Muslim should be thinker by default, as it is part of his doctrine (عقيده), Where you can see in Qur'an all the time questions such as “Don't you think?”, “Do they not understand?”. Even the prophet of Islam “Muhammed – (PUH)” he was all the time having time with himself, isolating himself from everyone to think and meditate. So doing a self-reflection on yourself from one time to another is a necessity to organize your thoughts and define your purpose in life, because everything you do daily in your life should be aligned with your values and your purpose.

Here in this article, we will take Imutalent as a case study. I first started by asking myself, why i am here on this earth? Considering that Qur'an is the main reference for every Muslim, i got the answer:


وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ (56) مَا أُرِيدُ مِنْهُم مِّن رِّزْقٍ وَمَا أُرِيدُ أَن يُطْعِمُونِ
*****
قُلْ إِنَّنِي هَدَانِي رَبِّي إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُّسْتَقِيمٍ دِينًا قِيَمًا مِّلَّةَ إِبْرَاهِيمَ حَنِيفًا ۚ وَمَا كَانَ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ (161) قُلْ إِنَّ صَلَاتِي وَنُسُكِي وَمَحْيَايَ وَمَمَاتِي لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ (162) لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ ۖ وَبِذَٰلِكَ أُمِرْتُ وَأَنَا أَوَّلُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ


I started to ask how to fulfil the purpose of worship, which is a general term and can be classified into components that are also defined well in the Qur’an and we learnt it from the life of our prophet (PUH)

Accordingly, i started to draft an approach for myself. This approach is guided by two general aims (one related to life (الدنيا) and one related to afterlife (الأخرة)

Finding a solution for issues that block us as Muslims: for example, having a good school for my kid that ensure teaching him properly based on our FITRA (Original form that Allah created us on it), we don’t want to teach our kids to hate, or separate them from hosting society. but we want to ensure that our kids get an education matches our FITRA. We can talk for long about this topic, but this is just an example. We want financial solutions that fit us as Muslims in this society if we are going to live here for long period. We want to ensure our youth has access to suitable work opportunities in an environment that feeling part of it. We want to build excellent professional network that enable our youth to start businesses with each other as they are growing their relationship through the community and can easily find partners who share them the same values.

You as a believer will be asked by Allah, what you have done to the Ummah seeing it in a miserable situation as we see today, and you must be ready to answer.

But before we go further in what is the correlation between this initiative and helping the Ummah, You need to decide first which type of Muslim you are: Are you Muslim or Mu’min or Muhsin? Because based on this answer it will be clear if this afterlife motif applies to you or not.

If i asked you what is the difference between these classes, can you answer me?

 We were sitting with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, one day, a man appeared with very white clothes and very black hair. There were no signs of travel on him, and we did not recognize him. He sat in front of the Prophet, rested his knees by his knees, and placed his hands on his thighs. The man said, “O Muhammad, tell me about Islam.” The Prophet said, “Islam is to testify there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, to establish prayer, to give charity, to fast the month of Ramadan, and to perform pilgrimage to the House if a way is possible.” The man said, “You have spoken truthfully.” We were surprised that he asked him and said he was truthful. He said, “Tell me about faith.” The Prophet said, “Faith is to believe in Allah, His angels, His Books, His Messengers, the Last Day, and to believe in providence, its good and its harm.” The man said, “You have spoken truthfully. Tell me about excellence.” The Prophet said, “Excellence is to worship Allah as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He surely sees you.” The man said, “Tell me about the final hour.” The Prophet said, “The one asked does not know more than the one asking.” The man said, “Tell me about its signs.” The Prophet said, “The slave-girl will give birth to her mistress, and you will see barefoot, naked, and dependent shepherds compete in the construction of tall buildings.” Then, the man returned, and I remained. The Prophet said to me, “O Umar, do you know who he was?” I said, “Allah and His Messenger know best.” The Prophet said, “Verily, he was Gabriel who came to teach you your religion.”

