usually tired but also inspired. Alhamdulillah

A Self Development Idea I was thinking about this week:

It is not conducive to long-term progress to view goals or behaviour change solely from the lens of what needs to be done, i.e a list of steps without factoring in human-ness. Like with most things, there is a need for balance. There is a quote I heard from Jocko Willink in which he advises using cold, hard logic to deal with your emotions or feelings when they are preventing you from executing but to use your emotions to sometimes push through the logical side of your thinking when that is required. On the other hand, sometimes it is good to gain overall perspective by asking yourself what actions and habits you would try to adopt if you were programming a robot to learn how to do the said thing. Then try to get as close to the ideal as possible.

Hadith on Happiness

Al-Hakim collects from Sa'ad that the Prophet ﷺ said: Happiness is: a righteous woman, when you see her she amazes you, when you are absent she is trustworthy with herself or your wealth.

Misery is: a woman who when you see her she irritates you and speaks to you with a barbed tongue, and when you are absent you can't trust her with herself or your wealth.

An Islamic Reminder

In my interview with Imam Tom Facchine which was recorded on Sunday, we briefly discussed the perils of gaining some followers on social media or having a YouTube channel where you quickly realise that the type of content most conducive to views even within the Islamic accounts or Dawah scene may not be optimal from a good-deed perspective.

Obviously, with most of the rubbish out there, it's clear. There are avenues for sly whisperings, however, when it comes to say reaction videos or mentioning others who already have followings to bolster your own views. You might think, that doesn't sound like a challenging moral dilemma, you obviously shouldn't do it. Hear this example out. What if Alif who has a YouTube channel makes a video portraying Ba in a negative light but Alif is certain he is doing his duty of enjoining good and forbidding evil? Now, the first time Alif does this, it might be a case where Ba's actions or speech was clearly wrong. Where it becomes dangerous is when Alif sees how the algorithm favoured his reaction content so much more than his other videos so it biases him to shift his content towards more of that. Sooner or later, there will be some collateral damage and by collateral damage, I mean the stuff that could come back to you on the day of judgement...

I also mentioned to Imam Tom how sometimes I see thumbnails and titles from Muslims in the Dawah scene which are clickbait. If not outright dishonesty, they define certain terms liberally and perhaps not in the way a common person would ascribe meaning to them from reading the title. An example: "Non-Muslim fights Muslim over Bible verse", this might be accompanied by an engaging thumbnail which would make one suspect a physical altercation took place. They click on the video, and watch all 15 minutes expecting to see what they thought the video was about, only to realise there was no fight but perhaps some disrespectful remarks exchanged at the 14 minutes mark😂. Now, isn't there an element of blameworthy dishonesty here? (this was all made up so please don't think I'm referring to anyone albeit it is based on some of what I've seen)

Imam Tom mentioned how Imam Bukhari once came to note hadith from someone but when he saw that the person had tried to move his donkey by pretending that he was about to feed it but then not doing so, Imam Bukhari left stating he could not take from someone who had this trait of dishonesty! I was amazed by this story.

(Based on my recollection of the interview, details are likely to not be correct)

 Content I found beneficial this week:

If you're a bit of a nerd you will be familiar with Anki - the spaced repetition digital flashcards software. Well, after years of using it, I learned (again through Imam Tom's segment on language learning), that there are shared decks that you can download that other people have already compiled. Felt a bit silly but alhamdulillah I'm happy to discover them now. I have downloaded various Urdu, psychology and an Arabic deck to work through

Book Review

Sayd Al Khatir - Ibn Jawzi. This is not available on Kindle but it differs from most works by heavyweight scholars in that it reads as more of an autobiographical account. It is like reading entries from a personal journal and it is amazing. There is a chapter about Ibn Jawzi in Saviours of the Islamic Spirit and I made a podcast about an extract from it in 2019. Check it out here

Some quotes from my readings:

The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Stop pretending that what you’re going through is somehow special or unfair. Whatever trouble you’re having—no matter how difficult—is not some unique misfortune picked out especially for you. It just is what it is.

Mental Models by Peter Hollins

Project yourself to age 80. Imagine yourself looking back on your life at that age, knowing that you want to feel as few regrets as possible. Ask yourself, “In X number of years, will I regret taking this action (or not taking this action)?” 

Many don’t have an opinion until they’re asked for it, at which point they cobble together a viewpoint from whim & half-remembered hearsay, before deciding that this 2-minute-old makeshift opinion will be their new hill to die on.

— Gurwinder Bhogal

"If you're unwilling to adapt to the future, you'll justify the past." James Clear

Something unrelated but I found interesting:

Why thinking hard makes us feel tired link

One question to ask ourselves

What is my biggest time-wasting regret of the last week?

 I want to hear from like-minded people, please feel free to reply.

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Some of the Content from this week:

🎥 Can You Memorize the Qur'an By Yourself at Home?

Can you memorize the holy Qur'an by yourself?

You may have heard stories of people having done this but how likely is it really?

Click here to watch the video

🎥 A Single Dua Can Change Everything in Unexplainable Ways ماشاءالله

How a single Dua can change everything by the Will of Allāh ﷻ.

Click here to watch the video

🎥 Qu'ran Hifdh Competition Winner, Tajweed Tips, Dr Zakir Naik, IOU & More with Ustadh Farhan Somani

We discuss Qur'an memorisation and tajweed tips, the common mistakes people from the Indian Subcontinent make in Tajweed and fascinating insights into Ustadh Farhan's own journey during which he won an Indian National Qur'an memorisation contest and spent time in Dr Zakir Naik's International Islamic school.

Click here to watch the video

Please share if you learned something or found it interesting.

Aadil