You Are the Territory Where You Live | The Greater Jihad Ep. 6

Well, you have to be organized. You have to be disciplined, and you have to be organized in your approach to knowledge, in your your your acquisition of knowledge. It has to be done in an organized way. And that can be difficult even in the most ideal of circumstances. But when you are endlessly inundated as we are these days, inundated with a flood of information, misinformation, disinformation, you know, frivolous entertainment and so forth, it's even more difficult.

It's very difficult, actually. And when political discourse has become just a genre of entertainment And the way that that discourse is carried out, the way that it is manifested is through rage bait and click bait and sensationalism and so forth and extreme polemics. Right? Contrarianism, tribalism and so forth. And it's generally in a very hostile, very combative and unserious manner.

It can be very difficult. It can be next to impossible to take an organized and serious approach to knowledge and the acquisition of knowledge. And of course, when knowledge itself is basically ad hoc and temporary because, you know, Google or ChatGPT or what have you, they allow you, you know, on demand to sound like you know stuff that you don't know. It becomes even more difficult to take it seriously. Because you don't even know what knowledge is anymore, what it actually is, what it actually means to be knowledgeable.

The whole the whole concept has become emptied. Knowledge is just content, and content is knowledge. It's just something that you use to win debates in the comment section. That is cheapening and hollowing out and emptying and trivializing knowledge and the pursuit of and the acquisition of knowledge. Now you need to be organized.

You need to be organized and you need to be serious about this because it's not a joke. Because, look, for example, if you're in a discussion with someone, you know, especially on the Internet, you're in a discussion with someone, and you let's say you instinctively know that what they're saying about a particular topic is false. You know it's propaganda. And you wanna counter what they're saying. So you do some quick research.

You know? Either you do it, you know, on the spot or you take a few days or a few hours or a few days to to to refuse it. Don't. Don't do that. If they're ignorant, okay.

If they're ignorant, okay. But you're also ignorant. You're also ignorant. And just because you might be able to assemble, you know, some quick talking points to counter their ignorance and their ignorant talking points. That doesn't change the fact that neither of you is actually fluent in the topic.

We don't need a clash of the Googlers. You understand? And you shouldn't participate in that. Winning an argument does not make you intelligent. Winning an argument doesn't make you intelligent, doesn't doesn't mean that you have expertise in the subject, especially when it is unintelligent in the first place to get involved in that argument to begin with.

Do not acquire knowledge in order to combat the ignorance of others. That's not the the that that's not the right reason. Acquire knowledge to combat your own ignorance, and only involve yourself in those discussions pertaining to topics about which you already possess knowledge. You understand me? This is a very simple rule, but it's very difficult for anyone to follow.

So if you see someone who's saying something that you know to be propaganda, you know it's misinformation or you know that it's wrong, but you don't really know why it's wrong, You just know it instinctively. And you think that it is an important topic. You think that the topic is important. Then you should let that trigger you now to acquire genuine knowledge about the subject completely separate from that circumstance. Completely separate from that discussion.

Leave that discussion. Leave that discussion. Leave that speaker. Leave all of that behind. And just begin the process of educating yourself about the topic for your own self.

Not to prove anyone wrong, but just to gain genuine authentic expertise. Your expertise is your territory, and you should always try to expand your territory. You should always try to fortify your territory. Expand it and deepen it, your territory. And if any discussion ever wanders into your territory, okay.

Then you have home field advantage. You know what you're talking about. Knowledge acquisition should be proactive. Should be proactive, not reactive. We don't need more battles between Googlers.

You understand? And, of course, as I was saying, when you are immersed twenty four hours a day in a constant flood of content, flood of videos and posts and articles and livestreams and podcasts and scrolling scrolling scrolling, you're basically in a constant state of reaction, a constant reactive state. No. Your intellectual pursuits, your pursuit of knowledge, it must be a sovereign, internally determined decision on your part, not a reaction, not a response to someone else's ignorance that triggered you online. So in my opinion, you need to try to close that tab as much as you can or at least reduce the flow because you cannot think properly.

You cannot think properly when you are in a continuous receptive mode, reactive mode, watching passively, taking in an endless deluge of content. It's no good for you. You'll jump from topic to topic, and then you'll do, like I say, that quick emergency talking point research. And you will have forgotten whatever you researched. Whatever talking points you put together at the spur of the moment, you will have forgotten it by that afternoon.

You will have learned nothing. Now, decide what is important to you. Decide for yourself what's important to you and study those things in an organized way. And then incorporate those things, those areas into your territory, your territory of knowledge. And just accept that there's gonna be other areas that your territory does not encompass and leave those areas to other people.

Just leave that to other people. And understand that conversations and discussions between ignorant people are irrelevant and don't participate in them. Because it doesn't make you smarter if you're still ignorant on the topic and then you just do some quick research on the side to sound smart in that topic when you're discussing with an ignorant person. They're also discussing with an ignorant person, and they did the same thing that you did. To just Google something and have put together some quick talking points that they could recite for a podcast.

And then you're you're responding to them doing the exact same thing that they are. And thinking that you're correcting something and you're spreading knowledge. No. This is not knowledge. This is not knowledge.

And this actually connects to something else that I was gonna talk about, sort of a broader version of this, especially with regards to young people. You know, because when you're young, you have a lot of plans. You tend to have a lot of plans when you're young. There's a lot of things that you wanna accomplish in your life. You know, career goals, goals for maybe what you want to achieve for society and so on.

