Productivity Principles #4 – The Abundance Mindset

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. So welcome to Part Four in our series on readings from productivity principles, or even Abdul Aziz, my latest book available on Amazon, and gumroad. Click the links below to learn more. And Firstly, thanks to all of you who bought the book this past few weeks, I'm your sales have really increased recently. And soon, we will have local versions available in various new regions. So looking forward to that as I have recently network and signed contracts with various printers and publishers around the world, to have it printed in those regions. So that the price can be more affordable to people not to mention which regions yet because

we not 100% official, like 99%. But sooner make announcement soon as to the regions where you can get these books at a much better price because they're going to be printed locally. Right. So what's happening right now is the price is right for Amazon. But some people living in countries a bit far away. But there's no Amazon branch nearby. The shipping and the taxes for watching is coming over to hide. So one of the ways I'm trying to solve this is I'm establishing partnerships with printers and publishers in different regions, so that people can get their books from a closer printer, not from Amazon, on. So this way, it can be more affordable for the shower. So this is something that I'm

working on. And hopefully this country will have some good news on that front. So with that, let's jump into this week's principle. This week, I wanted to take a look at Principle number four, one of my favorite ones. And this is actually something that wasn't in my original manuscript. Right, the abundance mentality. So actually, while I was writing this book, I was listening to a podcast from one of my friends. We did an entire episode on the abundance mentality in Islam. And it just clicked with me that I have to include this topic in the book because this is one of the biggest difference between a Muslim who follows understands Islamic understands the concept of risk with a person with

materialistic a capitalistic, it's very, very important for understanding the productivity of Islam, as opposed to the productivity of the West. Now, I've written an article about this recently on my blog, if you haven't read it yet, check it out. In the blog, I mentioned that productivity in the modern context, refers primarily to how much money you can make and

how you contribute to the economy.

But in Islam, that's not the most important thing. productivity in Islam is more about building our afterlife and, and building up our good deeds and contributing to society and helping people. All of this is far more important than how much money you make. Right? So the abundance mentality is a very important thing. And so something that only Muslims preach. So for example, a coach Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in this chapter. And

you know, in this in that book, he discusses the abundance mentality. First, he talks about the scarcity mentality and how it's really ruining people, right? Because to basically define these two terms, before I go any deeper and read from the book, the scarcity mentality is the mindset of most materialistic and capitalistic people, which is that this world has limited resources. And anytime somebody else gets something, I'm not getting it. Right. So an example of this would be

if you see somebody else get a promotion, you get jealous of them because you feel like you lost out, right? When somebody else gets mad if you get jealous of them, because you feel like you lost out anybody else's success. You look at it as your loss. This is the scarcity mindset. This is an Islamic way of thinking. The Islamic method, which is also I would say even the Christian and Buddhist method as well,

is the abundance mindset. Right? So I think most religions have the abundance mindset is just secularism, which is based on the scarcity mindset. And this is the idea that there is enough in this universe for everybody. So it's not a big deal if somebody else gets something, right. And as a Muslim, this is even more stronger and more profound. Because we have this belief that Allah is our Razak. He is the provider, his hero, Rosie, he is the best of providers that love his treasures are limitless, that if he had to give every single creature on earth what it wants, it would not decrease his treasures in the least. And so we don't just believe in in abundance. We believe in it.

infinite amount of goodness out in the universe. So it shouldn't bother us. If somebody else gets something nice, cuz it has no correlation, or really, we're gonna get something nice or not. Right? Rather, our good thoughts of Allah is that he will give that person good things, and He will give us good things as well. So the abundance mindset is very, very important for fighting of jealousy. And if you suffer with feeling jealous of others, switching to an abundance mindset can help to remove this feeling, and to move away from jealousy and to become a person who is more caring for others, and more happy to see other people succeed. So the way I link this to

the story of only Abdul Aziz is I look at his cousins of having a scarcity mindset. And I look at him as having the abundance mindset. And I get to see my own reading into the story, my own lessons in that app derived from the story.

Basically,

the point that I looked at over Yo, is that when over even Abdul Aziz became the halifa, he took away a lot of the taxes that were oppressing the people, and his cousin soit, as if we don't charge those taxes, we can maintain our lavish lifestyle. And so this led to jealousy, which eventually led to his death, because his cousins had been poisoned and killed at a very young age.

And,

you know, there's a very famous statement from Omar bin Abdulaziz related to this, that when he canceled these taxes, and the government said, How are we going to manage it out it? He said a lot not said Mohammed as a tax collector, he sent him as immersi to the universe. Right? So you see Omar bin Abdul Aziz, not really caring about how much taxes the government is receiving, knowing full well that everybody's risk comes from Allah. his cousin's not being able to understand this, worried about losing their money, worrying about losing their status, while he would not be able to enjoy all the good things of this world. We're driven to greed, driven to jealousy, and eventually driven

to murder, as an industry See,

the difference between someone who believes our curiosity, and someone who's worried about poverty. And this is actually a topic I'm exploring further at the moment, because the next book that I'm writing, I don't want to announce it yet, because I literally just started writing it a week ago, morning, 40 pages into it. But it's focused more on this topic, you focus more on the topic of risk, and sustenance and the abundance mindset, the Wakil, it's gonna be a very interesting book, I don't want to announce it yet. You'd rather buy this book and read it first. But just say I am currently doing a lot more research into this topic and would have a lot more to say about it. In the next

book, I write inshallah. So in this book, I mentioned that in Islam, we believe Allah has limitless treasures, right, unless treasures have no end. And we see this in the time of Omar Abdul Aziz, because he didn't care. He didn't care about, you know, if we don't charge these taxes, we're not going to get this. And he didn't have this mindset. His mindset was do what's right to what's just available to everyone. And many of the historians state that during his reign, there was no poverty in some regions, like people in some regions couldn't find anyone to give zakat. It just was no for people. Why? Because this abundance mindset, especially when it comes from the ruler, it spreads

throughout society, at Baraka throughout society. And so his mindset became the mindset of his people. And his policies led to implicit economy in which poverty was temporarily removed. So we also seen this, the power of the Islamic economic system, again, is another topic I'm currently researching for my next book.

The Islamic economic system is really the one thing they can solve most of the problems that the people are so hung up on at the moment about this, you know, we have right now this idea of

the majority of the people of this world don't have any wealth. And some people have, like all the wealth in the world. And how do we fix this? Well, Islamic economics fixed. The problem is there's no country in the world today that's really demonstrating this in practice. And it's going to be really difficult to to convince the government to demonstrate this in practice. But I guarantee you this much, if any Muslim or even non Muslim government had to take the Islamic economic model and apply to their country, we would see a huge decrease in poverty, a large increase in happiness, and a large increase in people being able to maintain a decent standard of living. I'm not saying

everybody will be wealthy, but I'm saying even the people who are not wealthy will be happy and satisfied and have the basic needs met. Right. That's really what Islam inflation doesn't see it.

Everyone's going to be wealthy person everyone's going to be taken care of, and ready to be part of our abundance mentality flows over into our economic model.

And so I quote a separate story

in this chapter and the story is from a hadith Sahih al Bukhari. And this is actually the story of my friend's podcast was based on his entire podcast was in the region of the story and extracting lessons

on the abandonment mentality from the story. And

I found the story just beautiful, say, an entire story in this chapter can't really see because of the lighting, um, see if I can get up there we go the story of three men and an angel, right, so it takes about four pages in this chapter.

And it's a story about three people who are poor, and I love this thing would weld and two of them became miserly. And the third one was very generous. And from there, you know,

this friend of mine extracted this, this lesson of the abundance mindset. The idea that, you know, these people wanted about poverty, even though they have money, the other person is generous, who's looking Baraka two weeks Baraka to the generous person. That's really, the abundance mindset in Islam is not just this

idea, that Oh, there's enough for everyone. It is a firm belief that Allah treasures are limitless. And it's a firm belief that if we spend in the part of Allah, Allah will provide for us. It's a firm belief in Baraka that if we use our wealth in a way that's pleasing to

it, this is a, a belief that's very important.

