Ismail Kamdar – Productivity Principles #5 – Responsibility

			Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah to
welcome back to the fourth video in the series on the productivity principles of Homer. The second
honor even Abdul Aziz Rahim, Allah, continuing with the explanation of my latest book, in which we
go through the life of Ahmad ibn Abdul Aziz and extract certain principles that we can use for our
own life so that we can live a more fulfilling lives that we can live a more productive life and be
productive and be productive in the Islamic sense, not in the western sense. And that's really one
of the points of the book is that our definition of productivity
		

			is very different from the western definition of productivity. What do we mean by this? Well, the
western definition of productivity is all about economic output, right? How much do you contribute
to the economy. So this is why in, in a capitalist society, housewives are frowned upon, because
they're not contributing to the economy. So in a from the perspective of someone who's actually
making money, or may helping a company make money, that person doesn't have any real work, life is
not being productive, because for their productivity is all to do with money. And the economy. For
us productivity is to do primarily with pleasing Allah subhanho wa Taala. And secondarily what
		

			benefiting the oma benefiting society. And so anyone whose life is pleasing to Allah, and by
extension, in some way beneficial to society, this individual is living a productive life, whether
they are wealthy or not, whether they are contributing to economy I got all of this is secondary.
It's not really that important. For us, because we do not view money as everyday, we view money as
an important necessity of life, one of the five to react one of the five necessities, but we don't
view it as everything, like the be all and end all of life. And so the next chapter I wanted to
discuss in the book, Principle number five, is maintaining a sense of responsibility. Now, this is
		

			one of the shortest chapters in the book. And initially, it wasn't part of my first draft added in
later, when I realized that
		

			this is really something that's missing from Muslims in our time.
		

			So we live in a time where everyone's about enough about themselves. It's all about, you know,
what's in it for me. Now we see people saying stuff, like, why should I have children? That's not
going to benefit me in any way? Why should I get married, it's not going to benefit me. And we
talked about the naps, it's all about oneself. And so in this
		

			selfish
		

			nuptse environment, people don't really have a sense of responsibility towards others, everyone's
only looking out for themselves, everybody only cares about themselves, it creates a very nasty,
		

			selfish environment
		

			where people don't even benefit each other. You know, we see this for example, if you look
historically, for example, look at if you look at the concept of family islamically if a woman is
divorced, or widowed, her peer her father or her brother should step in, or step in, to help her out
financially.
		

			But in the modern world, this doesn't happen. Very rarely does it happen, you know, once a woman's
past 18 or 20, she kind of left on her own that that whole sense of responsibility towards one's
maharam like existence. Okay.
		

			Not just for women, for men as well. So for example, if someone has a brother or a cousin or an
uncle or a nephew, who is battling financially islamically, you have an obligation to help them out
to help them set up a business to help them pay off their debts, to help them get back on their
feet. Nowadays, we're seeing this less and less people aren't really doing this because again, it's
all about oneself. And so this means you're really worried about the direction that it might heading
in that we're going from being one body with it one part feels paying the rest of the body feels the
pain to be completely dis integrated into individual atoms, where even if one's own blood brother is
		

			in pain, one doesn't seem to care or feeling at all. And this is a major, it brings me to one of the
most important points of
		

			of the life of human readable Aziz is that he had the sense of responsibility towards the oma as a
whole. And he wasn't the person who care too much about himself in terms of his own financial
situation. You don't have comfort levels.
		

			His focus was always on the oma. Whether it was when he was the governor of Medina or even more so
when he was the honeypot of the Muslim world. And so his wife Fatima bint Abdul Malik Rahim Allah.
She describes him as after he became the honeypot. He would lie in bed shivering.
		

			And sometimes he would start crying. And she said that I wish we had never taken on this scale
upward and ever given this responsibility, because we've never been happy ever since.
		

			And so what this means is that
		

			Omar Ahmed Abdul Aziz Rahim, Allah, he viewed his responsibility
		

			towards this Omar as being, you know, something that he took so seriously, that he couldn't really
feel happiness, because he's always thinking about somebody out there who may need his help. He
didn't really focus on his own personal self gratification. He's like, wasn't about himself. It
wasn't about what he wanted wasn't about his naps. It was all about helping the oma. He would lie in
bed at night thinking about the Mo, what can I do? What am I doing wrong? What can I do to help
others. And this takes us to a piece which I quote, you, obviously, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam said, Every single one of you is a shepherd, and you're all responsible for your
		

			flock. The leader is responsible for his subjects, the man is responsible for his family, the woman
is responsible for her children. Everyone is a shepherd, and everyone is responsible for the flock.
And so this is how this really drives home. The sense of responsibility as being a fundamental part
of being a Muslim, no Muslim exists in a vacuum, we all have responsibilities towards each other,
towards our families, to what our communities towards the mind general. And if you don't have the
sense of responsibility, then we will go astray, you will go astray because we will hit that you
will hit down the part of Nazi Nazi will head down the part of just fulfilling our own desires. And
		

			that's the part of misguidance
		

			yellow llama Jamaat de luz handleless assistance is with the community. And so when we are part of
the community when we are responsible towards the community, when we are helping the community when
we are members of the community, active members of the community there unless assistance is with us
as well. But when we drift away from that, you know, there's this proverb that no, the wolf of his
cat captures the sheep that on its own. Likewise, when someone that they own, that's when she can
get to them best.
		

