Hajj eBook Productive Muslim

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Table of contents




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When Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) completed the structure of the Ka’bah, Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) commanded him to call the people to Hajj. Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) got confused he said, “O Allah! How shall my voice reach all of those people?”

Allah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) told him that his duty was only to give the call, and it was up to Allah to make it reach the people.

Here we have a beau-tiful productivity les-son; don’t worry about the results/outcome of your effort; rather, worry about making the effort and ensuring you do the task to the best of your ability. If Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) saw that the expected outcome of his task is impossible, he would have given up and there would have been no Hajj.

But he relied upon Allah and did his best: he climbed Mount Arafat and called out in his loudest voice, “O People! Verily Allah has prescribed upon you Hajj, so perform Hajj.”

Every human being on earth at that time heard that call and Hajj began since that day. Allah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) revealed in the Qur’an:

We should never stop ourselves from making the

necessary effort to achieve something just because we think the results are impossible to achieve.

Do your part and leave the rest upon Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala).

“And proclaim the Hajj among mankind. They will come to thee on foot and (mounted) on every camel, lean on account of journeys through deep and distant mountain highways”. (Surat Al-Hajj, Ayat 28)

Part 1 | The Call





There are 2 important ingredients for Ibrahim’s suc-cess in this task : 1. He took all necessary means to complete his

task; he went to the highest mountain at that time, mount Arafat, and called with his loudest

voice. 2. He was sincere! He sincerely believed that Allah

(Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) would deliver his call to all mankind.

These 2 ingredients - sincerity and hard work - are the ingredients for true success in dunya and akhira.

One of the most respected scholars I know of our time gave me advice I’ll never forget it: “have good intentions and work hard”. I’ve carried this message wherever I’ve gone and it’s a formula of success I try to live by.

Write this message down, place it somewhere on your desk, and remind yourself daily to have good in-tentions and work hard in whatever you do and see how Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) will open the doors of success for you, inshaAllah!

I’ve always been in awe at the verse that talks about Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) and Ismail (Peace be up-on him) building the house of Allah. The verse says:

Notice that although they were doing the most noble task on earth at that moment, they weren’t arrogant about it and asked Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) to ac-cept it from them.

When you’re being productive, always be humble about it and don’t boast. Remember, it is Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) who gave you the means to be productive at that time, so be thankful and always ask Him to accept from you your hard work.

“And remember Abraham and Ismail raised the

foundations of the House (With this prayer): “Our

Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art

the All-Hearing, the All-knowing” .

(Surat Al-Baqarah, Verse 127)

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Allah says in the Quran about the building of the Ka’bah:

Notice how their prayer ended with “For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing.” Imagine if in all our work we remember that Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) is watching us and knows what we’re doing; how will our work be? What sort of tasks will we choose to do? What would happen to our level of productivity? How far would we go to ensure that the task is done perfectly or in an excellent manner?

Here’s a practical homework exercise for you: pick a task you need to do, perhaps something you’ve been procrastinating upon for a long time, and ask your-self, “If I was to do this task sincerely for Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) knowing that Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) is watching me do it, how should I go about it and get it done?”

The answer may surprise you.

“And remember Abraham and Ismail raised the foundations of the House (With this prayer): “Our Lord! Accept (this service) from us: For Thou art the All-Hearing, the All-knowing” .

(Surat Al-Baqarah, Verse 127)





So far we’ve derived 2 lessons from the story of Ibra-him (Peace be upon him) and Ismail (Peace be upon him) building the Ka’aba:

1. When you’re being productive, be humble and don’t

boast, but thank Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) and ask Him to accept from you.

2. Whenever you approach a new task, you should re-member that Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) is watching you and you should try your best to do the task sin-

cerely for Him.

A final lesson that we can draw from the story is the following; notice how Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) and Ismail (Peace be upon him) were working togeth-

er to build the Kaa’ba. Good companionship (whether related or unrelated) is a true helper in making you productive.

Sometimes being along or doing something alone can be discouraging and you might easily give up, but if

you work with people and work within a team, it’ll force you to be productive.

Try your best when you undertake a task, project, or good deed that you do it with other people – whether it’s with your spouse, children, co-workers, friends, or even random people who passionately belief in your task. Working with someone, or within a team, will im-mensely help you keep up the productivity and work

hard to get the work done inshaAllah.





Now we move to a different Hajj story: the story of Hajar (May Allah be pleased with her) and her son Is-mail (Peace be upon him).

Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) woke up one day and asked Hajar to prepare herself and baby Ismail for a

long travel. Ibrahim and Hajar kept walking, crossed a fertile land followed by barren mountains till they ar-rived at the Arabian Desert. Ibrahim brought Hajar to a high hill called al-Marwa, made her and her baby sit under a tree, placed a bag of dates and some water near her, and simply walked away.

You can imagine Hajar’s reaction at this - she ran after him and said, “Are you going to leave us in this desert where there is no one to keep us company?” She re-peated this many times, but he would not look back at her. Finally she asked, “Has Allah ordered you to do

so?” He said, ‘Yes.” She replied, “Then He will not ne-glect us.”