And one of the ways we can move or transition from a scarcity mindset, to an abundance mindset is to get into the habit of giving charity on a daily basis. Now, I know that sounds hard, right? Especially if you're just barely making it. But

even if it's just like

$1 a day, $2 a day, whatever you can afford. Just doing it every single day, helps us to reconnect with this idea that money is from Allah, and my money is spent in a part of our luggage, Baraka is returned, and we get to see it in practice. And this increases our demand increases our yaqeen increases our Baraka it.

It makes things better for us in a variety of different ways. And so, if someone is struggling to embrace the abundance mentality, I would highly recommend getting into the habit of giving charity every day. And slowly over time increasing the charity, you will notice that you will be in a better state of mind,

you will experience more Baraka in your world. And you may even experience an increase in wealth itself. And so this really helps us to feel the abundance mentality in practice.

And there are many businesses, Muslim businesses around the world that practice this I have.

I personally know people even in my own family who practice to step they have a business and to give a certain percentage and charity and their businesses just keep growing and growing and growing. And Allah has just blessed him with more and more and more. It is truly amazing.

And at the end of this chapter, I discuss the benefits of an abundance mentality. And the benefits is you live a life of gratitude and contentment, gratitude, because you know your risk from a lot not from your own self, and contentment, because you know, that I worked Allah gave me what I need.

hamdulillah so you become content in the Islamic sense, not lazy, certainly important. To make a distinction, yeah. Because when we talk about content, but a lot of people confuse that with laziness. It's the same with the workload. contentment in Islam,

doesn't mean that you don't have goals, it doesn't mean that you don't work hard. It doesn't mean that you sit back and do nothing. But it means at the end of the day, you look at the amount of money you made for the day, you look at the Buddha paid, have also I have food, have a family, you say Alhamdulillah you relax, you happy, you're satisfied. The next day you work again, at the end of the day, you reflect on this, you say 100 you show gratitude, you're satisfied. So contentment in Islam does not mean you do not work. But after every bit of work, you are satisfied with the result of lives given. That's what contentment is, and then the next day you work again, so it becomes a

cycle. What would the world call contentment and pleasure in Alaska, work with the word goal, and then contentment and pleasure in Alaska. And this becomes a cycle that helps us to live a happy, fulfilling lifestyle and this was really the lifestyle of

But even Abdul Aziz, and many of the great people of that era, Arsenal Busey is another person who lived like this. For many, many amazing people of that time, who lived in this manner. I end this chapter with two quotations from Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz, related to gratitude and reflecting on the favors of Allah. Number one, among even up to as he said, speaking in remembrance of Allah is good, and reflecting over the blessings of Allah is the best act of worship. So he said that the best way to worship Allah is to think about everything Allah has given us and to worship him out of gratitude for that.

And he also said, remind each other of your blessings because to remember them is to be grateful. So part of gratitude is to remind each other Allah has given us this Lila has given us that Allah has blessed us with this. This is a way of being grateful to allow to remember together as a family or as a community. So these are some of the statements have been related to gratitude. Gratitude is related to the abundance mentality. The abundance mentality helps us to live a life that is more peaceful, more relaxed, more focused on what matters, and more in tune the loss of a handout with the other. It's really a life changing mindset and something I really hope you all can revive in our

lives. And again, again, what are some practical tips for that, number one, increase our charity. Number two, be grateful for what we have at number three, try to live a life of contentment, if we do these things, and inshallah we can revive the abundance mentality and make it a part of who we are. And once you see the part of who we are, our mind can soar to another level can really really take him on to the next level. So again, if you haven't bought and bought the book yet, click the links below. Get your copy. I hope you enjoyed the book. I hope you find it beneficial. In the meanwhile, I need to get back to writing my next book. I'm not telling you what the book is yet but

I'm really enjoying researching and writing it and really hoping it's ready You guys are gonna enjoy eating as well. Until next time, just run walk reader one and you have to let me know Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah