Ismail Kamdar – Al-Mawardis Principles of Success
AI: Summary ©
The success of society is paramount, and individuals need to have strong personalities and strong leadership to solve problems and achieve success. The "medicals system" is essential for achieving independence, security, affordability, and independence for future growth. The importance of strong relationships and strong family ties in one's life is emphasized, rather than just prioritizing subhanahu wa wa wa, and education in modern society is not just about money and wealth. The book gives advice on living a happy life, emphasizing the importance of strong family ties, loving beliefs, prioritizing subhanahu wa wa wa, and having a strong family ties.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah, we praise Him,
we ask for His help, we ask for
His forgiveness, and we believe in Him, we
put our trust in Him, and we seek
refuge in Allah from the evil of our
souls and from the evil of our deeds.
May Allah guide him to the right path
and protect him from the evil of what
is to come.
Our Lord, grant us good in this world
and good in the Hereafter, and protect us
from the punishment of the Fire.
Last week, we discussed some of the principles
from the book, Adab al-Dunya wal-Din,
by Imam al-Mawarri.
And I want to continue the discussion today.
Last week, we looked at the first four
chapters of this book, in which Imam al
-Mawarri, who lived a thousand years ago in
the golden age of the Abbasid Empire, he
highlights that for success in this world and
in the next world, we need a strong
mind, we need control over our desires, we
need to seek out beneficial knowledge, and we
need to prioritize the worship of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Today, I want to focus on the fourth
chapter of this book.
The fourth chapter of this book is called
Adab al-Dunya, the ethics of worldly life.
And in this chapter, which is actually the
longest chapter in this book, Imam al-Mawarri
highlights what is success, what is worldly success,
and what are the principles you need to
achieve worldly success.
It's quite interesting, he wrote this book a
thousand years ago, and the principles he mentioned
may be more applicable today than even back
then.
We are in need of these principles today,
even more than when he wrote them.
Now what's interesting here is that Imam al
-Mawarri, in this chapter, he discusses two levels
of success.
The success of the community or the society
as a whole, and for that he lists
out six principles, and the success of the
individual, and for this he lists out three
or four principles as well.
He begins this chapter by saying that human
beings are social creatures.
You cannot make it in this world on
your own.
You cannot thrive in this world on your
own.
We need each other.
And he then said that Allah created different
people with different skills and different ideas and
different areas that they specialize in.
And this is meant to balance out the
earth.
One person will be a doctor, one person
will be a scholar, one person will be
a warrior.
Each person has their own inclinations.
And he said you should have good thoughts
about Allah, that Allah created you for this
specific purpose.
He may have given somebody else more intellect
than you or more physical strength than you
or better mathematical skills than you because they
need that and you don't.
So you need to have good thoughts that
the skills Allah gave you are what you
need for success.
So he lays the framework here in the
opening chapters that we are a community.
We are a society.
We need each other.
We all have different strengths, we all have
different skills, and we all have social needs.
We are not meant to live in isolation,
we are not meant to be by ourselves.
And immediately you see a clash here between
what our morality teaches us a thousand years
ago and what modernity teaches us.
Because modernity is built around hyper-individualism.
It's all about me, it's all about myself,
don't care what anybody else thinks, cut out
my family, cut out the society, I do
what I want.
People think that's the path to happiness, they
think that's the path to success.
But here we thought that no, society.
We're meant to be together, we're meant to
support each other, we're meant to build society
together, be there for each other.
So he says for a community, for a
society to be successful, he says there are
six principles.
There are six things any community or civilization
needs to be considered a successful civilization according
to his understanding of Islam.
What are these six things?
Number one of course is Islam.
Allah revealed Islam to solve the problems of
society.
A civilization that is built upon Islam will
have built into it all of the necessary
tools to fix the problems of society.
And so he says a civilization that will
thrive, a civilization that will do well must
be built on the sharia.
That must be its foundation.
And what supports the sharia?
