Sayf: Productive Muslims

You stop auditing your worth by how seen you are and start measuring it by how sincere you were and you stop asking "is this all there is to my life?" because you can finally see what all of it is actually for. Redefining your purpose towards Allah is not a checkout from your responsibilities. It's the only foundation strong enough to carry them without cracking you in the process. *Sayf Network* If you like the article above and you'd like that we work with you to redefine your purpose and steer you towards a peaceful productive life, then we are currently accepting limited entries between today and tomorrow into a new cohort of our paid program. Please fill out the form below and we'll let you know if you qualify: https://form.svhrt.com/6a71129877f2b4f473136db4

*A Letter to The Exhausted (Wo)man* Sometimes, all of life stops to make sense. You find yourself pausing and asking why you're doing all you're doing. As a man, you sometimes realize you've been working all month and there's nothing to show for it because everything is fapped away the moment you get it. You keep meeting needs after needs, and there might never even be enough appreciation for all you do. As a woman, you find yourself constantly in the service of other people. You you're raising your kids, keeping the home clean, helping your husband. It's tiring many times, and you don't even get the appreciation. In fact, as a man, you may even be appreciated by your family and still wonder, "So... I wake up, work, pay bills, sleep, and repeat. Is this really my life?" As a woman, you may be deeply loved by your children and husband, yet still feel, "Every day is cooking, cleaning, teaching, washing... and tomorrow I start again." If you find yourself in this situation for long, questioning if it's all worth it, then it is either a crisis of recognition (not feeling appreciated) or a crisis of meaning (wondering "is this all there is to my life?"). In either case, the solution is to redefine your purpose. It's easy to forget what you're building in the long-term, to forget that all your sacrifices, in the long-term, are about YOU. Yes, you, and that's not selfish. You must be able to redirect all these things back to how they benefit yourself. Every bill you pay is shaping the person who will stand before Allah. Every night you stay up with a sick child is being written down, whether your husband notices it or not. Every load you carry so your family doesn't have to is training your soul for something far bigger than this dunya. None of it is wasted, even the parts nobody claps for. Especially the parts nobody claps for. Rebuild the foundation of everything you do towards pleasing your Lord, towards your Hereafter. That's the only way to keep finding strength even in the seasons when nobody says thank you, when the routine feels endless, when the appreciation you deserve simply doesn't come. This is only possible if you see this world for what it truly is. If you see it as a temporary place that will end soon and which will lead to the aakhirah. The moment your "why" shifts from people to Allah, to your Hereafter, the maths of exhaustion changes completely. Think about it. When you're working so your family recognizes you, so your husband finally sees what you do, so the appreciation eventually arrives, you're running on a fuel source that was never built to sustain you. People forget. They get consumed by their own weight to carry. Even the ones who love you deeply cannot see everything you carry, and were never meant to be your source of strength for carrying it. You cannot keep drawing from a well that was never promised to be full. But when the foundation shifts to pleasing Allah and working for your aakhirah, something changes in how the tiredness sits on you. The work doesn't get lighter. The kids still need raising, the bills still need paying, tomorrow still starts the same routine all over again. What changes is what the effort is for. That single mindset change means the exhausted mother repeating the same day for the hundredth time isn't just repeating a routine, she's building something for herself. The man who wakes up, works, pays bills, and sleeps isn't stuck in a loop, he's building something for himself. Allah doesn't lose the reward of anyone who does good, even when the recognition never comes. "Indeed, Allah does not allow to be lost the reward of those who do good" (Qur'an 9:120) isn't just a nice ayah to recite. It's the actual mechanism keeping people standing. This is what changes the internal experience of tiredness. Appreciation from people becomes a bonus, not the fuel. If it comes, alhamdulillah. If it doesn't, the deed still counted, the reward is still written, nothing was lost.

