Interview with Productive Muslim: Baba Ali

Some gems that I’ve gleaned from the interview (quotes are not exactly word-for-word”:

“As part of my research for my board games, I would sit down with a man who had over 400 board games and I’d play with him during my lunch break.”

“Either you do something differently or you improve upon it. If you’re just going to start a Kabob restaurant that makes the same type of food as all of the other restaurants, why will people come to you? That’s why many businesses fail.”

“I’ve had more than 400 orders come after the “Mecca to Medina” was over, but I didn’t fulfill any of them because I was done with the project. It’s like if there’s a mountain climber who wants to fulfill the challenge of climbing a huge mountain. He feels really good once he gets to the top, but if someone says they’ll pay him to do just do it again, then he won’t feel the same challenge”.

“Many Khateebs just recycle the same topic over and over, depending on what time of the year it is. What about the other topics, like Adab and Marriage?”

“Scholars study for years, learning Fiqh and other sciences, but they end up just becoming marriage counselors…I see a large vacuum.”

“One thing that our Ummah has in abundance is criticism. We need more people actually doing something instead of just criticizing. Most of the criticism that I receive are not from people who say that I’m making the religion too funny, but they want me to cover the beard issue, the meat issue, and the music issue, because that’s what everyone else is covering. That is why I specifically do not cover these three topics”.

“You always have to ask yourself what your intention is, before doing something. That self-motivation must always be there”.

“How come our parents were able to stay married for 20-30+ years, but we cannot stay married for 2?”

“Your productivity helps other people grow. Alhamdulillāh, at HalfourDeen, we have over 7 staff members even though we’ve only been running for a few months”.

“Sometimes the dream grows bigger than the dreamer” – Productive Muslim

“It’s important to have teams of people. You can’t do everything yourself. I used to ask my team to research and learn different things”.

“Sometimes you are tempted by success and try moving too quickly. If you do that, you’ll lead yourself to failure”.

“You should pay people – I didn’t accept any volunteers for the HalfourDeen project. You will see a large increase in productivity when you start paying people with an amount that they appreciate. If you take care of your team, then they will take care of you”.