What makes sure that the sharia is the
foundation of civilization?
That's point number two.
A strong khalifa, a strong sultan.
Al-Mawardi, he speaks a lot about the
khilafat and the sultanate and the importance of
strong leadership.
In fact, Adab al-Dunya wal-Deen is
not even anywhere near his most famous work.
His most famous work is Al-Ahkam al
-Sultaniyah, the laws of leadership.
How to be a king, how to be
a khalifa.
That's his specialty.
He specialized back in the Abbasid era on
advising the khalifas on how to be the
best khalifa.
Advising the kings on how to be the
best king.
And so he says that you need a
strong leader to ensure the sharia is the
law of the land.
If you don't have strong leadership who can
ensure that the sharia is the law of
the land, then other kind of laws will
take over.
And any law besides the law of Allah
is going to have flaws and it's going
to lead to problems.
The other four principles he mentioned are very
interesting.
He says there are four things.
If you have a civilization built upon the
sharia and the khilafat, there are four things
it needs to be successful.
In terms of four worldly things it needs
to be successful.
What are these four things?
Justice, safety, a good economy, and a culture
of hope.
Very interesting, right?
He says for a civilization to be successful,
you don't just need a sharia and a
khilafat.
It needs to be just.
He said if a society is just, that
solves half of societal problems.
Justice fixes most of our problems in the
community.
What fixes the other half of the problems?
Safety.
You're not scared of getting robbed.
You're not scared of getting stabbed and shot
and murdered.
Safety is necessary for success.
So you need to have mechanisms in place
to make sure people are safe.
And then interestingly he mentions the importance of
the economy.
He says that you need a strong economy.
People need to be able to access jobs,
to provide for their families, to be able
to live a good quality life.
This is something that every society needs to
be successful.
And then finally, he says the last quality
that a society needs to be successful is
a culture of hope.
A culture of optimism.
People need to look forward to the future.
People need to know that the future is
bright.
People need to know that things are going
to get better.
Secondly, when you look at modern society, as
if none of these are there.
Look at the six things he mentioned.
Society built upon Islam.
Not there.
A Khilafat.
100 years now, no Khilafat.
Justice.
How many places in the world do they
have justice?
We live in a very unjust era.
Right?
Safety.
We live in South Africa.
We know what level of safety we have
in South Africa.
We know the level of crime and violence
in this community.
Linked to that, a strong economy where people
can easily get jobs, and provide for their
families, and the cost of living is decent,
doesn't exist today.
Majority of the world is dealing with a
cost of living crisis, economical crisis.
And then he says a culture of hope
and optimism.
This current generation is dealing with a culture
of doom and gloom.
They don't have hope for the future.
They feel like the whole world has just
been darkness for the past five years, and
they feel it's going to keep getting worse.
It's really sad that when you look at
the six elements of a successful society, according
to Imam al-Mawarri rahimahullah, none of them
can be found in most of modern society.
And I wonder why the world is the
way it is.
You know, people today, they prop up modern
society as the standard.
Oh, look at those backward civilizations, they need
to be more like us.
But hold on, those backward civilizations had justice.
Those backward civilizations had peace and safety.
Those backward civilizations had a decent cost of
living, and a strong economy, and people were
hopeful, and people had a good culture, and
good families, and strong family ties.
Why should they give that up to be
like you?
Modern society is built upon depression, and loneliness,
and high suicide rates, and doom and gloom,
and debt that is out of control, and
interest rates that are out of control.
How is that better than what came before?
We shouldn't buy into this narrative that the
modern world is better than what came before.
If you really think that, go back and
study what life was like under the Abbasid
or the Ottoman Empires, you would be amazed
at how much goodness they had in this
world that we don't have today, because of
the modern standards that we have adopted.
So that's on a societal level, and yes,
there's not much we, the average person, can
do to fix society.
In South Africa, we can't really think about
establishing a Khilafat or things like that, but
we can find ways to strengthen the economy,
we can find ways to rebuild a culture
of hope, we can find ways to bring
some safety and justice to our communities.