			So responsibility in Islam means that we treat everyone with justice, kindness and dignity, cannot
be fulfilled passively, we have to actively work towards it does not stop with our families,
employees, we have responsibilities towards the world as a whole. And this comes in the form of
developing beneficial projects that help others
		

			and then have the section on the dangers of living irresponsible lifestyle and some of the
		

			harms of it. So when a person lives a selfish lifestyle, I speak in the book that
		

			This replaces the sweetness of being a part of community, with loneliness, with emptiness, and with
anxiety. This is because living a self centered lifestyle is unnatural and fulfilling. We see this
today. So many people who have abandoned the Islamic concept of family abandon the Islamic concept
of the community, and have become like just focused on themselves.
		

			They live a very empty and lonely life. Because the lifestyle they have chosen, chosen is very
unnatural. It's not how Allah created us lucky enough to live in families to live in communities, to
be there for each other, in the sense of interdependence, not dependence, not independence, but
interdependence. interdependence means that we are all physically capable of taking care of
ourselves. But we work together to reach a higher level, we'll work together to try as a community.
So for example, not everyone's good at speaking, not everyone's good at writing, not everyone's a
doctor, not everyone's a lawyer, but then we all work together. No society can move forward. That's
		

			interdependence. That's how humans were meant to live. We're not meant to live this isolated
existence that you see today. So many people choose for themselves. They don't want to get married.
You don't want to have children. They don't want to spend time with their parents. They don't want
to spend time with their siblings. They don't want to even have friends, and they just sit by
themselves in front of the computer all day, and they just isolate themselves from the world. This
is unnatural. This leads to anxiety this leads to loneliness, this leads to emptiness. Hello people
living this life. They complain about these things, not realizing the lifestyle is the cause of
		

			these things. When you are part of society, when you are part of a caring
		

			community where everybody loves each other. Everyone's taking care of each other. Everyone's helping
each other. You feel a sense of purpose you feel a sense of community, you feel taken care of your
anxiety goes down, because you know these people have your back because you have their back.
		

			So a continuing book and I say fulfilling one's responsibilities towards others, creates a deep
sense of satisfaction. And the deepest sense of happiness is achieved in one fulfills one's
responsibilities towards a love. I then conclude the chapter by dividing our responsibilities into
four types. Number one, our responsibilities towards Allah praying five times a day worshiping Allah
avoiding shirk our responsibilities towards ourselves, taking care of our health, taking care of our
emotional health, our intellectual and spiritual growth, responsibilities towards our family, making
sure that every member of our family feels loved, it feels that you've given them enough time and
		

			attention and feels taken care of, and finally
		

			responsibilities towards our community and the world as a whole towards the oma in general, that we
have something in our life that we do, that benefits the oma our lives, not just about ourselves and
our family. But there's something out there that we do, that benefits the oma, whether it's
volunteering, whether it's writing, whether it's teaching, whether it's helping pay for the cost of
the masjid, whether it's setting up a school or an orphanage or building a wealth something, but you
have some way in which we are communicate, we are contributing towards the oma, this is really what
it boils down to that we have this sense of responsibility towards others, and we are fulfilling it
		

			in some way or the other. And so that's this chapter number five, which focuses on the importance of
responsibility
		

			is a very, very important point.
		

			You know, if you look at the definition of maturity, what does it mean to be mature, really, you
know, you get physical maturity, you get mental maturity, financial maturity, physical maturity is
the only one we have no control over that biological when a person hits puberty, but mental,
emotional, and financial maturity, all revolve around wanting responsibility. When someone is
responsible for the route responsible for their family is responsible for themselves, when somebody
is able to be trusted to live the life in a good way, that person is mature. And this is why today
we have the problem of manchild of people who don't grow up people in their 30s and 40s. was to
		

			children, because there is no sense of responsibility. And so going back to the Islamic way of life,
going back to the Islamic way of,
		

			of being a truly productive Muslim, it comes down to number one, being responsible for ourselves and
being responsible towards our families and the oma as a whole. So that's it. That's chapter five of
the book productivity principles of Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz vailable at the links below. Hope you all
get your copy soon. Don't forget to share your reviews and let me know what you think of the book is
often afraid or awkward or 111 or below let me know Salaam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh