#082 IlmFeed Podcast w Yawar Baig – Leadership Lessons From Rasulullah ﷺ, Service During The Pandemic

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah dear brothers and sisters as salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. I'm your host Fatima barkatullah. Welcome to this episode of the MV podcast where I have a special guest. One of my mentors. Chef, your big Musa, your big salaam aleikum.

Wa Alaykum wa sallahu wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Very nice to meet again, virtually after several years. How When, when, when was the last Elysee? That we met in London?

The panela leadership excellence course, right? Yeah, it was, um,

it was a number of years ago. I don't remember the exact year. Right. Yeah, Bravo, I think probably around maybe 2012 or something like that.

Or Yeah, 14, because I was in London, or in 2014 and 2015, to speak at the International Conference on on faith based education. In London and Oxford, and this was the LSE was before that, if I'm not mistaken. So could be 2012 or something like that. Yeah. Yes.

So for the for our viewers and listeners who might not be familiar with you, although I did check chef Yahweh. And I saw that your fudger reminders are one of the most popular podcasts in Britain, under the Islam category. So I think most people are familiar with you Mashallah. But for those brothers and sisters who might not have come across your work, shift Yo, where is Subhanallah, so many things. He's an international speaker, author, life coach, corporate consultant. And he says the heat he hopes through his work to bridge the gulf between Islamic theology and its application in the modern context. And I came across chef Yarborough's work and a lot of the art in the UK, I

think have, you know, benefited from Chef yawata through his leadership, courses, leadership training courses, and we attended one that was residential A few years ago, which is what Chiquita was referring to. And I have your book here Shahe, our leadership lessons from the life of Rasulullah Salama, when he was the lawyer that you kindly gifted to me all those years ago?

shift? I don't know where to start. I mean, first of all, let me ask you, what are your reflections on the pandemic, you know, and the last

year or so, you know, that we've just experienced? And what's it been like for you?

You know, I came to America

in September 2019.

And

I was reflecting, I thought to myself that if as I walked off the plane in Boston in September 2019, if somebody had said to me that in two months from now, or three months from now, there will be no planes flying in the air, there will be no work happening, industry will shut down, offices will shut down, you will not be able to leave your home. I would say you know, I would ask him. Tell me what is it you're smoking, right? Because this this doesn't have a blame don't fly me Give me a break for God's sake. So, but exactly, that's what happened. I mean, the whole world came to it's like running into a brick wall. Right? Stop completely. And I've done a couple of podcasts and a

couple of lectures as well on this. My reflection, the first and foremost reflection is really, I think, you know, Allah subhanaw taala asked us this question many times, but we did not answer him. And the question was rather asked as was for another wall. Where are you going? Where are you going? And we said, No, no, no, no, hold on a second. I mean, I'm very busy. You know, I go, I work my work to do I'm here that I will tell you when I have the time, I will tell you, I must have stopped us dead in our tracks. The first and foremost reflection for me was somehow law for a Natasa, boom, where are you going? So I think this is if I define today, the ideal hire the in the hands of Allah

subhanaw taala. There's only five. This is the the positive aspect of the pandemic. We don't ask for it. We don't say that, you know, give us a pandemic for this to happen. But Alhamdulillah as it happened, I think one of the biggest benefits that we had was the opportunity to stop and think and say where am I going

Now because of the nature of the pandemic, meaning that here was a deadly disease, which could easily kill you, and there are over over a couple of million people in the world who can now bear witness to the fact that this is not a conspiracy theory and whatnot, the dead bodies Don't lie. So now this person, this opportunity, because it was linked to that, quite literally, even though as soon as our asylum told us this many times, he said, the most intelligent of you is the one who thinks of his death most often. He said, think of the one which which takes away and removes all your pleasures. He said, when you make Salah on the left, do not believe a very big Salah girl, I do

not believe that you will be able to complete the Salah, on your left, and so on and so on. But, you know, we don't pay attention now to what the interviewer Rachel told us. So now I

brought it very graphically and very, in the face for us to say, Well, here is what it is, where are you going? Because this is literally death staring you in the face. Now you decide, where are you going? So we had the opportunity. I'm not saying that everyone took the opportunity. I'm not saying that everyone benefited from it. But alas, viatera doesn't force anything. Allah has given us the opportunity to benefit. And those of us who reflect it, and so on, I think a lot of people did make a make some very serious changes in their lives. And I know several people who came to me and told me, this is how I changed my life. This is what I did. 100 This is the positive aspect of it. The

other thing, of course, is you know, the issue of working from home. I mean, somebody was, I was complaining to me, he said, Oh, you know, this work from home. And I said to him, I said, Listen, if you're working from home, it means two things, one that you have a home and to that you have work. So stop being grateful for that because complaining, yes. Because there are people who don't have either of these, they don't have a home,

right? living out of a shopping cart, and sleeping in doorways in the night, or there are people who may have a home, but they don't have work. So they have got they've got problems.

So I think this is gave us an opportunity. I have to thank our last panel that I remember very soon after the pandemic I'm involved in in quite a lot of interfaith work here as well. So there is one of the interfaith councils that I'm a member of, and we had a interfaith gathering. So I began my I had to speak for a while so I began my speed by saying, Let me because all of you please take two deep breaths. So as

I said, No thank Allah that you are able to breathe because when you die of COVID you die off what respiratory failure, inability to breathe. So I said that hamdulillah we are able to breathe so this is something that we need to thank Allah subhanaw taala for it's supposedly simple things. But believe me, I mean, it may be simple but if people stopped breathing, you know exactly how important it is. Right? So I think it gave us a lot of opportunity. Obviously it also created the pandemic has created will create and continues to create a lot of stress. Some of the major ones is the fact that from an Islamic perspective from Muslim perspective, it it

the the precautions we need to take are things that literally sort of go against our culture. You know, you cannot stand shoulder to shoulder and Salah you cannot and you cannot ask somebody to to greet them for aid. I mean to age when passed and May Allah give you and me and everyone Ramadan Kareem will hire inshallah this year just you know a little over a month from now we will have eaten fitter again, the second time in the pandemic.

But we can't we can't have some you know you our friend we cannot we cannot greet them in the way we normally do.

These things including gatherings I mean, this is fine. I see everything has two sides to it. For example. We used to have so I mean I've done for over two years almost. We haven't had I haven't traveled anywhere and for me that's a big thing because I used to travel six eight times a year.

But the last two years I haven't been anywhere. And then all of a holla cars and all that everything was person in person now everything is is online, online. The other side of it in a normal you know daily halaqa after Salah Felicia used to have you would have maybe 20 people 25 people and used to say wow 25 people. Now if you look at the the daily classes that I do Monday through Thursday, you've got 8090 100 over 100 people. So I mean, I'm saying this is because people are having their own time and so, there is a there is a positive side and obviously there is a there is a difficult side we are

A lot of avocado trees that that difficulty inshallah

mean does. Karen, thank you for your reflections. Yes, absolutely. I think it's definitely it definitely caused all of us to stop in our tracks right and reassess where we're going, where we've been what we were in the middle of when it started right? panelizer Zack McLaren, I'm sure

I was reading your book. And one of the things you say in it is my premise is this, since he was able to change his world and take his people from being the most insignificant, oppressed and weakest to becoming the predominant, admired and strongest in just one generation. If we learn how he was able to do it, we will be able to learn how to succeed in our world today. And Mashallah, your book is like a, an analysis of some of the key leadership qualities that rust that we can learn from Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam.

In our times,

for somebody who is not familiar with the kind of leadership space who thinks Okay, a leader is basically the head of an organization or the person who stands in front or in the mom or, or four sisters who are listening who think, well, it doesn't really apply to women or something, you know,

how would you introduce people to leadership and what it means and what we can in essence learn from masala Salalah when he was still alive. You know, I want to say a few words about the book very quickly before this video permission is interesting. My one of my dearest friends and also my dad in many ways.

He Brian bombs have done back at home, the Secretary General of the south of the South Africa.

I was in South Africa, I go to South Africa. Again, last two years, I would have been but I mean, otherwise, I go to South Africa every year. So one day, he said to me, you know you

you do all this work in leadership. Why don't you write a book on the leadership style of rasa Salah. So I think I asked Tara to reward monogram for the idea and to give him the Azure of this book, inshallah as a beautiful idea from a wonderful person. And so I started researching for this. And then I was invited to speak at the International Islamic conference, in what's called the International hedge conference, in Makkah, in 2008, and after Hajj, and so on, we were going to Medina.

And as we were in the buses, the whole, they're invited about, you know, 30 or 40 walima from all over the world. And as we were going in this bus, I was sitting right in the front.

And I started seeing the minarets seminars, towers of the Hara. And I thought to myself that what is it that, you know, what, how much this thing have seen or been visible when the solar solar masses

when they made their hedra?

What were they seeing? Because obviously, there was no budget, there's no tower, you know, so I said here was literally an insignificant little village in the middle of nowhere, right?

And that, the light that came out of that, okay, that's why

the light that came out of that eliminated the whole world and continues to do 14 centuries later, and it will do until Allah subhanaw taala keeps this world I mean, what was it that that enabled this to happen? So, that was my,

my thoughts in this whole thing. So I

sell them in a very different way, from the usual way in which Sierra is written, which is like a history autobiography. I looked at it not from a chronological perspective of you know, he was born and and so on, so forth, and when and how he grew up and so what I said what is it of his leadership style, and his leadership methods that we can learn which are applicable for us today in our world? So my whole focus was always not just regarding what happened because we know that there are plenty of people written that I'm saying, how's that applicable today?

Mandela gave this I mean, I don't take any royalty on this book. As you know, what Allah tala gave this, so

Much of you know, Baraka, this is out of my 40 books, this is the one which is the highest self.

This book has been translated to five languages

in Arabic, hausa, Malayalam Tamil,

and in research resources is five languages and Alhamdulillah this is, you know, so I'm very grateful to Allah subhanaw taala for, I asked him to make this a legacy for me when I meet him inshallah. Now, the point, as I said, like you said, in the thing, you know, the previous, my previous is, here is a formula, you don't like it to do link it back again, to my to my corporate work in corporations when we do any introduction of any initiative,

especially if it is an initiative which is, which might be rather radical in nature. Right? Then the standard procedure is we we go to the company, and we say, let us run a pilot project in a small area. And then, you know, and we'll show you what's what's called proof of concept. So, here is our concept, we will run a pilot project in a small area for proof of concept. And then if you like that, this you can now you know, rollout.

Now, in my view, the life of receivers are seldom, and his life both in Makkah and Medina, was Allah subhanho wa Taala, creating a proof of concept that Islam works, what's the concept works, and the proof of concept is the Syrah of the hammer of Romania Salalah. Heidi, while he was at Listen, and so I'm saying here that if this and we approve, I mean, this is not a matter of villages history, we have and we said history where he applied a methodology and it was a thunderous success. Now, if we apply the same methodology to Richard what now there's another call another context, which is that a proof of concept also depends on circumstances. So if I'm applying a proof of concept in one

situation, you might say, Well, you know, that thing worked in that situation. But today, our situation is completely different to how will it work? Now, this is where I try to bridge the gap between theology and history and the modern context and my submission. And my claim is that, conceptually speaking, there is no difference between the Makkah and Medina apostles are seldom and our world today, conceptually speaking, the only difference is a difference of scale. What was happening in Makkah for surah Salaam is happening today, globally. Now, to give you a few small snippets of how of why I say that, for example, NACA was not ruled by a king, Makkah was ruled by a

group of wealthy businessmen. Right now, no matter how much we would like to talk about democracy, democracy, as in the original idea of the Greek city states that with the Greek city states,

what happens is an oligarchy. everywhere in the world, we call it democracy. Putin calls what he runs us democracy.

