Looking Back 2021

The year 2021 brings hope and instill resilience, the impact of the pandemic manifested in 2021 and the world learns to cope with the unprecedented situation. This gave instant popularity to doomsday preachers who chant the end is near. Many jump onto the preppers bandwagon hoarding foods and building bunkers in their backyard. 

But as Muslims what should we do, in this time of global uncertainty? How should we respond? A hadith reported by Anas ibn Malik reported in Musnad Ahmad: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Even if the Resurrection were established upon one of you while he has in his hand a sapling, let him plant it.”

This hadith should put your mind at ease to a certain extent. However, rather than taking a selfish and individualistic approach like hoarding foods for your family, or building bunkers that can be rendered useless by flash floods we need to think differently. 

Thinking Courageously

Whether you believe climate change is a hoax of fact, there is no denying that environmentally speaking things are not getting worse. Floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are becoming more prevalent.

Muslims need to think as an Ummah and not individually, and this requires courage. Whenever we highlight  great achievements by Muslims almost all the time we will be attacked, for causing divisions. 

This is a natural response whenever Muslims do anything great. There will be attempts to strip any kind of greatness with the word Islam or Muslims. Because this kind of factual story would debunk the western narrative about Muslims. 

Guided Leadership

In other to revive the Muslim Ummah as a Respected, Reffered and Revered nation. We should look beyond the false narrative fed to us by the western media. As Muslims our first and foremost guide should be the Quran. Unfortunately, many of the Muslims who hold leadership positions are detached from the Quran. They are still influenced by western management gurus which is fine but you have to cross-check whatever ideas that you take on with the truth contained in the Quran.

Here is a few resources that will get you started with leadership guided by the Quran

1. 10 Leadership lesson I learn from Ertugrul Bey
2. How can Quran help Muslim CEO’s make better decision
3. How can Muslim CEO’s learn Quran Arabic Fast

The Muslim Ummah is not short of talents nor leadership, the problem is many of our leaders not guided by the truth. We need to produce leaders, not just truly capable but also follow the truth. 

What should we focus on

As Muslims we should work for the benefit of the Ummah. Among the Professiona thought leaders that we talked to in the Muslim world. Muslim are needs to have control over few things in order to be truly independent. These are: food, energy technology and data. 

Here are some articles about people who are working towards making the goal a reality.

1. Muslim CEO wants to Make Energy Accessible to Everyone
2. Turning Desert into Farmland
3. Muslim Inventor who is connecting the unconnected with 6G

In 2020  we witnessed how an app popular among Muslims with nearly 100 million download was alleged to have sold location data to the US military as reported by Vice.com, and has been picked up by various other news sites, such as Business Insider and TRT.  

Soon after that Muslims were shocked by the halal meat scandal. This only shows that Muslims need to take charge of their own consumption. The good thing that came out of these is that there are technologies being put together to prevent incidents like this from happening again.

Muslim Technology

Here are some that we covered,

1. The Verum Code
2. How Technology is putting a stop to Halal Food Fraud
3. Islamic super App to serve Muslim

Overall, despite the tough situation of pandemics, Muslim are now realising the importance of technology and are taking charge. 

Perhaps the he most inspiring story of all is the effort of a Malaysian who moved to Gaza to help Palestinian. He is all about  Rebuilding Palestine sustainably and through his NGO.

Bara’ Sulaiman is the son of Martyr that was all over international news is now studying in school which Malaysian help built.