What we can focus on is individual success,
right?
And that is the second half of this
chapter.
So Imam Al Mawadi then says that if
you have a successful society, it is easier
for the individual to live a good life.
But what is a good life?
What is success?
Modern society defines success in terms of wealth
and fame.
Imam Al Mawadi takes us in a very
different direction.
He says, wealth is Qadarullah.
Allah decides who gets rich and who does
not.
Furthermore, excessive seeking of wealth leads to greed
and greed leads to problems.
For some people, wealth is a blessing, for
other people, wealth is a source of temptation.
So wealth is not the measure of success.
So then he mentions, what is success on
the individual level?
He says three things.
Three things are success on the individual level.
Number one is what he mentioned in the
first chapter which we spoke about last week.
Nurturing your mind and controlling your desires.
Nurturing your mind and controlling your desires.
Are you controlled by your brain or by
your desires?
If you are controlled by your mind and
not your desires, then you can find success
in this world.
If you are someone who just chases after
every desire, you will ruin this world and
the afterlife.
So number one is controlling your desires and
nurturing your intellect.
Number two, he says having good character and
good relationships.
Good character and good relationships.
In the bulk of this chapter, he focuses
on what is a good relationship and what
are the types of relationships you should have.
We will come to that in a bit.
And then number three, interestingly he says, number
three, for success in this world, you need
enough wealth to be independent.
You need enough wealth that you are not
reliant on others.
And then he addresses, he says some of
you may think this is a contradiction to
what I said earlier in the book.
He says there is no contradiction here.
In Islam, you are obligated to seek a
living.
You are obligated to earn enough that you
can be independent, that you are not, you
know, at the mercy of others.
But you shouldn't be greedy.
So he calls on us to balance.
Don't abandon the dunya, but don't be greedy
for the dunya.
Seek enough that you are not reliant on
others.
That nobody can bully you, nobody can force
you, you know, to do things or to
say things or to believe things because you
have enough to sustain yourself in your family.
So he mentions the importance of a moderate
level of wealth.
A level of wealth that creates a level
of independence, not so much that it becomes
a source of temptation for you.
But the main thing he focuses on in
this chapter, for worldly success, and this is
what is missing today in our societies, good,
strong relationships.
We have become very atomized and individualized.
Our lives have become all about ourselves.
And he says to live a truly happy
life, you need strong relationships.
Again, what's the first thing he mentions in
this chapter?
Humans are social creatures.
We need each other.
And so to be successful, you need good
relationships.
And he mentions four types of relationships.
Four types of relationships that if they are
strong, you will have a happy life.
What are these four relationships?
Number one, your connection to the deen.
Who is your shaykh, who is your spiritual
guide, who is your Islamic teacher?
This is very important that you have someone
that connects you to Allah.
Someone who teaches you the religion.
Someone who, if you are experiencing any, you
know, questions or any doubts or you need
to learn something, you have someone to connect
you to the answers.
So that's the first type of relationship.
And historically, every Muslim community was built around
a scholar.
Every Muslim society had their shaykh of Islam.
They had their head scholar who everybody would
consult.
And he would be the main person in
the community with more soft power than the
actual king or governor.
Because he's the one who shapes the minds
and the hearts of the people.
Historically, scholars played a very important role in
society.
The second type of relationship that Al-Mawaradi
says is necessary for success and a happy
life is strong family ties.
You must have strong family ties.
He talks about the husband and wife relationship.
He talks about relationship with your parents, with
your siblings, with your children, with your extended
family.
And he talks again about families as tribes.
This is very interesting.
A few weeks ago, I spoke about Mustafa
Sabri, right?
Who a hundred years ago wrote about the
importance of families and how families should function
as tribes and protect each other.
Al-Mawaradi says the same thing a thousand
years ago.
And he gives a good example.
He said in Medina, anybody who didn't have
a family or a tribe, what did Rasulullah
ﷺ do for that person?
He attached him to some family or tribe.
He made him part of somebody's family, right?
And whether it was through the Muhajirun and
Ansar system or through the Mawla system, he
made sure they had a tribe.
Because your tribe has your back.
Your tribe has your protection.
Today, we don't have this.
Today, everyone's on their own.
Today, everybody just takes care of themselves.
They only care about themselves, right?
This is something that's happened over the past
hundred years.
Our families went from tribes to smaller and
smaller and smaller and now we just have
people living on their own.
And this makes you vulnerable.
This makes you weak.
This makes you easy to exploit or to
kill off or to imprison or to do
anything to.
Because you don't have the support of a
strong family.
Interestingly, the third thing he mentions, right?
Strong family ties is number two.
What do you think is number three?
Strong and good relationship with your in-laws.
Marrying into a good family, right?
He says this doubles up the power.
If you are from a good family and
you marry into a good family, these two
families now become one big and powerful family.
He says this is a way of ensuring
that people have each other's backs in society.
That you marry into a good family and
that you have strong family ties with your
in-laws.
And then four, number four, he says to
have success in this world, to have a
happy life in this world, you need strong,
loving friendships.
Good quality friends.
Surround yourself with good quality friends.
And he says, if you look at this
list he gives us, happiness in this world
is actually not that difficult.
We're just looking for it in the wrong
places.
If you follow the principles laid out by
Al-Mawardi, if you prioritize Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, if you take care of your
mind, if you control your nafs, you seek
knowledge, you earn enough to be independent, you
have strong family ties, you have a connection
to the religion, you have peace and justice,
you have good relationships, you should be happy.
That is enough to live a happy life.
That is enough to live a good life.
And so what this book teaches us is
how to live a good life.
That living a good life and a happy
life, it's not about being a millionaire, it's
not about being famous, it's not about being
all-powerful.
It's about strong relationships, it's about who you
are as a person, and it's about your
relationship with God.
And so this reframe the way we think
about success.
So we can prioritize what is important and
not fall into the traps of modernity.
وَأَكْرِ دَعْوَانًا لِلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَبِالْعَالَمِينَ الْحَمْدُ
لِلَّهِ وَهْدَىٰ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَىٰ مَنْ لَا نَبِيَ
بَعْدَ أَمْوَا بَعْدَ If you take these principles
that were listed a thousand years ago, they're
extremely, extremely relevant to our times.
We live in a time where people are
lonely, people are depressed, people are suicidal, families
are diminishing, people don't really have real friendships
in many parts and people feel they can't
trust anybody.
Security is low, justice is low, safety is
low, economies are in trouble, and in Islam
we have solutions for all these things.
That's the beauty and the timelessness of Islam.
The revelation that came down 1,400 years
ago is just as relevant today as it
was 1,400 years ago, and all of
these problems of modern society, you will find
solutions in these early works.
We live in a time of capitalism.
This whole modern culture and worldview stems from
capitalism.
And capitalism has shaped for many of us
our definitions of success.
The success today is measured by how hard
you work, how much money you earn, how
much you consume, how much you pile up,
how extravagant your life is, how famous you
are, what's your job title.
This is what people consider success today.
In Islam, none of that is a criteria
for success.
Money and jobs are a means.
They are a means towards halal income.
They're not a criteria for success.
You can have a successful life even with
a moderate means of income, as long as
it is halal and there is barakah in
it.
We need to move away from secular definitions
of success and from the secular worldview.
And for that, I just want to mention
something for us to think about.
We really need to rethink our education system.
From the ground up, the entire education system
we have today, it was popularized 100 years
ago by who?
Who made this the global education system?
Did you ever think about that?
We're so caught up in this world.
Did you ever think about who laid the
foundation for this world that we're living in?
The education system we have today is only
100 years old as a global system.
200 years old as a German system.
It started in Germany.
100 years ago, the Rockefellers popularized this system
and made it global to train good workers
for capitalism.
This system was designed to fuel capitalism.
You go through 13 years minimum of schooling
being trained to be a good worker for
the capitalists.
Your whole education is just about listening, doing
your job, earning your salary, not asking any
questions.
This is very different from the Islamic education
system that existed pre-modernity.
The Islamic education system that existed during the
golden ages of Islam, what was its focus?
Primarily, the focus was on the purification of
the soul and shaping your manners and your
character.
And then whatever skills you needed to earn
a living were built upon that.
This is why they had the saying, learn
from their manners before their knowledge.
Because that was the foundation.
And Islamic education means in the younger years,
in the early years, you focus on shaping
someone's akhlaq and adab and the relationship with
Allah and the importance of family ties and
all of this.
And then upon that you build worldly skills.
Upon that you build the skills to earn
an income.
The modern education system is only about the
income part.
And so we wonder why someone comes out
of that system and they don't care about
family, they don't care about society, all they
care about is my career, my career, my
career, my money, my money, my money.
It's all about me, it's all about money.
Why?
Because you are going through a system that
is designed to produce just that.
You see, one of the problems that we
have is we just take the systems that
are there and we try to Islamize them.
And by Islamizing them, we maybe just gave
them an Arabic name, made hijab, the school
uniform, and made Islamic studies the subject.
That's not Islamization.
We have to rethink education at its root.
And I'm saying this because a lot of
the problems we have today with young Muslims
comes simply from the fact that we are
not educating them the Islamic way.
We are simply copying other people's systems and
adding a little bit of Islam to it.
We need to rethink this.
And if you can't change the system, at
least start at home.
At least with your own children and your
own grandchildren, in your parenting methods, teach them
the correct world view.
Teach them to see through these things.
Teach them to see through secularism, and to
see through liberalism, and to see through capitalism,
and to see the world from an Islamic
perspective.
And teach them adab, and teach them akhlaq,
and teach them these skills, and teach them
the correct understanding of success.
Because yes, maybe you can't change the system
you are living in.
But you still have control in your family
on what you teach your children.
And this is why parents should not take
a back seat when it comes to education.
You are the first teacher.
And what you teach your children is going
to be the foundation from which everything else
is built.
So I spoke a little bit about the
education system there because it is directly a
root cause of the way people are thinking
today.
But going back to our primary topic, the
world today has a lot of problems.
And one of the big problems is people
are feeling hopeless.
People feel like there is no path to
happiness.
Everything is just bad.
This is actually a good opportunity for us
to do dawah.
Because Islam solves all of these problems.
It solved it a long time ago.
We just need to figure out how to
apply and embody these principles of Islam in
the modern world, and then showcase it to
others.
Show others, here is the solution.
You only look at the Islamic family system.
You feel hopeless.
Look at the Islamic system of optimism.
You feel like there is no solution to
the world problems.
Look at the solutions Islam proposes.
But we need to start thinking like this.
We need to start looking into our tradition
and pulling out solutions and applying them in
the modern world.
And this means having some very difficult conversations.
This means really looking at the roots of
our society and fixing things on a very
foundational level.
This means really going into details.
Into trying to figure out what went wrong
with our society.
And not fixing the small things at the
top.
Fixing the foundations.
So I highly recommend that we all take
time to reflect on these principles.
Reflect on the definition of success as per
the early Muslims.
Are we working towards it in our own
lives?
Are we raising a generation to work towards
it?
Are we making a difference in this world?
Are we truly living a good life?
In Islam, a successful life is not about
being rich and famous.
It's about living a goodly life.
Living a life that is pleasing to Allah,
beneficial to society.
A life where when you leave this world,
people will miss you.
People will miss you.
That means you lived a good life.
Doesn't matter how famous you were.
Doesn't matter how rich you were.
But if you leave this world in a
state where the righteous miss you and they
make dua for you, you had a successful
life.
And we ask Allah to bless us with
the best of this world and afterlife.
Al Fatiha.