The Chinese guy called what he runs a democracy. So democracy is a is a word, which is very loosely used. But what actually operates in the world, whether it's in in the United States, whether it's in England, whether it's in the in India, wherever, is really oligarchies, which is a group of wealthy businessmen run the world.

And sad to say, it's all businessmen and then a women involved in all this is a bunch of men. If you take today, for example, the World Bank figures and say, global wealth, there are eight men, and all of them are a white man, like literally quite literally eight white men who own collectively their assets of more than the collective assets of 50% of the rest of the world.

Right. So this is the reality. So now in Makkah, there was no king, the place was run by a bunch of wealthy businessman. So that is one second thing is the rule in Makkah operative rule was, everything works, whatever you like you can do, provided you have the money to pay for it.

Right? There was no code and there was no, you know, ethics and so on and so forth. As long as you could pay for it. You could do it. So every conceivable social

Evil moral evil was present. And it was a means of earning money. So the single driving

single driver was does it make money? Right? Now, does this does all this sound familiar? in our modern context today? Exactly the same thing. Third thing, the banking system. Now, let us not believe that Makkah was a little village in the middle of nowhere. And you know, the people at the

tea shops, they didn't, the business people in Makkah, people like Adorama now was monumental fun, above one of the multilevel

and others, these people were global businessmen, not only comparable to anybody today, but in some cases exceeding them, if you take the net present value of money they had their money was worth more than what we have today. Right? These people did international transactions, they used banking instruments, which today we have different names for it. But believe me, if you, Sofia, and if you brought Abdullah bin, if you ride a bus with them, or Delano to Wall Street, have you brought them to the Federal Reserve, or you brought them to the world to the World Bank, and if you show them how things operate, believe me, they will be probably surprised that you know what computers can do, and

so on so forth. But they would have absolutely no problem understanding letters of credit, understanding all kinds of financial instruments that we use today, because they use exactly the same things. Right? That's very interesting that you say that, because

I've been studying Islamic finance in the last year. And one of the things that, you know, Western academics, they usually say is, you know, these principles, these orthodox principles, they sound nice, but then they're unworkable in the real world, right? And even some Muslim academics kind of go down this road, and they try to make out that, you know,

no, you can't find interest in the modern world, you can't, you can't have the same system. Because they use the argument that things are much more complicated now. And things are much more sophisticated and etc, etc. Right? But I think you're absolutely right, because when you strip human beings down to their basics, human nature doesn't change.

Human Nature doesn't change. So the same issues, the same problems, the same, even the same characters, right, that existed at the time of the Prophet salaallah salam O Allah exists today, this same greed that humans had is the same greed exists today. And it it, it manifests itself in the same way as well. So I think it's smoke and mirrors, you know, people try to make it seem like oh, you know, Islam is not workable, that those ethics they were they might have worked in a simple economy, but, you know, they can't work in the real world. I think it's a myth. They have absolute myth. I mean, my my contention and I'm saying historically provable contention is that the only

difference between that world and this world is really in terms of technology and logistics, nothing more. They didn't have computers, we have computers, right.

They didn't have institutions like a we did they even had for example, they had what today you would call joint stock companies.

Right? I mean,

they traded

they actually traded shares because people bought shares in businesses and they got profit and they got dividends on the shares. So what do you what do you want call

there we know that the whole point is that business is not as complicated as people like to make it out to principles which are which worked, it makes it made sense. For example, you had these big businessman, they had their trade caravans they would go from you know, as

I was safe, so they would go to a north to what is called today Syria, it was actually not

which was the Roman Empire and then they went south to Yemen which was part of the Persian Empire. Now obviously if you are a big businessman and if you are going there to buy things and sell things, and the currency those days was good right with all gold and silver. Now imagine you you will be traveling through the desert with gamma loads of gold and silver that that makes absolutely zero sense because then you become you have a huge like walking with a target on your back right? You will become a DD the point of attention of every single bandit on the face of the earth so obviously they're no they didn't travel like that they didn't carry around big been a big amount.

Golden golden silver. So what do they do? They use data looked at it, right? They do they read letters of credit they did they used,

you know, all kinds of things that we use today, which are financial instruments. And they retire very successfully with that. That's what made sense. Now, today we have all of that stuff on the cloud or on our hard drives, or were they added written now? But because I mean, that's what a difference. Yeah, so it is everything is applicable. The issue is, the Islam didn't come to teach us including, for example, Islamic Finance, Islam didn't come to teach us the financial instruments, right. Islam came to teach us the principles that supported them. Right. Based on it is based on accountability to Allah subhanaw taala. It is based on trust, it is based on honor, it is based on

compassion, it's based on collective responsibility for the world. Islam says it is not okay, if I have wealth, to use it in ways which are harmful to others. Today, we have entire global economies, which are based on the manufacture and sale of deadly weapons of weapons of mass destruction, right? And the same people who manufacture and sell weapons of mass destructions mass destruction, who do they sell it to? They sell it to people who want to use it, who are those people, those people are dictators. And on the top of all, that these two groups want to sit together and talk about the importance of peace. Now, my point is, how is it going to happen? Please tell me, you want to have

your whole economy based on the manufacture and sale of weapons of mass destruction, and you want peace? I mean, this is completely insane.

Yes.

So I'm saying here that, you know, I don't want to sort of go off the track. But my point is that the principles that operated in the time on Earth are seldom stay, like you said, human nature does not change ethics and values do not change. Lying always will be a, a problem, or an A sin, no matter how many lie you tell, nobody is going to tell you, I'm going to run a class now on how to lie, you know,

convincingly and how to tell convincing lies? I mean, have you ever heard, heard that No. But even people who actually teach that, for example,

forgive me for saying that a lot of advertising is that, but people nobody will actually call it by that, then maybe you should. Let me run a class a class on how to tell convincing lies. But the point is, that irrespective of that,

what is good will remain good and what is not good will will will remain evil because of the effects of that. And this is what to find from the life on Asana. So here was a pilot project that Allah subhanaw taala enabled him to create proof of concept that Islam works. And Islam works the way he ran it. So I'm not talking about changing Islam. I mean, that's the that is the I want to make very clear, I'm not talking about changing Islam. I'm not saying oh, you know, this rule was then no longer valid today in our modern world. So let's get rid of it. No, no, no, no, there's nothing in Islam Alhamdulillah, which is invalid. Islam is the religion that Allah subhanaw taala gave us. So

it does not need upgrades, it does not need, you know, changes, it does not need to be reinvented. What needs to be done is to change the way we approach it and the way we apply it, because the world has changed. So the principles remain the same, the tools, the application methodology, and the application context will be different, given the fact that now we have a very different world. But again, like you said, it's not different in terms of its structure in terms of it principles, in terms of the outsider it

Yeah, absolutely.

But to go back to my question,

about leadership, you know, like, how would you sum up what leadership is because, as I said, People think it means like being the head of an organization being the person in front being, I don't know,

you know, they think it's, there's a certain personality or a certain

role. That means you're a leader, what is the concept of leadership that your, that you talk about and that you promote?

You know, what I say to me, leadership, is the willingness to take responsibility for yourself.

Right, whichever situation you might be in, so potentially every single man or woman, irrespective of age, including children are potential

Surely, leaders, it depends on how they view themselves and they view their circumstances. So anyone who is trying to pass off the blame to somebody else, that person may be the president or prime minister of a country where that person is not a leader because they are dumping stuff on somebody else. And I believe in lots of familiar names with that, right? On the other hand, you might have a person who is an individual, maybe you know, a mother, maybe a daughter, maybe a school teacher, maybe anybody, right and including managers in organizations and whatnot, an individual who is willing to take responsibility for themselves, their actions and the consequences of their actions,

that

no matter who follows them, or doesn't follow them, that does that is not an indication of leadership.

It's a question of me, if that were an indication of leadership, what would you say to say about Noah a Sarah? Right. 900 years? 950 years of?

Yeah.

How many people follow him. So it's not a it's not a numbers game. It's not a numbers game. We are stuck with this thing, especially in the world of Dawa, we are stuck with the issue of you know, how many

likes you have on Facebook, or how many hits you have, and YouTube has absolutely zero meaning whatsoever, makes no sense whatsoever. The point is that leadership is to take responsibility and ownership for yourself, and for your actions and the consequences of those actions. So which are radically means you are now also holding yourself responsible for the effect that you create in the world. So it's not okay to do something which is negative, which is harming people and saying, No, this is my leadership. initiative. No, it's not. If it's something you're doing, which is causing negativity around, then this is not leadership.

Thank you for explaining leadership. So that so that means potentially anyone, in whatever role they find themselves in, in life can benefit from leadership qualities, right from learning leadership qualities, so how about if I go through, provided the choose to I think that's a very important thing. Because as somebody who takes ownership for themselves, their lives, their circumstances, so it is up to you, I mean it up to the individual, if you want to be a leader, you can be a leader, nobody can stop you. You don't need a designation, you know, don't need a point where you don't need anything you It's up to you, do you choose to be a leader or not. So I think that is something that

people must must understand. It's up to us. So share, I'm gonna take a few, maybe two or three of the qualities that you mentioned in your book, and I want you to please, just

on to some of my questions regarding them, and just explain how a person could, how the prophets Allah manifested this quality, and how we could potentially so one of the leadership qualities you had is a complete certainty in his belief and message. Now,

the thing is that most of us when we're starting a new project, or were involved in a new venture,

we don't have complete certainty, you know, like, we actually have a lot of self doubt. We're worried if we're going to cut it, you know, if we've got the skills, where we're worried if we're going to be able to raise the money, if we, you know, there's so many things.

How did the profits or solem manifest certainty? And how would we do it when we don't have revelation coming, you know, directly down to us telling us, your project is great, you know, your project is good. But let me let me maybe qualify that statement a little bit, which is,

I'm not talking about what's in your heart, we don't know this right. But what the world sees is what comes across, so manifest and demonstrate complete certainty. Now, having said that, believe me play acting cannot be sustained. So, if you are really doubtful, then it is very doubtful that you can sustain that for any length of time or for

you know, for for any,

you know, for for for for too many people. So it is necessary to be certain yourself. But even if you're not completely certain, as long as you don't,

don't show that doubt in your voice in your in your projections.

And then usually that's okay. People will still believe you because you speak convincingly and you live by what you are talking about.

But it's necessary when longevity is it is necessary to be sure about your project and yourself. Now, in that context, of course, one needs to be sure, you know, you need to convince yourself. And I think I tell people, I mean, the simplest thing is to remind yourself that if you are not convinced that how are you going to convince anybody else. So it's, it's very important to ensure that you can convince you that you are sure about what you are doing. And as I said, in the process, while you are getting shown and so forth, never show any doubt.

Now, what happens to us is, as you said, we are not receiving a revelation. Well, what happens to us and what's a good, very good aid is to have maybe one or two people not more than that, who can be mentors to you in this project. Now, that mentor, that person is somebody who actually has belief and faith in you, in your ability to succeed. Number one, you don't want to take somebody as a mentor, who spends all their time criticizing you. That's

because at the same time, you don't want a mentor who's just, you know, flattering you, which is nice. Yeah.

You want fact, but you want somebody to be able to tell you, you know what, I think that's a great job you're doing and not just say it, like, I mean, meaning, this is the reason I'm saying that back it up with data in terms of feedback. So you can learn from this and say that the job I'm doing is a good job. And it is right for these reasons. So I that's very important to have a mentor who is who is supportive, who is encouraging, but also somebody who can tell you what you need to hear, not only what you want to hear.

So it's a balance.

As I said, again, and I'm repeating that there's no good having people in your life, when you're starting off on projects, and so on, who are overly critical or constantly, you know, there are some people who are very discouraging, and the usual ways, or, you know, I tried that it didn't work, so it won't work. My point is right, it didn't work for you, does it mean done won't work for me? Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, I'm a different human being. So just because it didn't work for you, you have no right to tell me that it won't work period. And it also won't work for me. So I think that those people don't even get involved in argue with that, just, you know, not the people you want to be

to be with or you want to have them as your mentors, I think that's very important. So complete certainty is, is very, very critical. I mean, and

of course, obviously, because he was receiving revelation and so on. So I'm not saying he had it easy, but obviously his, you know, his, his his frame of reference was different. But in our context, we can still apply the same frame of reference in terms of our own certainty. final point I want to make is this we are not receiving revelation, but Allah is there for us also. So they're more inviting my project idea, even with my with my you know, at least temporary doubts in my mind, then go and stand in the hands of before Allah subhanho wa Taala and beg Allah subhanho wa Taala for his

support, yes, this is the connection. So if you do that inshallah, then the doubts will go because who is the one to give certainties of a mirror like that? The heart is the heart is in the hands of a nose rattle. So you said earlier I'm doing my best I'm right now please guide me. Right?

Allah guide me now guide me is not only in terms of you know, guide me between halala of course that is definitely that but guide me my project.

Details. I mean, you know, I'm not understanding a particular thing. How does it work? Show me who will guide me, The unfortunate thing is we have

you know, compartmentalised Islam and Islamic theology into one little box you know, maybe with a dome on top of it

again, yeah, only those Allah Allah you want to you want a recipe for for a very nice, sweet as the man who told you gonna ask Allah Tell me. Yes. And also that there is a type of ill harm isn't there there's a type of inspiration that

believer receives like this, there are times when you suddenly have an idea. Yeah. Or you suddenly meet somebody, somebody crosses your path or you see something that suddenly inspires you anything. That's from Allah. You know, I was looking, I was waiting for this. And suddenly that problem is solved or that I've got an idea, right? Yeah. So we do have a type of inspiration even Yes, you see there is this. One of my favorite authors is a guy called Malcolm Gladwell.

outliers, which I recommend all the time. Now he's another book called blink.

Right?

Now, he's talks, what he's written blink is something like what I'm saying here. Yeah, which is that you get a healer, he, of course, he doesn't talk in terms of Allah subhanaw, taala, and so on. But I'm saying that this is where that's the reality of it. This is where it comes from. And this is Mr. Lai Dara. Now, obviously, you don't go around saying after the oil, I'm getting wiped out.

Which or not, but the point is that the thought comes the the certainty comes from Allah subhanaw taala geladeira. And that's why combine that with it, do your best and then pray the head, dude, especially the hedges. I mean, I keep talking about the whole time, because it's such an important element of success, is to stand before

and beg him for his help. And ask Allah anything you want. I mean, Allah did not put a condition on to say, asked me only religious within quotes, religious things, no, every single thing to do in my life, who was asked, I asked

him for reminding us, you know, because sometimes we have problems, we have thoughts in our head. And the last thing we'll think about is the Hadoop we'll think about every other professional therapist, so and so that we would be able to turn to,

and yet we have something that we could actually do every single night, right? Yes.

So another one of the qualities, or the leadership, lessons from rasulillah that you highlight is

putting yourself on the line. And I'm thinking

that might be connected to a concept that somebody was talking to me about, which is

servant leadership, or is that not connected?

or disconnected? Absolutely. It's catchy.

Putting yourself on the line, you know, in entrepreneurship, my book on entrepreneurship also was dying. One of the most important lessons of entrepreneurship is that the entrepreneur himself or herself, must make a significant investment in their own project. Right? So major investment, significant investment in the money, money, money, time, energy, everything write significant meaning that you can't say, Well, you know, I've got this project, I'm working on it on weekends. And I'm coming to you and saying, Fatima, why don't you invest in my project? And if you ask me, just how much did you put in? No, no, I I'm I'm I'm getting investment. doesn't work like that,

right? doesn't work like that. If it is your project, then you want to know, how much did I put in? And if I'm doing it on weekends, no, no, hold on, let me know. When you come to doing it the whole way, then come to me. Right? I this is a hobby This is not is not your project, your hobby, find most welcome. Do your hobby, don't leave me out of it. If you want me to be a serious investor in your project, then I want to know that you are standing on that plank, and if it breaks, you fall into the sea. I mean, if you are, if you don't have the confidence to be there, don't ask me because it's your project. And if even you don't have confidence in that project, don't expect me to have

confidence, I mean, who am I right? This is what what he will tell me. So, I think that is very important, a significant investment of the person

which is put yourself on the line leadership, by definition is from the front, who is a leader, one was followers, where are the followers physically speaking, in front of you or behind you, you know,

if you are leading you got to be in the front, there is no such thing as reading from the back.

Leadership is always from the front. Now, what is servant leadership? servant leadership is really it is it is leadership. I mean, I don't know of any other leadership which is other than that, because who is a leader, a leader, one of the most significant roles and responsibilities of the leader is to take care of every need of the followers.

Right now, if the ad is what we like to call servant leadership, which is I'm serving the people. you're serving the word you are the person giving them direction. You are the person who

who's who's whose life is on the line for that project, they lose a job, do you lose your life, I mean, it's like that. Right? Not, not, may not be literally. But I'm saying in the context of that, I mean, I've invested everything in my project, people are working for me, if my project sings, they lose a job, they have to find another job, but I lose my home, I lose my I lose everything, because I put everything into that project. Now, that is the kind of investment which actually brings out the results. So servant leadership is really in one word, to hold yourself responsible for the welfare of those who are with you in that project.

In every aspect, in the entrepreneurship context, and you can see, you can see, reflections of this in the life are seldom people I know people who are who are entrepreneurs and leaders and business founders. in the, in the initial days, people have literally, there was a guy who was out on a on a sales trip when his wife, when the when a child fell sick. So this business owner, he goes there, he takes the child to the hospital, sits all night in the hospital with that child, right, somebody else's child, he doesn't say call the ambulance go to the hospital, I'll pay the bill. No, he is in the hospital with the child.

He doesn't have to do that the mother is there, and he can pay the bill. But there's a difference between writing a check and putting yourself on the line.

Give me the pay for your people. And that way and that taking the pain for your people believe me is far more valuable than writing a check, by all means, feel free to write a check. But that does not substitute. And the same thing happened with with resumes are seldom seldom used to go, I used to be with the people.

You know, he would help them physically, physically, he would help them carry things for them. He would do things, things for them. He didn't need to do that. Even though there were enough people, he could have told somebody else go do this. And they would be happy to do that. He did it himself. And this is one and even when he was fighting when he was fighting, he was on the front line absolute from that he did not need the front line he could have been he would have been like most generals at the back directing operation, you

got injured, he got hurt you bled right?

It just occurred to me that as a shepherd, you learn servant leadership. Now you because you not only do you are you are you responsible for leading the flock, you literally have to feed them, you have to nurture them, you have to take care of all of their needs. So

and that's what most of the prophets had their training in, right? They did,

that there is a

lecture and an article of mine on this on being a shepherd of sheep, and how that relates to leadership lessons. Because all the profit but practically all the prophets who they learned this, the one of the things about about putting ourselves on the line is that one of the major roles of the shepherd, as a protector of the flock is to put himself between his flock and the wolf.

Because the blog is being attacked by predators, the shepherd is not gonna sit on the back and say, You know what, all the sheep black

sheep number three charge for

the shepherd. If the wolf is attacking, then the shepherd is dead. So kill me first before you can touch my flock.

So this is that is the that's the whole the whole essence of leadership. If the leader is not willing to put himself or herself on the line, believe me, there's no inspiration.

Wow, that's a that's a very powerful reminder. Yeah, cuz sometimes I think we think of leadership as being in the most comfortable position in a way. I like having people carry your bags for you and

serve you. Right? Yeah. And that kind of does happen as well. Like, especially if you're like a public speaker, you're somebody who's, you know, a guest of some people, they're gonna sometimes treat you very in a very special way and you can get used to that. Yep. Exactly. No, that's very true. Yeah.

So it's one other quality that we can

hone in on.

Is there any one of the qualities that you particularly like to speak about and

share with people.

You know, I think one of the qualities which I would really like to talk about is, and especially in today's context, it's a combination of two things. One is rasuna salams ability to bring people together to build the oma as it were, which means to work with diversity to work across boundaries, all kinds of boundaries, he had, he was dealing with boundaries of race, of nationality, of color, of language, of boundaries of, of hierarchies, you know, who is more important class, yeah, upper class, lower class slaves, and, you know, the big chefs of courage and so on. But he was able to build a brotherhood of faith, which, sad to say, has never been seen, since it was never seen

before. But unfortunately, it seems to have again vanished. But the point is that he was able to do that. So therefore, we have proof of concept that is doable, it can be done,

provided we are going to do it. So this is the big quality that and that comes out of a

of a, you know, the of having a big heart and the willingness to forgive. I think that huge, huge element of building relationships and working across boundaries, you can never do that if you're not willing to forgive

the guy. The other thing which he did, which is combined with this is is complete and total focus on meritocracy

doesn't give people jobs, and you give them responsibilities based on their ability to do that job, their technical knowledge, not based on not even based on their, you know, I would say religious level. Right. Yeah. You can argue that the religious level and religious daraja of Albuquerque

was higher than that of Khalid bin walidah. Well, yeah, we are not i'm not differentiating between. So I'm just saying that if somebody told me that if somebody asked me and said who is who is religious, the more, you know, and even knowledgeable? Yeah, it is. It's not even. It's not even a question. I mean, no.

Anybody? Right. However, who did a point as commander in chief? Not?

Yes. He appointed Carnival in Atlanta. So the one who has the military, the military prowess and the military, yes. Document card, the dragger guard, the carburetors the ability and this is true. I mean, I can tell you, you know, bisaya Kasai Navistar was appointed in gave prominence to people based on their competence in that area.

That does not mean that the level of advocacy is no,

no, I have I have, I have fulfilled the rights of everyone except that our worker, Allah will do it for him for me, on my behalf. Now watch because of that, right. So he's leveling but in terms of competence, military prowess was not as was not his, his expert area. So those are some gives it to the person to whom it was, for whom it was the expert area, and so on. So these two things, the ability to work across boundaries, the ability to deal with difference, the ability to deal with, with dissonance, with the disagreement, resolving conflicts, forgiving people, and the and the focus on meritocracy and quality. I think these are these are all related. I mean, they're not individual

things, in compartments, they're all related. And this is I think, a huge huge huge quality of a great leader and again, this is something which works for anyone anyway. No matter what you are, when you have an opportunity to resolve conflicts of course, will you have an opportunity to work across boundaries of course, today we are stuck with this thing. Right We have boundaries of mother we have boundaries of of including a little flat in the D is not even fundamentals is the de

facto

matters, which are which really, I mean, I know I mean, you might wonder if that is important to you do do practice it. I've got no problem with that. But you want to look down on somebody else and you want to criticize somebody else because they do the thing differently from you. This is ridiculous.

But that is what is, you know, literally sort of

destroying us and you know, ripped us apart. Now, wrestlers are never allowed that to happen. And it's not that they didn't have I mean, the the Arabs of that time were among the most racist, the most cast is the most, you know, in terms of

their disagreed on practically anything you name

but he was able to put them all together under one where they genuinely loved each other the genuinely respected each other, and they were able to get over literally their own conditioning, that lifelong conditioning, they were able to jettison that and take the position of which was was promoting I did a very, very big lesson and this is something that we really, really need today, and which we must, which was really strongly work on.

And check, you know, the the quality of forgiveness and magnanimity. Um, what did he say that I didn't know, in my experience? Certain people have that as a personality trait, you know, certain people, they, they're not easily offended the, you know, like more easygoing, and

they have that kind of natural leadership

quality where, you know, they're not going to take things personally, they try to mend rifts. And do you think, and they don't? They don't like, hold grudges, you know?

Is that quality that people can develop? Do you think some of these qualities are literally just hard wired?

All can all of them be things that you can learn and develop?

You know, my belief? What is the question that's asked often? What leadership leadership are leaders born? Or are they made? Yes, exactly. My, my life experience by study and my teaching over now, 3536 years, I believe that yes, it is possible that you are born with certain qualities, no doubt about that. But every one of those qualities can be learned. And second thing is that even if you are born with those qualities, somebody who spent time learning those qualities will always beat you if you didn't spend time learning. So even those who are born with the qualities must make an effort to learn them systematically and practice them. If they don't do that, they will still fail against

somebody who was not born with those qualities, but who worked and they and and they acquired those qualities. So at making effort to get those qualities which we need as leaders, it that that that remains constant, irrespective of whether you're born with the qualities or not now, how does either How does being born with it, how does it help? Well, if you're born with it, it will be easier for you, the effort will not be so so difficult for you. And inshallah, you know, you can do that much more comfortably, less stressful, and so on. But if somebody is determined to do something, nothing in the world that can stop them because Allah subhanaw taala created the world's way. Anyone who

makes an effort will get what they made the effort for one laser live in zanny. Lavasa, Allah subhanaw taala said, for the human being, there's nothing except what he was for. So if you work for it, you will get it. So I'm getting easier as I'm getting more difficult with more with more effort. So what if I want it badly enough? I'm willing to work for it.

Check, how can a person you know who's listening to this, apply leadership during this pandemic, you know, during this difficult period where there's lockdown, things have changed? How would you advise them? You know, what would you like to see? How would you like to see people manifest leadership?

During this pandemic, I would say, work with this basic principle to say, How can I help others

and then do whatever is in your power to help others. Maybe the way to help others is to wear a mask.

Right? Because I don't want I want to protect myself also. But I also don't want to be the cause of somebody else getting infected because if I'm asymptomatic, I am still carrying the stuff and I may infect somebody else. So I'm helping others by wearing a mask.

Right?

There are people, elderly people, especially who are locked down at home. Maybe they need some

groceries, food and so on. I know that I know that a lot of Muslims, a lot of those organizations are doing fantastic work with this, but participate in our world. So donate money for that day food to them, you know, make sure you leave the food out and they're on their doorstep or something. Make sure that in your neighborhood, nobody is suffering, for want of health because of the of the pandemic. So I'm saying save yourself, how can I help others? Now, you might say, Well, what about me, but automatically, you will get helped, your own mood will improve, you will feel more positive, you will feel more concrete as you will be and feel more happier as a contributing member of

society.

Yeah, great advice. It reminds me of this, saying Do you would you agree with this saying that if you want to address your problems, go out and find the bigger problem and to deal with? without, without a doubt.

I think it's a very, it's a very good thing. Because you know, when you focus on other people and focus on helping other people, you automatically Help yourself.

So is that just through the good feeling you get from helping other people? Or is there something else in there, but one one is bigger.

Because of this blessing from Allah subhanho wa Taala it generally does wonderful things for you, Allah, Baraka in your in your own life, makes you feel good, because you feel okay, I'm now contributing to something which is worthwhile.

And then, of course, doors open. I mean, you know, this is, there are some things which really, you can't explain, but if you if you work on helping others, you find things just happen for you. I guess also, because you get a chance to see people who might be struggling more than you, it puts your problems into perspective, right. And, you know, it makes you thankful. Take, for example, the issue of things.

Right. Now, the recommendation our religion is for the person who's paying those Agha to actually physically take it to the person to whom they are giving and give it to them. Right? Well, obviously, you can, you can donate to organizations, what No, but ideally speaking, go and try. Why. Because the the wisdom behind it is that if I go to this person to whom I'm supposed to give Zakat, I'm waving goodbye 2.5% of my wealth, whatever it is, I go there, and I find that, you know, I'm going to give them 50 pounds, but look at their house, look at the children look at their needs, I mean, this 50 pounds is gone in one week.

So what's the goal of that, however, I am capable of giving 500 pounds, and 5000 pounds. So now when I see their situation, I am motivated to do much more than what I would have done. So this whole issue of getting physically and personally engaged in helping others. This is hugely beneficial

for society at large. And really, at the end of the day, it makes you feel, you know, really very nice to say, I mean, I was able to do something and contribute in something which is so worthwhile.

I can share Thank you so much, you shared so many gems and some of the things you said, I felt I feel like I needed to hear you know, in my own in my own projects and my own work.

So, just to leave our listeners and viewers with any last thing or parting advice or any parting thoughts.

You know, I would say we are just coming into raava inshallah, in the next few days, it will be Rwanda and we ask Allah subhanaw taala to give us another name, with good health and with good Eman And with the free time to make the most of it. I think one of the things bringing it back to the pandemic, I can think of so many of my friends who were with us last hour, which are not who are not with us this rather than because they died in between.

My question to myself is, did they know that that was going to be their last?

They did, right? I know whether this Ramadan will be my last. I don't. But what I do know is that there will be some Ramada

before I die, which will be the last Ramadan of my life.

Whether it is this one, whether it is a next one, whether it is 110 years later, we don't know what whichever it is right. Now. Therefore, I would say treat every Ramadan as if it is going to be your last

So I wish all the viewers who May Allah give you lots of rodar in your life and in good health and so on, but treat everyone including. So now we are coming to make sure that this is the best Ramadan that we ever had in our lives.

And I thought I would Yeah, that's what I would like to like to say. And again, I would say that the Syrah of Rasul Allah says Allah is the most important resource that we have as Muslims for this world today, 21st century, and therefore, I think that studying the Sierra must become a absolutely critical focus in all our religious and secular teaching institutions. Absolutely, yes. Without a doubt. It's a it's an absolutely i mean, you know, it boggles my mind that in our Dini curriculum, we do not

there is no subject of sera in our, in our teaching curriculum.

sera is taught by the way when people are reading hobbies and and so on and some fifth, but Sirocco nabby as a subject is not a subject, it is not taught, it is not studied, it is not the students are not.

Right, there is no there is no timetable, there is no period of zero to Nabil, in the regular timetable in our including in our Dyneema is I mean, it's really blows my mind, how can you even call yourself a Islamic school or a mother? Sir, if you are not teaching the Sierra the biography the life of Mohammed Salah Holly us I personally, I would say you can't even call yourself. I mean, what kind of thing is that? The founder of Islam, the one who brought Islam to us, Islam came from Rama, the one who brought Islam to us. We don't want to study his life as a specific subject of study in detail. Yes, exactly. in detail and then applied to our life today because I lost one data

set is Allah Allah Allah, Allah COVID.

Allah said, study the life of my enemies Allah Solomon applied in your life, this is what this is what that actually means. It's not academic, or the life is a good thing. So you know, no, no. Why is that labor mentioning that?

Because Well, you know, Chef, I think, like in some of the new modalities in Britain anyway, like the Islamic Studies, classes and stuff, they do teach Sierra as a separate subject. I think they really recognized obviously the people who are forward thinking and they understand that significance, but but I'm really surprised often when I talk to art, especially people like literally involved in our full time sometimes that they have very little knowledge of the Sierra like they have, they know little glimpses, but they've never,

it's basically a discipline, they've never disciplined themselves to study the Sierra from beginning to end. without it being filtered out without any bits being filtered out, or without any bits being, you know, only selectively taught. They've never looked at the panoramic view of also the last last one's life in all the different situations. And we need that right now. Right? Because we're living. We're living in all of those different situations, we need to interpret that in the modern context is what I've tried to do in this book, leadership lessons from the life rossella is an interpretation of the Sierra in a modern context. There's a second book I wrote after this called

Sierra is the answer.

So that's another that's another I need to look at. Yeah, it's called Syrah is the answer. And that book also is based on this I'm just saying that even the study was here to me is not just a story, right? He was born

in Ireland. Exactly. Yes. If talking about so what we should be studying as strategy right? We should be looking for the strategy in it the way I applied in my life. How does this thing apply to me? I'm not talking about the love of it. I'm not talking about you know, this good from Iraq era in this dunya

What can I do and Allah subhanaw taala gave his his lies. avi he gave us the soul alive, which quite literally and compasses practically every situation that we might find ourselves in life. This is the this is one of the most comprehensive and one of the most complete lives that anyone ever

lived. And on top of that, unless around data thanks to the to is wise to the automata Harada

Mothers and thanks to the Sahaba

Allah, Allah cause this life to be preserved in such into intricate and intimate detail that no one's life is preserved like that.

The reason for that why did Allah cause this thing to be preserved in such detail because this is so that it's a resource for us to use and it says it's really a you know, a tragedy if we don't use it.

Absolutely does.

Thank you so much. I'm in the middle of bless you may you hope you have a great Ramadan inshallah and eat as well.

My dad, I think the last time I met you is with my dad. Yes. So, you know, inshallah, he does remember you often. So I can handle, please give my Salam stew

and also to

hear

from him for a long time. And we are both from the same tribe of mobiles.

Yes, I think he I think he would like to speak to you actually after this in chat. Yeah. So he'll just speak to you for a little while, once I've signed off. Oh, wonderful. But thank you so much. Is that gonna happen? And where can people where's the best place for people to find you or find your work? If if they'd like to, you know, listen, we read, I send you a link. That's the link. You can set you can send the link, you can say it as well, if you want. Okay.

on YouTube, we have our channel, which is

m er big. That's the end of it. So it's youtube.com Yep. MVR big as one word, m a, r b, I G, right. And then for my corporate work, and my blogs and so on, is the website, my website, which is yellow big.com.

These two, these two are the best links and of course, I will also

I'll send you the link as well, inshallah. And they can still they can listen to your podcast, the project reminders, are they still there? Absolutely. They're the further reminders. The simplest way for anybody is if you're using an iPhone, go to iPhone podcasts. And for further reminders that

that comes up. And if you are on Android, then go to podcast addict or any of the podcast programs on Android and again, such as reminders and that's the first thing that will pop up that has the further reminders and also by Juma lectures are on this.

And I will I will, when we finish I will email you all the links

to get them on a chat program. They we put them up on telegram so they can if they download telegram which is free and then they look for daily reminders.

So there's a group called daily reminders so just download telegram and then click on daily reminders and you can get them on that. So whatever whatever was best for you

and inshallah we hope we can invite you back in the future as well to

fix

this pandemic inshallah mela relieve us all from it. So we can go back to traveling is yes, yes.

Cavan, Tiff salam, Aleikum, WA.

Okay, so just take a look here and dear brothers and sisters for listening in. Please share this episode with other people you know, as you can see, it was just full of so many gems especially about leadership and leadership in our own lives. And you know, whether you're the leader or the head of an organization or project or you know, even a family, I think all of us can benefit.

Please share it please like the episode and tell more and more people about this podcast, Shama does come along here and, and I will see you next time in sha Allah Subhana Allah home I will be handing ash had Allah ilaha illa Anta astok Furukawa to blue lake, wa salam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh