Muhammad Alshareef was born in 1975 and raised in Canada. In his youth, he memorized the Quran and later graduated with an Islamic Law degree from the Islamic University of Madinah, class of 1999. He is the founder of AlMaghrib Institute through which he teaches university-level seminars on Islam. AlMaghrib Institute seminars have been conducted across the USA and Canada, as well as in Australia. Muhammad Alshareef has also founded EmanRush Audio, Khutbah.com, and DiscoverU.com. He actively keeps in touch with the online community at the AlMaghrib Forums and on his Facebook fan page.

For this third and final part of the Productivity & Cleanliness series, I had a last minute change of topic.

Initially, I was going to talk about being organized and having a clean workspace area and how that affects and improves productivity, however, I realised that such a topic needs a series of its own and there’s much we can discuss about workspace organisation in future posts inshaAllah.

Instead, I wanted to draw your attention to a far more important topic related to Cleanliness and Productivity from an Islamic perspective and that is: Spiritual Hygiene.

What do I mean by Spiritual Hygiene?

Have you ever felt ‘clean’ inwardly? Ever felt ‘spiritually clean’?

You know the feeling when you’ve been doing lots and lots of good deeds, when you have been avoiding sins, and basically feeling closer to Allah.. you feel ‘clean’ and ‘pure’ inside because your heart, mind and soul is clean and obedient to Allah (I’m not saying that you have a false sense of security as a result; one should never feel confident that his/her good deeds are enough for him/her but should always strive to do more). Compare this with the opposite feeling that comes when you have been disobedient, committing sins that you know you shouldn’t; you feel guilty, impure, and basically feel dirty inwardly even though you might be clean outwardly.

These 2 feelings, or rather accurately may be described as ‘spiritual states’ have an immense effect on your productivity.  My contention here is that when you’re in a state of spiritual cleanliness you will be much more productive, why? Because you’ll be focused on what’s important, you’ll be in tune with your true fitrah (natural disposition) and purpose of life, and Allah will make things easy for you. When you are spiritually unclean however, you will be distracted with sins, guilt and consciousness would disturb you that you can’t focus on being productive, and you simply lose track.

It’s hard to maintain a state of spiritual cleanliness perpetually and Emaan (faith) goes up and down, however, we need to be conscious of our changing state and the reasons behind it. There are days when I feel lazy, unproductive, and just not myself, those days I question myself: What’s wrong? Why am I like this today? Is it an inward thing (a sin, a thought, an emotion) or an outward thing (body is fatigued, illness..etc). Only if you constantly analyse yourself will you be able to understand your inwards better and with Allah (SWT)  mercy upon you, He’ll bless you to understand how to deal with it too inshaAllah.

One of the beautiful Duas that Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) taught us connecting spirituality and cleanliess, is the dua:

اللهم باعد بيني وبين خطاياي كما باعدت بين المشرق والمغرب. اللهم نقني من ذنوبي وخطاياي كما ينقى الثوب الأبيض من الدنس. اللهم اغسلني من خطاياي بالماء والثلج والبرد.

 ‘O Allah, distance me from my sins just as You have distanced The East from The West. O Allah, purify me of my sins as a white robe is purified of filth. O Allah, cleanse me of my sins with snow, water, and ice.’

Notice the imagery connecting sins with dirt, and asking Allah to puritfy you from this dirt and wash it away from you.

Do you know what the worse punishment Allah can put you through in this life? Making you not feel the weight of your sins, nor enjoy the sweetness of His obedience. SubhanaAllah, can you imagine that?! In other words, He makes you completely heedless to your purpose in life, and you simply live an unproductive life tilll you die with no preparation for what’s to come. Islam becomes a shell in your life with no meaning, nothing matters to you except superficials, and you simply live with no purpose. May Allah protect us from such a state.

None of us want to be in that state, so let’s be spritiually clean by actively understanding our spiritual state and actively trying to clean ourselves with any of the followings tools: Tawbah, Istighfar, Avoidance of Sins, Remembering Allah, Reading Quran, Salah, Fasting, Charity and other good deeds.

This is a call to all my brothers and sisters to clean ourselves inwardly & outwardly so that we can fulfill our productive missions in life. May Allah (SWT) bless you with a clean and productive life, may you live pure and die in a state of purity. Ameen.

"Clean yourself, for Islam is cleanliness." (Reported by Ibn Hayyan.)

He (Peace be upon him) also said: 

“Cleanliness invites toward faith, and faith leads its possessor to the Garden”. (Reported by al-Tabarani).

I cannot go to all the hadeeths here about personal hygiene, but I strongly encourage you to look up good Fiqh books that would give you good breakdown on the Islamic guidance on personal hygiene. Trust me, you follow these simple guidelines, and not only will you feel clean, but refreshed and productive!

How does been squeaky clean keep us Productive?!

That’s a question that came across my mind when I noticed a heightened productivity right after making wudhu, having a shower, or generally being tidy/clean.

In this series, we'll explore the physical cause-effect relationship and spiritual cause-effect relationship between cleanliness and productivity, let's start of with wudhu today inshaAllah:

Allah says in the Quran  “Truly, Allah loves those who turn to Him constantly and He loves those who keep themselves pure and clean." (Al Baqarah 2:222) He also says: “In it (mosque) are men who love to clean and to purify themselves. And Allah loves those who make themselves clean and pure.” (9:108) 

Just those 2 verses alone are enough incentive for us to being constantly clean and in a state of purity and it explains why Islam has taken great care of this topic to the extent that even a dead person is honoured with a bath before he/she is buried! 

Without us diverging into the deep intricacies of Purity and Cleanliness in Islam (which interestingly is ALWAYS the first chapter in any Fiqh book) I want us to focus on Wudhu (ablution) and its effect on Productivity. 

Wudu is one of the most beautiful rituals we Muslims have been blessed with. It keeps us pure and clean, both physically and spiritually and connects us to our Khaliq (Creator). It keeps our mind consciously aware of  Him and prepares us to meet Him, that’s why we’re encouraged to be in a state of Wudu at all times, as Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said: “… and no one preservers their wudu except a Believer.” [Ibn Maajah, Saheeh]

In my quest to understand the effect of wudu on productivity, I was trying to understand why Wudhu was a prerequisite to Salah; one interesting explanation I came across (and there are many other explanations) is that wudu helps you “focus” on Salah and “puts you in the mood” for Salah. I tried to dig deeper and guess why this is so, and it occurred to me that wudhu is the physical action of an intention, i.e. you physically get up and pour water on yourself to proclaim the intention that you’re going to pray. 

Think what this means in terms of productivity: you plan to do some work you have been intending to do for a long time, so you get up and make wudhu first, this puts you in the mood and “focus” zone for your work because you’ve taken physical action to affirm that intention, makes sense? Also, the beauty of taking wudu before any task is that it ensures that your intention for this task is pure and clean. (It’s hard to find somebody who’ll be taking wudu before a doubtful transaction?!)

Islam teaches us that wudu doesn’t just affect your outward, but it was an inward effect too. This is confirmed with the hadith of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), which he said: 

“When a Muslim or a believer washes his face (in course of ablution), every sin he contemplated with his eyes, will be washed away from his face along with water, or with the last drop of water; when he washes his hands, every sin they wrought will be effaced from his hands with the water, or with the last drop of water; and when he washes his feet, every sin towards which his feet have walked will be washed away with the water or with the last drop of water with the result that he comes out pure from all sins”.  [Sahih Muslim : Book 2, Number 0475].

And isn’t sin the reason for our lack of productivity?

An interesting quote I came across recently said “Ablution protects the believer from four enemies of the soul: the lower self or ego (nafs), worldly desires (hubbul dunya), lust (hawa), and Satan.” (Voices of islam - Vincent, J. Cornell). These four enemies are not only the enemies of the soul, they are the enemies of productivity! The lower-self makes you want to be lazy and sleep all the time, worldly desires are the biggest distraction from your true purpose in life, following hawa (lust) can turn any productive person to super unproductive (and fall into Haram), and Satan needs no introductions! So imagine, with one beautiful purifying action, you can  protect yourself from these unproductive forces!

Do me a favour? Next time you sit to work on your computer, make wudu first and tell me how it feels. Try it. SubhanaAllah, I use this at work when I can’t get myself to focus on my work, it’s amazing how you change and become much more focussed and productive.

I hope this gave you just one insight into how wudu makes you productive. May Allah (SWT) help us live the life of purity and die pure and clean. Ameen.

Transcribed and Summarized version of Sh. Hamza Yusuf's talk on Elements of Success

In our current state of affairs, we have come to know that failure is the opposite of success. One of the reasons Muslims fail, well one of the major reasons cited in the Glorious Qur'an al Kareem is `disputation amongst one another', which leads to failure. Also, one of the signs of the latter days, isthe amazement in ones own opinion (self opinionated people). 

The essence of failure is summed up in the Qur'an as:

Disobeying Allah subhaanahu wa ta'ala,
- Disobeying His Messenger sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam, and,
- Disputation amongst each other.

For our current situation to be reversed, there are many methods, and ways to go about things. Obviously holding firmly to the Qur'an and the Sunnah is the first. But, there are elements that we need to implement in our lives that will bring to life the Islam that was lived not so long ago by our predecessors, InshaAllah.

Ten Qualities That Lead to Success:

1. Every successful person has a strong sense of purpose. What greater sense of purpose than to know that your goal is Allah subhaanahu wa ta'ala.

2. Seek out role models or mentors. These mentors instill in them a sense of possibility. What better role model than Rasulullah sallallahu 'alaihi wa
sallam?

3. Strength of visualizing the goal. Rasulullah sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam had the strongest visualization of any human. We are people of `success' and this Deen is not a Religion of `failure', but a Religion of SUCCESS!

Michael Hart, the historian who wrote the 100 most influencial personalities in history, placed Muhammad sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam as number 1. The greatest witness is what your own enemies show witness to. Our example is the best example, for verily Rasulullah sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam was
`Uswatun Hasanah', the Best example; he is the model and mentor of success for all of mankind.

4. Positive sensory orientation. That you dwell on your successes, not dwelling on your failures. Remember your past successes when you were weak, and Allah subhaanahu wa ta'ala will give you victory, look at Badr.

5. Self assurance. They know that they can succeed. `La tahinuu, wa laa tahzanuu wa antum la'nawla in kuntum mu'mineen' – `Do not be weak, and do not grieve, and you are the uppermost, if you are Believers'.
Our afflictions are expiations for us. Remember at `Uhud, Rasulullah sallallahu `alaihi wa sallam said: `Your dead are in the Hell fire, our dead are in
Jannah'.

6. They plan and organize. They know how to prioritize. Look at the most important things and take that. We have people now that argue over where you put your hands in the prayer, where your feet should be, etc.
These things are known in the books of Fiqh, we don't need to argue over them. You ask any scholar of any worth and they tell you very clearly. There's different ways to do it, because we're not supposed to get caught up in the trivial matters, because this is the Talmudic (Jewish) mind that asks `what kind of cow, what color cow' etc. All triviality.

Even in the West, they say that the `devil's in the details' (proverb). What's important is to ask `where's your heart?' Where is your heart in the Salaat?
People watching others pray during Salaat, finding mistakes with the Imaam etc. Where is our heart in the Salaat?
We plan to corrupt each other, organizations are successful, because they plan and organize each other. We are good planners when it comes to Walimah's. For instance, how many sheep will we have, how many belly dancers etc. Allahu Akbar, Takbeer, what type of takbeer? Takbeer of Salatul Janaazah, 4 of them!

7. The ability to acquire the necessary skills to succeed. We need to produce male and female scholars. Why don't we want to be from those people? The people of knowledge? Make your children people of Akhirah, not Dunya! 

8. Patience. Be patient and enjoin others to patience. We have two lessons that Muslims have to learn, most of our tribulations are coming from: o Kibr, and, o Lack of patience.

Saying La ilaha Illallah does not make us special, because a Munafiq says La ilaha illallah, and yet they are lower than the Kaafir.
And remember that if you feel safe from Nifaaq, then according to Hasan al Basri rahimahullah, you are a Munafiq! The only one who feels safe from nifaaq is the munafiq.
`Umar ibn Khattaab radi'Allahu anhu went to Huthaifah ibn Yaman and asked him `Do you see in me what you see in them? Tell me by Allah, I want to know if `Umar is a Munafiq?' Huthaifah radi'Allahu anhu replied, `I don't see in you what I see in them'.

The qualities of a Munafiq (some of them include):
- They oscillate
- They remember Allah subhaanahu wa ta'ala little,
- They say on their tongues what's not in their hearts,
- They pray lazily, etc and so forth.

9. Perseverance. Be persevering. No one will have except that what he endeavors for'.

10. To love what one is doing. Radi'Allahu `anhum wa Radu `anh' – `They love Allah, and Allah is pleased with them'.

Loving Allah subhaanahu wa ta'ala and His Messenger! Spending what we love and giving from it freely. You don't reach righteousness (Birr) until you give out that which you love.
"When perfection is reached then it has to diminish, So once something is called perfect, expect it to perish."

ProductiveMuslim.com is pleased to present to you an interview with a very ultra-Productive Muslim - Shaykh Faraz Rabbani.

Shaykh Faraz Rabbani is a researcher and teacher of the Islamic sciences, specializing in Islamic Law. He is the Educational Director of SeekersGuidance, and a partner and legal advisor with StraightWay Ethical Advisory.  He has two published books: Sufism & Good Character and Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School (White Thread Press, 2004.) 

Without further ado, ProductiveMuslim.com presents....

You wake up in the morning, no idea what to do for that day, open your e-mails, check your facebook account, sleep some more, go to work/uni/school, do something to act busy, wait for the time to clock out, go home, watch TV, speak to some people on the phone, then sleep.

The example above is of a person who is not decisive. When they woke up, they didn’t DECIDE what they had to do, they didn’t DECIDE what their plans for the day would be, they didn’t DECIDE how to control the multiple variables that surround them so that they can lead a productive life.

Decisiveness is the characteristic of a productive Muslim - because only by making effective decisions will you be moving forward in your life. The more you linger, and let shaytaan play with your mind, the more you’ll be slowed down and become unproductive. 

Master the art of effective decision making. The moment you lose grip with this art, others and circumstances will make decisions for you. I know that making a decision isn’t the most easy thing to do, especially that you’ll be responsible for the consequences of your decision. I know that it’s too comfortable not to make any decision and is actually very convenient to let others decide for you (after all, you can always blame others if things go wrong!). But is this how a Muslim should be? Is this why Allah (SWT) created your brain, your heart, and created logic, emotions and reason for you?

If you’re still not sure, here’s a 5 simple step method for making effective decisions:

1. Think!
You’ll be surprised how many people don’t think before they decide! And by thinking, I don’t mean spending few minutes staring at the ceiling waiting for a revelation to come! Thinking means brainstorming, analysing, drawing from your experience of how best to go about a certain course of action and really taking the time to measure the implications of your decision.

2. Research/consult
You’d done the thinking part, now you’ve tens of questions.... no problem, do your research! Look around, ask around, and consult others, bounce ideas from family/friends and really exhaust every possible means of understanding the implications of your decision.

3. Istikhara
SubhanaAllah, Allah is so merciful to us, He knew that it would be hard for us to make decisions easily, so he opened a special lines of communication for us to Him when it comes to decisions.. it’s called Istikhara prayer! Just read this hadeeth carefully and understand its meaning..