Grade: Sahih (authentic) according to Muslim

So, as you can undertand now that Muslim and mu’min are not the same. Mu’min believes 100% in what the prophet mentioned.

قَالَتِ الْأَعْرَابُ آمَنَّا ۖ قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَلَٰكِن قُولُوا أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ الْإِيمَانُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ ۖ وَإِن تُطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ لَا يَلِتْكُم مِّنْ أَعْمَالِكُمْ شَيْئًا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ (14) إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَرْتَابُوا وَجَاهَدُوا بِأَمْوَالِهِمْ وَأَنفُسِهِمْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الصَّادِقُونَ

The Desert-Arabs say, “We have believed.” Say, “You have not believed; but say, ‘We have submitted,’ for faith has not yet entered into your hearts. But if you obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not diminish any of your deeds. Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.”
The believers are those who believe in Allah and His Messenger, and then have not doubted, and strive for Allah’s cause with their wealth and their persons. Those are the sincere.

Reaching this level of certainty about Unseen matters (الأمور الغيبيه) is not an easy thing, you can’t just be born in a Muslim family to have this level of certainty. It needs doing a deep homework and a lot of research to reach this level. That is why usually you will see Muslim converters are more active people in serving Ummah and having stronger feel of belonging to it, compared to Muslims that it happened to born for a Muslim Family.

Now If you assumed that you are believer, When Allah ask you what you have done to believers community or as we name it the Ummah? What is your answer?

Remember, We said as a believer you believe 100% in afterlife and judgment. You must have an answer you might do something small within your capacity but eventually you must do something, you can’t just say to Allah that Muslim rulers betrayed the Ummah and the small things that i will do for the Ummah will not help in anyway. No, you can’t do that because Allah asked you to do, and the results belong to him.

وَأَن لَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَانِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَىٰ و َأَنَّ سَعْيَهُ سَوْفَ يُرَىٰ ثُمَّ يُجْزَاهُ الْجَزَاءَ الْأَوْفَىٰ
The human being attains only what he strives for

So, you will not have an excuse in front of Allah. Doing anything even if small one for the Ummah is a duty, if you are believer.

But as we know paradise (janah) is levels. Some will be with the prophet, while others will be in lower level. Your determination and resolve will be reflected on your deeds, and this will be reflected on your level at Janah. Someone tweeting or boycotting is not like someone working on initiatives not like someone spending his money for sake of Allah not like someone fighting oppression and occupation on the ground.

So start first by asking yourself, Do we have a problem in the Ummah, and the answer is obviously yes, Many Muslims leaves their homes to search for a better life in non-Muslim countries. Most of immigrants in the west are from countries that are failed in almost every aspect. Our brothers in many Muslim countries are forcibly displaced from their homes, oppressed, tortured, and killed. Our holy sites such Al’Aqsa are under continuous assault and foreign occupation. There is no one strong organization can protect rights of Muslims worldwide.

The second question was to ask why we have all these big problems in Ummah? And the answer on this question won’t be an easy one it needs a lot of reading and understanding from Quraan and history. Detailed answer i gave it in this article 

, but in short it is due to a huge cultural change that resulted in negativity, self-orientation and broken soul.

As i showed in the article, Studying Quraan was the driving force to reach Islamic golden age and with abandoning it as a corner stone and as a constitute of life, Ummah started decline.

On the other hand, enemies of this Ummah are usually driven by greed, dominance and power. They understand well the enablers of this power. They do whatever it needs to reach their goals, so we can see that despite their differences and their dark hearts, they come together to harm us and they succeeded to build smart systems that enabled them to harness knowledge and capital to achieve their goals

Combining this knowledge of our history and learning from modern experiences of developed nations and even experiences of our enemies can help us to figure out what routes that we can take to revive this Ummah.

Learnt from our history that we can’t put Natural sciences in a second rank after religious sciences.

Learnt also that our unity determines our survival opportunities.

Soft and hard influence are required to defend your interests – (for us to defend our self to defend our culture)

Knowledge and Capital (Money) are the tools of influence.

Overcoming our differences and finding a common ground is essential for our survival.

Based on these findings, we launched this initiative of (Immigrant Muslim Talents - imutalent) to be a first step for harnessing skills of the Ummah talents to revive it and reposition it again as a leading nation among other nations.

and i will be glad to answer your questions if you have any. Check also FAQ section of the site.

Self-reflection on yourself and on the world around you

Many scholars have discussed and studied the reasons of economic and political failure of Muslims across the globe in this era, especially after the great change in balance of power after first industrial revolution that started at 18th century. We don’t aim through these series of articles to further explore the reason behind this great shift and we will leave it for the reader.

Some of those scholars are Malek Bennabi and Mohammed al-Ghazali who had an amazing publications about the root causes of Islamic civilization decline after it was a global power and a beacon for humanity in middle-ages. Among these books that are highly recommended are: 

Islam and the Modern Economy, The problem of ideas in the Islamic world, Renaissance conditions, Muslim in the world of economics. 

Some of these books offer also a vision of the authors on how we can recover our position as a leader again.

This documentary is also very good to get a quick idea about this important topic: 

All these resources have some common perceptions about the great shift in the Ummah. There is a great consensus that the decline happened gradually over long period of time and it is mainly driven by big cultural changes. This cultural change happened mainly because of deep inner conflicts, the selfishness and greed of the weak generations especially Muslim ruling elites and war lords who came after the great generations. Selfishness without minimum knowledge that could prevent treason and inner crack of the Ummah, the treason that has been exploited by foreign powers to induce severe damage to Muslims culture, humiliate them, putting them inline and takes away their abilities to think critically.

Those Muslim credible intellectuals agreed that without developing the required self-awareness, there will be no hope to address our limitations and find applicable solutions to regain our leading position in the world. This self-awareness requires that we need first to start questioning everything we have been taught and have a deep understanding of the factors that led to this continuous decline since 14th century.

To summarize findings, main factors that contributed to the rise of Islamic golden age:

a just/balanced political system that created a fertile land for intellectuals from all fields to think, invent and criticize.

Open-mindness that allowed excellent connection with outside world and knowledge transfer of other civilizations.

The great space that given to rational thinking that incited a revolution in all fields: Math, Geometry, Medicine, astronomy etc.. which ultimately established the Islamic world as a leader through its soft power before military power.

The Quraan as a book was in the core of this renaissance as it was the engine that inspired the different scholars in these old ages to understand the mysterious scripts within it. These factors combined created a collective special spirit on intermittent periods of political stability, this spirit that was taking the whole society in specific direction toward the future with clear vision about their objective and the nature of their existence.

On the other hand, main factors that contributed to the decline of this civilization:

political instability, Where Muslims in these ages couldn’t develop a sustainable political system that guarantee the inclusion of the people and a smooth transition of rulers and accordingly this hindered the continuous development of societies.

Economic decline that correlated also with political instability.

Mass migration of brains and skills that once fuelled the Islamic societies.

Repression of critical thinking and the big underestimate of rational thinking.

Putting rational thinking in a second rank after religious studies that focused a lot on rituals on cost of Quraan scripts that once was the stimulus for rational thinking

The striking thing now that we see in the west, the same signs that led to the fade of Islamic golden age, for example a great interest is given now to trivial matters such as definition of the gender, the gradual fall of education, the absence of clear purpose of human being existence, etc.. Even though, the west has still a good political system that guarantee stability and doping the economies with the right talents, the issue that prevented a quick fade of western civilization until now.

This brings us to another question, Why we should really care about Ummah and what does it really mean bringing back the greatness of this Ummah to normal people like us? How can this have a better impact on us as individuals? What is the shape of this greatness?  How it will be the relation between this new born nation with other nations? What are the strengths that we possess as a Muslims to pursuit this purpose? How can we utilize these strengths? Tens of questions that need a self-reflect, we will try to answer in the next articles.

Self-reflection on yourself and on the world around you

Muslims between Past, Present and Future