One of the modern traditions which we've got so used to and never questioned is the end of the week holiday. Whether that is Saturday & Sunday to some, or Thursday & Friday to others, I don't know why, but I find these weekends to be the most unproductive social invention of the modern era.

I always wondered whether weekends have any historical significance. A quick search in Wikipedia (yes, I know, not the most reliable source but nevertheless) shows that what started off as a Jewish and Christian day off dedicated to God, soon became embodied in our modern-day weekend system, as days for leisure, entertainment (and religious dedication) for the modern worker post the industrial revolution.

The question here arises: what's the Islamic viewpoint of these weekend? Historically, under the Islamic empire, did we have weekends? I don't know the answer, but will be interesting to find out.

On another note, if you read Surat Al-Jummah (the Chapter of Friday) in the Holy Quran, Allah says:

O ye who believe! When the call is proclaimed to prayer on Friday (the Day of Assembly), hasten earnestly to the Remembrance of Allah, and leave off business (and traffic): That is best for you if ye but knew!    
And when the Prayer is finished, then may ye disperse through the land, and seek of the Bounty of Allah. and celebrate the Praises of Allah often (and without stint): that ye may prosper.

Hmmm.. did Allah tell us to take a day off? Nope. He said, go and seek the bountry of Allah. I'm not a mufassir but seek the bounties of your Lord sounds to me as go back and work. Allah knows best.

What does that mean? Muslims aren't allowed to have weekends? No, not necessarily... but imagine if the entire Ummah didn't have an official weekend system, and instead implemented what I saw being implemented in one of the Dawah centers I used to work in; They had a 7 day work-week, with each employer entitled to 1 day off during the week. Imagine, how productive this Ummah would be?!

Some of you might argue that this would make us more tired, hence unproductive. Moreover, when will we ever have the time to do our other errands, e.g. shopping, laundry, family time..etc? That's a fair point. With the current system in place, one cannot imagine life without weekends, but perhaps it's only a matter of putting our minds to it. Also, what if instead of having weekends, we save all these weekends for more frequent longer holidays. E.g. for every 1 month of work, we take a week off?! These are just ideas, feel free to discuss them in the comments section below.

Recently, more and more managers are realizing the damaging effects of the weekend system to the momentum of any business. By Friday afternoon every employer is lazing off and not completing their work waiting for the weekend to begin, we go into the weekend, and overkill it in our sleep, so that come Monday, we can barely wake up on time. Then Monday morning comes, and we need to remember where we left off at our work on Friday. Highly inefficient, don't you think?

This post might not change the current weekend system, but I hope it'll make us think on how we can implement a productive weekend system in our lives. (By the way, our religion has beautifully sorted the sleep bit for us, we have to wake up for fajr on weekends as well, hence maintain the same wake up time each morning of the week, which is very healthy.)

However, what we do during those 2 days to maintain a productive weekend? That's my next post inshaAllah...