On the authority of Jaabir Ibn ‘Abdullah he said: The Prophet (S) would instruct us to pray for guidance in all of our concerns, just as he would teach us a chapter from the Qur’an. He (S) would say ‘if any of you intends to undertake a mater then let him pray two supererogatory units (two rak’ah naafilah) of prayer and after which he should supplicate:

‘O Allaah, I seek Your counsel by Your knowledge and by Your power I seek strength and I ask You from Your immense favour, for verily You are able while I am not and verily You know while I do not and You are the Knower of the unseen. O Allaah, if You know this affair -and here he mentions his need- to be good for me in relation to my religion, my life, and end, then decree and facilitate it for me, and bless me with it, and if You know this affair to be ill for me towards my religion, my life, and end, then remove it from me and remove me from it , and decree for me what is good wherever it be and make me satisfied with such.’

You’re asking Allah...the One who knows everything about what’s best for you... if you’ve true yaqeen (certainty) in your dua, do you think Allah will make you take a “bad” decision? Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) said, the one does istikhara will not regret! Imagine someone saying to you, I’ll give you a formula, if you follow it, you’ll never ever ever regret any decision you make! Will you take up the offer?!

4. Decide/Action
You’ve thought about it, asked others, and most importantly asked Allah for guidance (SWT) via an Istikhara prayer, now what?.... ummm.. DECIDE! Take action! And jump into your decision full force taking every conceivable first step you can make, so that you can’t reverse your decision! You wanted to open a business, and taken the above steps, NOW open it and invest your money! You wanted to propose to a particular person and you’ve done the above, pick up the phone and call her waly now! Make the decision and act upon it quickly before shaytaan comes to whisper in your mind and puts doubt.

5. Dua/Tawakkal
You’ve made the decision, taken some actions.... it’s not over yet. Make dua and have trust in Allah. You may have made the right decision, but to follow through a decision correctly needs lots of dua, and trust in Allah (SWT) so don’t give up! And don’t regret decisions you’ve made after doing all the above, you only have 2 possible scenarios: either you’ve made good decisions and things are working great, or you’ve made a decision that challenged you which you can either learn from or you’ve learnt to overcome!

Yes, making decisions isn’t easy, but instead of dodging them and suffering the consequences in this life and hereafter, develop your decision making muscle by making decisions daily using the above steps - whether for small decisions or big  decisions - just make a decision!

Finally, I leave you with this quote from Anthony Robbins:

Life is like a river for many people, they just jump in the river of life with out ever deciding where they want to end up, so they quickly get caught up in the current, current events, current challenges, current fears. And then they come to the forks in the rivers, they don't consciously decide which way to go, they just go with the flow of the river (the flow of the majority instead of being directed by their own values and goals) and as a result the feel out of control but continue to drift down stream until one day the sound of the raging water wakes them up and they realize they are 5 feet from the falls and they are in a boat with no ores and then they say "Oh shoot", but its to late. They are going to take a fall, it may be a financial set back or the break up of a relationship or maybe even a health problem, in almost all of the cases the fall could have been prevented by making better decisions up stream. (The Niagara Syndrome - by Anthony Robbins)

ProductiveMuslim had an honor to speak to Bilal Randeree. Bilal is from Newcastle and is a chartered accountant. He is a social activist and takes a keen interest in finance, economics and just about anything political and/or controversial. After living and working in London, travelling Europe, studying in Syria and completing the Hajj pilgrimage, he returned to sunny SA and completed post graduate studies in economic journalism at Rhodes University. He is currently working as a chartered accountant while waiting for a work visa to Qatar where he is to start work as a Business Journalist with Al Jazeera Network.

   1. Welcome to ProductiveMuslim.com, tell us about yourself.

Oh, I hate this question – what do I tell that will be beneficial and inspire others, and what do I say that is just to massage my ego and pride! Well, let me attempt to be honest and sincere in describing myself in a way that others can benefit.

The most important thing about a person is where they are from. I feel that says a lot about the foundation of a person and explains, to some extent, any success a person may have achieved. I am from Newcastle, a small town in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province in South Africa. I grew up there, the 2nd eldest of 9 kids, 7 boys and 2 girls – though my youngest sister was only born when I left home around 10 years ago. I went to University in Durban and graduated with a honours degree in accounting and finance. I then went on to become a Chartered Accountant. In between, before and after I did various other things – some of which I see I will have to touch on later…

   2. Most of us have some big ideas. But we don't know where to start. Tell us about your beginning. How did you get started?

I had many beginnings, so don’t know where to start with this questionJ I left school mid-way through high school and memorised the Holy Quran in two years. That was the beginning for me. After that, everything I embarked on fell into place with grace of the Almighty, and even though things got hard at times, sincere prayer and faith doubtlessly made it much easier. While doing my memorisation, I met interesting students of religion who introduced me to the world of finance and the global economy. This was the seed that got me interested in banking and economics – I completed my final 3 years of high school in 1 year and then headed to University.

I always say that if anyone leaves University with only a degree, they probably wasted loads of time. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by really good brothers and sisters on campus, and became heavily involved in the Muslim Students Association. MSA work took up most of my time and studies seemed to go well with it – that is also where I began writing. We first used to produce simple newsletters for the MSA, but after a few years this grew into a national magazine.

   3. A Chartered Accountant, Community Manager, Journalist and Comedian. Masha Allah, that's for sure, a jack of all trades. Did you plan to be all these, or they just fell in place?

I don’t think I planned a single one of these (or any others for that matter), but in each label/title/opportunity, I can identify something that I had always wanted to achieve.

Chartered Accountant – I wanted to get into the field of finance and economics so that I could attempt to make changes that could benefit mankind. I feel that Muslims have loads to offer the world, in the form of solutions to the problems out there, but we need to be experts in the field and be innovative, creative and constantly faithful to the essence of Islam in attempting to do so.

Community Manager – besides holding the position of Community Manager for the SalamBC network, I am a co-founder of the Muslim Professionals Network. This grew out of an initiative to inform and educate Muslims to achieve the solutions I touched on above.

Journalist – From my days on campus, I enjoyed using words to encourage people to good thoughts and action. The push to become a journalist came when I was working at one of the world’s financial capitals, London, at the time the recent financial crisis was just beginning. I felt that there was a shortage of reporting on the crisis by people with experience and knowledge in the field. Thereafter I enrolled at journalism school and majored in economic journalism. I have recently secured a job as Business Journalist with Al Jazeera in Qatar and will inshaAllah be heading there for this exciting opportunity.

Comedian – This definitely came about with no planning. I was assisting a relief organisation with the hosting of a fundraising comedy show with local comic genius Dr. Riaad Moosa and the American group Allah Made Me Funny. Somehow during their tour, I found myself on stage making jokes, and as they say, the rest is history! But I feel that Halal Bilal (www.facebook.com/HalalBilal) serves an important purpose – most comedians do Muslim jokes all the time, and these often further the stereotypes that exist about Islam and Muslims. Being a Muslim comedian gives me the opportunity to make people laugh, but at the same time use the comedy to educate them and break the stereotypes and myths.

   4. What's your secret to time management? (Please mention tools you use/ methodology/ process/ procedure)

I honestly have little advice to share on this. I struggle to keep up with all my commitments and activities, but find that when my life has structure and discipline, then things fall into place easier. The day I sleep too late, don’t eat healthily, neglect the punctuality of my prayers or anything else – then I notice things fall apart and commitments start piling up. I try to keep a to do list and prioritise the tasks I have – at different times, different things take priority, but the important thing is to be clear on what is important.

   5. What keeps you going? Others might get tired and overwhelmed - or just give in after a major success, saying "this is enough for a lifetime". How  do you continue to aim higher everyday?

I don’t really look at anything as solely a personal achievement – what successes I have been blessed with along the way are all just small steps towards a bigger goal. Anything that I do/have done, that does not contribute to the bigger goal of improving the lives of all on earth and establishing the principles of Islam – those things are not successes, but merely illusions.

   6. What do you think are the ingredients of a Productive Muslim? (attitude or character traits)
Hmm, sincerity, commitment, perseverance, patience, and all the others one can think off. Fun, humour, excitement and an appetite for adventure are key as well. I think sometimes Muslims forget that we also believe in life BEFORE death!

   7. What is your upcoming venture/ Intiative/ business idea?
Hmm, the most current project I’m working on is a social business called Moral-a-T. During my days on the MSA, we used to make cool t-shirts with Islamic/Moral messages that we sold to raise funds for MSA activities. That is now going to be run from this business that we hope to take national and online. Proceeds will be used to support community organisations, and new, funky designs will be sought to make a products that the youth will find cool and that will promote good moral messages.

   8. Final words of advise to our ProductiveMuslim fans? (our main audience is 18-24 youth - mostly across UK, US and Canada)
Be proud and humble, committed and driven, focused and wild – the future is your hands and Allah is on your side, if you are always on the side of the righteous.

A few months back we started the ProductiveMuslim book club. MashaAllah, it started off with a bang and it looked very promising with lots of signups and eager members! Somehow unfortunately, it didn’t turn out as expected - and to be honest, we are partly to blame. We didn’t think through it carefully enough, and there were quite a number of obvious glitches and miscommunication... all this coupled with the fact that the book club members were not interacting the way we envisioned them to do and it kind of fell apart :(

All was not lost though...  :D

Realising the stumbling of the book club, we tried different ways to energise the club and make it more interactive, these efforts did encourage some of our members to do a number of book reviews (which will be released over the next few weeks inshaAllah).

So now when the dust has settled, we’ve gone back to the drawing board to see how we can re-introduce a much more dynamic and fruitful book club... The result: a new and stronger ProductiveMuslim Book club – (inshaAllah!)

Introducing the new book club!(We even got a logo this time! lol)

So how will this book club be different from the old one? 

• The book club will be open for ALL members interested in joining it. It won’t be an exclusive book club with exclusive members anymore.

• It’ll run entirely on the interactive facebook page and not as a dull Google Group. This ensures a dynamic platform for people to share their favourite productivity, Islamic and other books, what they like/hate about them, and any favourite quotes. Moreover, the facebook page will be run by our very own Book Club manager and his team!

• No homework! Unlike the first book club where we requested members to submit reviews - we’re taking a laissez faire approach for this one. So you don’t HAVE to send any reviews! - Just join the discussion, discuss your book with your friends, learn about other books, and if you really really really like a particular book which you want to see featured on ProductiveMuslim.com - send us a simple review! 

That’s it. Nice, fun and easy. No complications, just pure interaction and hopefully lots of cool discussions.  Join the new book club by becoming a fan on the ProductiveMuslim Book club facebook page!

(P.S. Oh one more thing...once we hit 1000 members for the new Book club, we’ll have another suprise for you :D stay tuned!)

Introducing: The Masjid Makeover Challenge!

The Masjid Makeover project is 1000GoodDeeds.com inaugural challenge. 

The goal of the 1000Gooddeeds.com project is to transform Deeds in to Actions by giving daily doses of good deeds one can do with practical actions.

The state of the masjids are a reflection of the community surround it.  It is the first impression non muslims have about islam. It is a place of dawah,  inviting others to islam. It is a place of congregation five times daily and the heart of the muslim community. 

The aim and intention of the masjid makeover project is to beautify and clean up our masjids. To promote team work. Develop project management and negotiation skills. Encourage going green and earth friendly behavior. The most important of all is to learn to do deeds selflessly for the pleasure of Allah. 

All participants have to submit before and after pictures or video of the masjid makeover  as well as action plans on how it was done and a maintenance plan on how the masjid will stay clean. 

 

For more information visit

http://1000gooddeeds.com/2010/02/08/challenge-feb-2010-masjid-makeover/

Join 1000 Good Deeds - Masjid Makeover Project for your daily task instructions. 

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=300873456951