“Being productive means making smart choices with your energy, focus, and time, so that you can be the best slave for Allah across all your roles – not just at work.”
“Being productive means making smart choices with your energy, focus, and time, so that you can be the best slave for Allah across all your roles – not just at work.”
On this week’s TMV podcast, Salim and Rukhshana speak to Mohammed Faris, founder of Productive Muslim, on the topics of modern hustle culture versus barakah culture, how we can become better and more productive people by delving deeper into Islam, and how the Prophet Mohammed is the best example of barakah that we can learn from today.
To listen to the full podcast, click below:
To watch the full episode, click below:
Mohammed first discusses how he became involved in learning about how to really be a productive Muslim while being a busy student struggling with managing his time – and after learning about the science of productivity, Mohammed eventually began his own blog and website. After first shutting it down, and then restarting his website, he realized that there was so much to do in the field of productivity – and that the Muslim community really needed to rethink how we all are organizing and working in our day-to-day lives.
What really interested Mohammed was how our spirituality can be linked to our productivity – and he realized that all the answers to how to be better, more productive human beings can be found in Islam and in the holy life of the Prophet Mohammed.
Being productive means making smart choices with your energy, focus, and time, so that you can be the best slave for Allah across all your roles – not just at work.”
This, explains Mohammed, is where we need to understand the difference between hustle culture versus barakah culture. Hustle culture is about worldly, personal gains whereas barakah culture is God-centric, and is focused on the hereafter. This difference is essential, believes Mohammed, in becoming better and more productive Muslims.
By rethinking our purpose in life to that of barakah instead of just hustling to hustle in the modern world, we can not only improve the quality of our lives but improve our spirituality and connection with Allah as well.
Work has replaced religion for the source of people’s identity or meaning…we’ve made work our god now.”
Mohammed explains that to better understand how to really live with barakah culture, we must look towards our Prophet Mohammed, who gave the best example of this barakah culture. The Prophet Mohammed was always present, despite being given the most challenging and meaningful mission on earth: to spread the word of Islam.
Compared to today’s hustle culture, where “we’re everywhere but never really there”, explains Mohammed, barakah culture and the example of the Prophet Mohammed’s life is the only way how to become better practicing Muslims living meaningful lives.
Moving onto the topic of how to live a life of barakah culture while being married, or a single mother, or a woman in the modern working world, Mohammed explains further what it means to truly be productive in this day and age – to listen to the rest of this fascinating discussion, click below!