This story teaches us a very beautiful lesson: When Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) is testing you, you need

to have this belief that Allah will not forsake you. You’re a Muslim, you believe in Him; He’ll not forsake you. Do your best in all your endeavours regardless of the trials you face, and Allah will not forsake you. This feeling of certainty in Allah’s help will boost your productivity when you feel like giving up.

Hajar went on nursing Ismail and drinking from the water until it was all used up. She became very thirsty and the child was crying. She left him on the al-Marwa hill and hurried to the nearest hill, as-Safa.

She stood there and started looking at the valley

keenly so that she might see somebody, but she could not see anybody. She descended from as-Safa, crossed the valley running, and reached al-Marwa hill. She stood and started looking but could not see any-body. She kept running between as-Safa and al-Marwa seven times. When she reached al-Marwa for

the last time, she was exhausted - and there, the mir-acle happened! Angel Jibreel dug the earth until water flowed underneath Ismail (Peace be upon him) & Zam-zam was born!

Part 2 | Persistence





Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) saw a vision of himself slaughtering his son, knowing that it’s a command from Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala), he spoke to his son Ismail (Peace be upon him) about his vision and the obedient son dutifully agreed. As Ibrahim (Peace be upon him) was taking his son to the slaughter location, shaytaan

appeared 3 times in 3 different locations “advising” Ib-rahim to abandon his task and go back home with his son. Angel Jibreel came down and told Ibrahim that this is shaytaan trying to tempt him from obeying Allah, he should throw 7 pebbles at him and he’ll disappear.

When they reached the designated spot, Ibrahim placed

his son Ismail face down on the ground, reached for his son’s neck with the knife and pulled it! Nothing hap-pened. He did it again, nothing happened. He tried a third time but still, nothing happened and the miracle occurred. Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) says in the Quran:

“So when they had both submitted their wills (to Allah, and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice), We called out to him “O Abraham!” “Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!”

– thus indeed do We reward those who do right. For this was obviously a trial- And We ransomed

him with a momentous sacrifice: And We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times” (Al-Saffat, Verses 103-108).

I always ask this question to my students;

Why did Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) make Hajar (May Allah be pleased with her) run 7 times before this miracle happened?

If He (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) wanted, he could have pro-vided her with Zamzam without her even lifting a finger, but there’s a lesson here for all mankind: you need to work hard for miracles to happen!

The sky does NOT rain gold - you have to be proactive, do your best, and push yourself; and Allah will provide from where you didn’t expect!

This is a message to the Ummah of Islam: Sitting down and doing nothing for the Ummah and hoping that our Ummah’s situation will change does not grant us victory.

We need active societies, people who care more about those around them than their own comforts. Each one of us needs to be productive in an area of our lives, and boost those around us to be productive as well. This is how we’ll rise as an Ummah, inshaAllah.

The story of Ibrahim’s (Peace be upon him) sacrifice of Ismail (Peace be upon him) is probably the most famous story of Hajj and one that we all memorize.





What productivity lessons can we learn from this story?

Here’s the productivity lesson I wanted to share with you: remember the part when Shaytaan was coming to “advise” Ibrahim not to obey Allah? This is the sort of “advice” that we mostly fall for each day that makes us un-productive! Shaytaan each day turns up and tells you “no need to work on that project...it’s too hard, leave it today, you seem tired”…OR “you can’t do that, you’re too young/old/incompetent/busy to work on this project, someone

else will do it.”

Day in and day out, he comes to us and distracts us, acting as our trusted advisor to stay away from good deeds and keep us lazy and unproductive. Today, I want you to pelt shaytaan with stones of knowledge, hard work, sin-cerity and perseverance whenever you hear such ‘advice’ from him!





Even though there are no prescribed celebrations for a new year in Islam, however, it’s always good to take such occasions as opportunities to reflect on how well you’ve performed over

the past year, in terms of dunya and akhira, as well as what you want to achieve over the coming year.

When reflecting back, if you see that you were successful in achieving lots of good deeds and good work, then say “Al-Hamdulillah!” and ask Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) for more in

the coming year.

If you see otherwise, then ask Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) for forgiveness and start a new sheet with the new year promising yourself to do better, inshaAllah.

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Part 3 | The New Year





When we think about the Hijrah (migration of the Prophet from Makkah to Medina), we rarely imagine the difficulty it must have been for our beloved Prophet (Peace be upon him) and his companions to leave their homes, their businesses, their families, and migrate to a different new city. Can you imagine yourself doing it? Leaving all the comforts you’ve

built over the years in your hometown and simply starting a new life in a new town?

It’s not easy. But sometimes such migration is need-ed in order to kick start a new life and propel us to-

wards productive pursuits just like it was needed at the time of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) in order for Islam to find a new home in Medina and be able to spread more freely in the Arabian peninsula.

Today I invite you all to a spiritual form of Hijrah, a

Hijrah for the sake of Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala) from sins to good deeds, from bad friends to good friends, from non-halal job to a halal job, from living for dunya to living for akhira, and of course from un-productivity to productivity!

This spiritual migration won’t be easy and might be challenging at times, but if done for the sake of Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala), it will be beneficial in the end inshaAllah.

Here’s an article I wrote on Productivity lessons from

the Hijrah, which I hope you’ll find beneficial:

http://www.productivemuslim.com/productivity-lessons-from-the-hijrah-part-2/

Hope you like it!







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