All Friendship Will End Being on campus gave me the opportunity to spend some time with a lot of my old friends. The night before my stay was to end, we gathered to have a few drinks, and I remembered we did a similar thing a few years ago, a farewell for me when I was leaving the university. They used to be my closest friends, and we did a lot of things together, but guess what? Since I left, I've only gotten in touch with them a few times. Some of them, we didn't talk for over a year. I have a family, I have an entirely different career path from theirs, and they have their worries too. This, eventually, is how all friendships will become. If you do not get separated because of the diversity of your ways in this world, you will get separated by death, sooner or later, and that will even cause you more grief. It is very stupid then, to build your life around friends, to not have an independent life away from the one you live with them, to strive to please them, be accepted by them and to fit in with them in all you do. When they leave, AND THEY WILL LEAVE, it will take a very heavy toll on you. But we all have an innate need for someone to listen to us, someone to speak to, someone to seek help from, someone who will never close their doors upon us, someone who will always support us, and someone who will always be there for us. That is why the only relationship that is worth giving yourself into completely is the one with Allah, for He is never leaving. { وَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱلۡحَيِّ ٱلَّذِي لَا يَمُوتُ وَسَبِّحۡ بِحَمۡدِهِۦۚ وَكَفَىٰ بِهِۦ بِذُنُوبِ عِبَادِهِۦ خَبِيرًا } [Surah Al-Furqân: 58] And put your trust in the Ever Living One Who dies not. But no, we never give our relationship with Him the attention or consciousness it deserves. Sayf Network

I Can Do More Sometimes, one of the ways Shaytaan deceives you into being unproductive is by telling you, "you can do more." One of my brothers in the university told me he was memorizing one and half pages of the Quran everyday. But in about five days, I saw that he only memorized once, so I asked him what went wrong. He told me another program had been fixed at the time he used to memorize and he had to attend the program, so he had been unable to combine both. "So what will you do?" I asked him. "I am still  trying to look for another suitable time." He said. So I advised him, "why not reduce what you memorize to just half a page. That way, you'd be able to memorize everyday and still attend the program. Then if you have any more time, you memorize more." His response? "But I find one and half pages very easy. Half a page is like settling for less than I can do." So I told him, "look, in the past 5 days, you've only memorized once, if you had been memorizing just half a page everyday, that'd have been 2 and half pages by now. Is that not better?" So, a lot of times, instead of just reducing what we do to accommodate unforseen changes in our programs, we deceive ourselves with the "I can do more" mantra and end up doing nothing.  Sayf Network

*TB:Before You Reduce Sleep, Cut Out Harmful Wakefulness* It is only when your phone usage has been reduced to the bare minimum and you still can’t find enough time that you can then talk about reducing sleep. It is only when you start dedicating the first hours of your day to deep uninterrupted work before you should talk about reducing sleep. It is only when you read 3,4,5,10 ajzaa of the Quran everyday and still need more time that you should talk about reducing sleep. (This may sound oxymoronic, but reading lots of Quran does not take away your time, rather it is a reason for increased blessing in the little time you have.) The problem with many people who “want to sleep less” is that they waste most of their waking hours. They start their day with their phones, go from one social media app to another, and call it a day feeling unproductive, not because they slept too much, but because they lived poorly while awake. You don’t solve that by shaving off hours from your sleep. If your waking hours are already full of distractions, what do you think will happen when you sleep less? You will just spend more time scrolling, more time wandering, and still feel exhausted. So before you touch your sleep schedule, fix your wakefulness. Audit your day. Cut out all low-value activities. Remove the social media (and if you must use some, limit it to specific hours). Remove the time wasted jumping between tasks. Have clarity in your goals. Remove meaningless online conversations. Fill the pockets of space in your day with Quran and adhkar. Then look again at your time. You might just realize you don’t need less sleep. And if after all of that, you still don’t have enough time, then yes, it may be time to cut sleep a little. But you’ll find it easier to reduce sleep then because your life is now clearer and more intentional. When your waking hours are meaningful, your body naturally asks for less rest. Fix your wakefulness before thinking of reducing sleep. *Sayf Network*

TB: Solve the Mother of All Problems First One of the reasons your life is not changing for the better, despite trying to tackle each problem individually, is because you’re not solving them in the right order. There is a correct order for tackling problems, and working in the wrong order will keep you trapped in the same pit. There is one overarching problem that, when solved, often takes away more than 90% of all other problems automatically. I have seen someone fix it, and their postpartum depression lifted. I have seen someone fix it, and their anxiety disappeared. I have seen someone fix it, and their struggles with productivity vanished. That problem is your relationship with Allah. If you leave this unfixed and instead try to fix your other issues one by one, it’s like pouring water into a basket. How do you fix this problem? Here are 5 steps (Focus on them one after the other) • Fill your day with the Qur’an: read it, or listen to it, while pondering its meanings. And I mean, FILLL it.. On the bus, while on a queue, while taking a walk. • Before and after every task: make duʿa for even the smallest things, like cooking a meal, and show gratitude after every blessing, even if it’s “just” completing your morning adhkār. • Fix your salawāt: Drop your phone 10-15 mins before every salat, go early to the mosque, observe naafilah, make dua before the Iqaamah, read some Quran, pray in the first row with focus and humility. Say your adhkar consiously afterwards, do not rush to leave. • Inspect your day for shortcomings at the time of salawaat: return to Allah in repentance and seek His pardon regularly. • Live as a true slave of Allah—in every situation, ask yourself, “What would Allah love me to do here?” and then do it immediately. Want to go on Facebook? Ask yourself, "Would Allah love me to do this now?" These five steps are not to be rushed. Focus on them one at a time. By the time you have internalized all five, I can assure you, from experience, that most of your problems will have faded away. Sayf Network

Lowring your gaze will become easy. Quran will be medicine. You will start to find solace in salat. You will find joy in Quran. Nothing will be more beloved to you than your Lord. You will love Him in a way you can not explain. If Allah wills, some years later, you will be writing a testimony like this one, inviting others to the blessed path Allah has opened up for you. But the earlier you make that leap, the better. If you wait until you're older, a lot of things might have become irreparable. Sayf Network

If You're Still Young, Read Slowly. True Life Story. There is a stage you will reach in life. The discomfort of wasting your time will surpass the discomfort of improving and spending your time well. Read that again. Slowly. If you continue to doomscroll, to skip your commitments, to snooze the alarm, to renege on the things you had vowed to stay away from, I promise you a stage will soon come when you will wake up everyday feeling miserable. You will not want to sleep because you are scared of the miserable feeling when you wake up. Oh yes, I am talking from experience. I have been there before. I had once reached a stage in my life in which I dreaded sleep because I knew I'd wake up to the mess that was my life. I was battling several problems. I was not consistent with anything. I was down on zero willpower. I was wasting my life away. I'd read through years of my diary and find only the single pattern of taking one step forward and ten backwards. You will reach that stage. A stage where wasting time on entertainment, football, and games will give you physical pain. You will not feel the pain when engaging in those things, but once you drop your phone, once you stop engaging in those activities, the wreck of a life you're living will stare in your face. You will hate yourself. Your chest will tighten. You will cry. Then you will go back to the exact things that make you feel horrible. Yes, you read right. You will go back to the exact things that make you feel horrible! I spent 3 years battling this cycle. It is a very horrible stage to reach. You would think that once you reach that stage, you would then automatically get your life together? Hell no! It only becomes more difficult. Whenever you drop your phone, you feel horrible; the right solution would be to get your life together once and for all, but by then you will be so low on energy that sitting to solve your life problem would be so draining, so overwhelming. So, in a bid to run away from the horrible feeling, you will pick up the phone again and consume more entertainment, more social media. All in a bid to escape from reality. From your life. From yourself. You will waste time again on your phone. Then, when you're done, you will eat. and eat. and then procede to eat some more. Then you will sleep, saying tomorrow will be different. Then you will wake up, think about how wrecked your life is. You will want to change everything, and then a notification will come in. You will click. You will go back to doomscrolling. You will open two tabs. YouTube and WhatsApp. You will laugh away your sorrow while watching skits on YouTube. You will shift between that tab and WhatsApp. You will keep looking for more escape routes from reality. You will play games. Games that require deep attention. You will fall deeper and deeper. You will ask yourself, "This pain, this feeling, is it not easier for me to just live a life of discipline and meaning? " But you will still not live that life. On some days, you will take one step forward, and then in the coming days, you will take ten backwards. Until..... Until one day. You might fall into a sin. You might read something. You might remember something. Or a calamity might befall you. Then you will remember your Lord. You will remember that there is no power to save you except with Him. Then you will enter into complete submission to Him. You will block all the routes to your previous life. You will not leave a single one unblocked. Perhaps you will delete your social media accounts. You will block YouTube. You will give distance to some friends. You will delete all those chats with the opposite gender and probably block them. You will choose a single thing to focus on, and you will invest unending hours into it. You will start to read the Quran a lot and spend time alone more often. Then, when your Lord sees your readiness, He will take over and guide each of your steps. He will watch out for you, by Allah, He will. Things that were once very difficult will become easy.

When I was younger, my worst fear was losing my eyesight. I feared it so much that I'd make constant dua about it despite my eyesight being perfectly okay then. I just could not imagine a happy life without being able to see. Sometimes, I'd randomly close my eyes for a minute just to imagine how it'd feel, and of course, it always felt horrible; always felt impossible to live with. But that all changed when I watched the funeral of Shaykh Ibn Baz. That janazah was attended with the ka'abah filled as if it were the time of Hajj. Now, you need to know the backstory of Ibn Baz for that to make any sense to you. At the age of 8 (if I remember clearly), he lost his eyesight. He narrated that when he lost his eyesight, one of his aunts visited his mum one day and thought he was sleeping, so she was empathizing with him and his mum, saying, "poor boy, how would he survive? how would he get a job?" Eventually, Shaykh Ibn Baz became the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, despite not being from the Aal-Shaykh, the family where the muftis are often selected from. Beyond that, Allah made him enjoy such acceptance, honor, and veneration amongst the people that no other scholar in recent times - before or after his death enjoyed. The leaders would leave their palaces and go to visit him, and it is often reported than on several occasions, he would intervene on government policies and cause the leaders to reverse or change a decision they had made. When he died in 1999, his janazah was widely attended. Masjidul-haram was filled. In fact, it is reported that because of his immense status, the Saudi government declared free flights on Saudi Airlines for anyone wishing to attend his funeral. This allowed scholars, students, and Muslims from across the Kingdom to travel to Makkah to pray over him. It became one of the largest funerals in Saudi history, with massive crowds in the Haram and even the streets outside filled with people performing the prayer. All of this, for a boy who lost his eyesight at the tender age of 8. For a boy whose aunt wondered if he'd be able to fend for himself. 26 years after his death, Ibn Baz is still heard, revered, honored, loved, mentioned! Of course, this is a status that is likely to be achieved only by one who dedicates himself to learning and teaching the deen, but it taught me something: blindness does not mean the end of life, it does not mean a life of darkness or gloom. Life could be very bright without your eyesight if you fear Allah and make Him your ultimate purpose. By Allah, today, I'd gladly give up my eyesight to achieve a fraction of what Ibn Baz achieved in life and even in death. It does not mean I have stopped to make dua to Allah against poor eyesight. Rather, I still do so fervently. I still randomly go on Google and search for things to prevent poor eyesight. But my perspective has changed. I do not get anxious at the thought of going blind any longer. I do not imagine life without it as a life sentence to sadness and depression. As a Muslim, there is no situation or condition that you should not be able to imagine survining/thriving happily with. Of course you work and pray against your fears, but you should not have any fear so big you get anxious at the thought of it - so much that you spend so much time worrying and being anxious over a situation that is not even reality, and may never be reality. Today, when I think about losing my eyesight, I just see it as any other test which I do not wish to experience, but if it comes, Alhamdulillah, joy will still find me and I will live happily with it biidhnillah. NB: Perhaps you will read this and make dua for your brother's eyesight so that the angels can say Ameen and pray for yours too, lol. Abdurrahman Adedokun Sayf Network

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A friend of mine told me he ran into another friend of ours recently, in a state neither of us expected, and it made me think. (Names changed for privacy — let's call them Mubaarak and Seun.) Ten years ago, we were all on the same level. If anything, Seun had a head start. He came from a much richer family, but he wasn't serious or disciplined. He spent most of his time on things that didn't benefit him. Ten years later, their paths had gone completely different ways. Mubaarak reached a level most people would call very successful — he had a family, a well-paying job, and had earned himself a prestigious study scholarship, amongst other things. Seun was in a struggling phase. This isn't a movie. It's real life. Hearing about this friend made me reflect on how the inability to postpone your desires shapes your future. Just ten years, and two friends may no longer even be on speaking terms, simply because they're no longer on the same level. Imagine how painful it would be to look back and realize you started at the same point, with the same opportunities, yet such a short period created such a massive gap between you and the other person. But all of this is just in the context of this world. Now extend it to the aakhirah. Imagine looking back and realizing your eternal fate was determined by just 60 to 70 years of life. You'll be trapped forever in the consequences of what you did, simply because you couldn't delay your gratification. Ten years felt long while Mubaarak was giving up his sleep and his comfort for it. But looking back today, it feels so ridiculous that Seun would sacrifice his future for the enjoyment of such a short time. If you're in university, look around you. Four years is enough to separate you from your peers drastically. Those who can delay gratification and spend their time on what matters most will end up in a completely different place than those who couldn't give up sleep, entertainment, and other distractions. The future belongs to those who understand how near it is, and so does the aakhirah. Abdurrahman Adedokun Sayf Network

You Are Closer Than You Think Even if your life feels miserable. Even if it seems like you have achieved nothing in years. Even if you feel completely overwhelmed. Even if It feels like it would take 15 years to fix your life... Know this: By Allah, you are closer than you think. Turning your life around is not as difficult as it seems - when Allah eases the path for you. One truly productive year can erase years of regret and bring you so much closer to your goals than you could ever imagine. A simple routine around your salawaat can change everything about your connection to Allah. Leaving social media, reducing your smartphone usage, and working around a structured daily routine can change everything about your struggles to achieve your goals. Yes, it demands crazy discipline. Yes, it means ignoring countless distractions. Yes, it requires turning away from many so-called "opportunities" that are, in reality, just diversions. But you can catch up in a very short time if you start now!!! Sayf Network

Make Your Life So Boring That... A few weeks ago, I went to a wedding. (We were fed well by the way, may Allah bless the couple.) I returned home after a long day just before Maghrib. Normally, I have a routine whereby I try to stay in the masjid between Maghrib and Isha, but since I had just returned from the outing, I felt like just skipping the routine and returning home after Maghrib. It was then I asked myself the question, "return home to what?" My wife has her own routine around Maghrib, so she'd not be free to talk. I couldn't sleep between Maghrib and Isha (the time is short and the Prophet disliked it), so the only option was to go home to my phone and start doomscrolling while waiting for Isha. But that was not an option too. At that point in time, I had blocked FB for weeks, blocked YouTube, blocked PlayStore, and blocked reels and statuses (using StayFocused app). I only had access to WhatsApp and Telegram. But I could just go to my browser and start reading random things, news, etc...yeah? Well, no! I had set a schedule (without the ability to bypass) whereby my phone locks almost every app that uses the internet by 7pm and only re-grants access to them by 7am the next day. When I thought about how I had nothing to do, the most interesting thing left for me to do was to pick the Qur’an and start reading. So I just staayed there at the masjid, picked up the Qur’an and strated enjoying it. I invite you to join me in making your life so boring that you'll have nothing else to do if  you decide to skip your routine. To make your life so boring that spending time with your spouse or child becomes fun. To make your life so boring that reading books become fun. To make your life so boring that you spend it on quality things that bring lasting peace. Sayf Network

Time Will Be Your Enemy I have a friend who is very knowledgeable about English grammar - I mean so knowledgeable that you'd think he dedicated years of his life to learning, but he did not. This friend told me one day that he gathered most of his knowledge through impromptu checking: whenever he heard someone say something, he'd check to see if it's correct,; whenever he saw someone punctuate a sentence in a particular way he doubted, he'd not stop at doubting, he'd go to read all he can about the right use of that punctuation. Over the years, this small habit culminated into a very big trait in him such that when you mention his name now - the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is: the grammarian. I also have a brother who seems to know something about everything: he knows what city is the capital of what country, knows about the Irish revolution and French, you'd think he read a book on each of these things, but he did not. He simply had a small habit. One day I asked one of my other brothers,  "is there a link between river Niger and Niger state?" He did not know. But instead of just saying he did not know, he picked up his phone and started browsing the internet for everything he could find on it. Then he said, "this is how brother xyz (the more knowledgeable one) got most of his knowledge". Over the years, he has become like a historian just by sticking to a small habit of feeding his curiosity. You see, if you want time to be your enemy, and you want to look back with regret, just stick to bad habits. Bad habits, no matter how small, make time work against you. On the other hand, good habits, even the smallest ones, ensure that time is on your side. If you memorize hadiths for just 20 minutes a day, in 10 years, you'll find that you have memorized so many ahadith. The remarkable thing is that you won’t be able to pinpoint when you spent the significant time or even how you gathered so much knowledge—it will simply accumulate over time. If you exercise daily, in a few years, you'll have built a strong and healthy body. If you study daily, over time, you'll become knowledgeable in ways that seem almost effortless. But if your habits are checking WhatsApp status every 5 minutes, multitasking between Tiktok and Instagram, you'll look back after five years and regret how you've spent your life. Time will have slipped through your fingers, leaving you with little to show for it. Like the author of Atomic Habits rightly put it, "good habits make time your ally, bad habits make time your enemy". So think today, what are your biggest habits? Are they ones that make time your ally or ones that make time your enemy? I once read something that says: "In 10 years, you'll either be paid for your actions, or you'll pay for them." Sayf Network