April 15, 2008
A Formula for Success
Section: WRITINGS | 66 reads
Some Practical Advice
Keeping the above backdrop in mind, below are some answers, and some advice, I have given from time to time to some of the questions people keep asking me – my students, friends, those in my Qur’an programs, those in various Islamic and other more general and broader camps, projects, meetings, conferences and activities.
Their questions can all be summed up into one broad problem area: What should I do to make my life better and more successful in this world?
My first response: Why just this world? Why not also take in the next world while you are at it?
So, here is a bit more detailed approach to success and happy living gleaned from the Qur’an, the Hadith and available knowledge in various relevant fields such as psychology, sociology, management and the rest.
No one modeled or exemplified any of these things more fully in his or her life than Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
That is why Islam spread as rapidly and vastly throughout the world as it did: because Islam taught the world how to live a most perfect life in this world. Not because people went around chopping off people’s heads forcing them to be Muslims.
1. Cultivate Physical Toughness
Don’t be your body’s slave. Don’t work for your body. Instead, make your body for you.
Eat, sleep and drink only as much as your body needs. Don’t overeat or oversleep. That will make you tired, lazy and possibly even unwell.
As much as possible, do all your work by yourself. Ask for help only when needed.
2. Cultivate Mental Toughness
Be an active user of your brain. Don’t be a mental jellyfish. Learn to make the tough decisions. For, living is about making decisions and choosing among alternatives, often imperfect ones.
But always think things through carefully and vigorously. Be logical and rigorous in your thinking. Don’t be a mental slob.
Put your mind to work. Don’t depend on others to do your thinking or to make up your mind for you.
Don’t always lean on others for psychological and emotional support. Try to be the tree on which others can lean.
3. Cultivate Moral Toughness
Morality is what elevates humans above animals. Try to know the difference between right and wrong and take clear moral stands wherever and whenever you can.
But do so not so much to judge, insult, attack or condemn others, but to hold yourself to a higher standard and to do the right thing as much as you can.
Without the right moral compass, you would seriously compromise your humanity.
4. Cultivate Spiritual Toughness
Beyond the complex processes of the mind, there is the even higher and more complex world of the spirit or the soul. It is nothing less than a divine spark inside a corporal human body fashioned out of dingy, smelly clay or a set of highly purified metals and elements.
Put your soul to work. Exercise it regularly and put some muscle on it. Continually fan the flame of the divine spirit in you. Otherwise ashes will cover the embers and light will be engulfed by darkness.
5. Cultivate Social Toughness
People need people. So, learn to live and work with people. And learn to put up with the challenges, discomfort and pain they may cause.
Make social challenges a source of making good things happen in this world – for yourself; for others; and for the entire world. Don’t turn them into an excuse for avoiding your fellow human beings and for running and hiding from this world.
Socially tough people are those who can afford to be tough and demanding of themselves and soft, nice, gracious, loving and caring of their fellow human beings. And to God Almighty’s creation in general.
They are people who can easily forgive others and overlook other people’s faults and flaws. And yet they continually hold themselves to higher standards.
For, to love and fear God above is to love and serve God’s creation below.
Pulling an All-Nighter
You may ask, how do you demonstrate – and how do you build? – physical, mental, moral, spiritual and social toughness?
Once we pulled an all-nighter. One of many we had done. Its purpose was to demonstrate in practice some of the things we talked about in earlier paragraphs: physical, mental, moral, spiritual and social toughness.
An intense Qur’an Program of several days of night-and-day work had come to a close. It was time for all of us to go our separate ways. But not yet. We needed to do a nightlong session of intense debate and discussion – of all the important things that were on our mind.
The night-long session began with Maghrib Salaah – or was it Asr? – and continued right through Fajr. Yes, there was food and tea and Namaaz. But there was also the staying awake and active and focused and alert throughout the night, talking, sharing, discussing, thinking, planning – and having fun.
Call it a Muslim’s nightlife if you will.
Or call it Qiyaamullail.
Qumillaila illaa qaleela, as the Qur’an says.
Or simply call it Islam Lesson One.
END
© 2008 Syed Husain Pasha
Dr. Pasha is an educator and scholar of exceptional
talent, training and experience. He can be reached at DrSyedPasha [at]
AOL [dot] com or www.IslamicSolutions.com.
- Page 3 of 3
- « Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next »
Next Article: Of Human Bondage
Previous Article: Qur’an: Key to World Peace
Home | Writings | Audio | Quote of the Day
Related:
- Education: The Missing Link of Islam and Muslims [Quote of the Day - 324]
- Killing of Husain: World Day of Repentance
- People’s Priorities Show in the Way They Live Their Lives [Quote of the Day - 275]
- You Want A Better World? Clean Up Your Inside [Quote of the Day - 264]
- [Chapter 32] The Bible: A Panorama of Success and Failure in Early Islam
- [Chapter 31] A Note on Success and Failure
- “Qur’an!” Is The Answer!
- The Simple Miracles of Islam
- A New Year’s Resolution
- Muslims’ Abuse of Islamic Culture
- National Qur’an Literacy Camp in the Caribbean: Taking the Qur’an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It!
- Whither Indian Muslims – Part One
- Choosing Allah
- Past Is Not for Living, Only Present Is [Quote of the Day – 65]
- Two Paths to Success: Islam and Machiavelli [Quote of the Day – 90]
- Tails You Lose, Heads We Win! How Is That as a Formula for Success? [Quote of the Day – 123]
- Working for Allah Is the Ultimate Formula for Success [Quote of the Day - 195]
- When Will Muslims Re-Learn Their Forgotten Lesson of Truth Telling? [Quote of the Day - 199]
- Love of God and Love of God’s Creation – Different or the Same Thing [Quote of the Day - 206]
- True Dimensions of Muslim Identity [Quote of the Day - 215]
Home | Writings | Audio | Quote of the Day