There's a kind of a mix of personal ambition and idealistic visions of how much good you can potentially do in the world. You know, how you're gonna change the world and whatnot. I think that this is this is especially true of young people. Although now I don't know, to be honest. I don't really know now.

The goals may be less idealistic and more materialistic. It does seem to me at my age, as I look around at, you know, what I see online, the the the the prevalence of really unabashed desire for wealth and accumulation has gotten much more widespread than it was back in the day. Popular culture is absolutely flooded with materialistic messages. But I'm sure that at least at least among our own people, among Muslims, that idealism is still there. Young people still have moral goals.

I think they still have moral ambitions to one extent or another. You know, change the world and whatnot. End poverty, feed the hungry, end wars, world peace, liberation from oppression and so forth. I think that that still is a current that runs through young people. And the desire to become leaders.

That's one thing I do see a lot. This emphasis on leadership. There's a lot of lot of content about that, becoming a leader. Whether it's framed in terms of career or in terms of relationships or in terms of, you know, just being confident and being commanding in social circumstances, social situations and so forth. Or in terms of, for instance, activism and whatnot.

There are courses on it, seminars, books, podcasts, and so forth. How to impress people, how to command space, how to look confident, how to how to appear powerful, and so forth. So these things are combined. This desire for being a leader, for example, and the desire to achieve. Again, within whatever context you're talking about whatever context you're talking about, these combine to create a very externalized direction for development.

You know, on the one hand, you have these techniques and tactics for convincing people that you're a leader, for making them think that you're a leader, or that you have leadership qualities and what have you. And on the other hand, you have these plans about all of the things that you wanna do, the things that you wanna accomplish as a leader. Right? These life goals and so forth. You know, by age such and such, I wanna have this or that in the bank.

By age 30, I wanna have founded a company or an organization or something like this, or I wanna I wanna have retired by then and so forth. You're looking at life as a series of accomplishments, a series of achievements that you want to have under your belt. And you wanna cultivate the public facing qualities of leadership, the public facing qualities of confidence that will make people listen to you, that will make people respond to you, that will make people follow you, and support you in your pursuit of these goals. And this is really a very superficial way of doing it. It's a very very superficial point of view in my opinion.

And yes, it's very very western. First of all, this is not the point of your existence. This is not the point of your existence, first of all. And second of all, this is not how meaningful things get done. And finally, this is not how leadership develops.

They're teaching you how to pantomime, how to pantomime, but not how to actually become the thing that you're pantomiming. You understand me? Because the West values style over substance always. And, of course, all those books, all those books and those courses and those seminars and whatnot, they're all teaching you tricks and personality hacks that require very little actual effort. And they're not gonna actually improve you substantively because at the end of the day, they just wanna sell those books.

They just wanna sell those books and those courses and those seminars. So they're not gonna tell you the difficult thing. It's just like the the pharmaceutical industry. They sell symptom treatment, not ways to be healthier. They're not interested in you being healthier.

They're interested in selling you symptom treatment. So do all of these things that make it look as though, that make it appear as though you are living a meaningful life, doing meaningful things. It's all for the purpose of performance. It's all for the purpose of performance and external validation, for external recognition, and doing things that society will applaud as significant, that society will applaud as successful or impactful or what have you. Just like when you Google some facts to get some talking points to make yourself look knowledgeable about a subject so that you can win an online argument when you are not, in fact, knowledgeable about that subject.

I mentioned young people because I think young people are generally the ones who are going through this sort of thing, Trying to, you know, find out what they're gonna do with their lives and so on. Trying to sort of foster their great ambitions for the future. And because said specifically that youth is one of the things that you should try to take advantage of before you lose your youth. You know, make use of your youth before your old age in the take benefit from five before five hadith. So take benefit from your youth before your old age.

And in the West, taking advantage of your youth generally means learning all of these techniques, learning all of these tactics, learning all of these tricks and hacks and so on. Or it means building your CV, or it means earning money, or it means making con connections and contacts, or joining this group or that association or that organization, what have you, build your work experience, build your credentials and so forth. Now that's all well and good. That's all fine, but it's not meaningful. It's not meaningful.

Not really. And it's not gonna make you an important person. It's not gonna make you an impactful person. That's the truth. It's like you're buying a bunch of tools, but you never learned how to use those tools.

Those things are all tools. Your CV, your money, your contacts, your work experience, and so forth. These are all tools. But you're just acquiring the tools. That just makes you a toolbox, not a craftsman.

You know, there's a principle in Islam that whoever seeks a position of authority whoever seeks a position of authority should never be granted that authority, regardless of all of the wonderful things that they say that they would do with that authority if it were granted to them. Because real authority is not sought. It's not sought. It's earned. And it's granted as a natural byproduct of that earning.

In other words, you gain authority by your worthiness. And you cultivate that worthiness by doing it for its own sake. That's the virtue. The same way that, like I say, you cultivate knowledge for the sake of knowledge, not for the sake of countering other people's ignorance and not for the sake of trying to win an argument or win a debate. You understand me?

Your authority is based upon your cultivated proven excellence. And I don't just mean skills. I don't just mean your skills. I mean your character. I mean your sincerity.

I mean your seriousness, your solidity as a human being, your faith, your iman, your internal personal dedication to your own purification, your own truthfulness, your own alignment with Islam, your your your own effort to conquer your own flaws and your own weaknesses. You're talking about we're talking about your jihad and nefs. Your jihad and nefs. And then this carries over into whatever areas you dedicate yourself to in terms of knowledge and in terms of skills. In other words, you excel at this or that, at this or that thing, at this or that pursuit, or this or that topic or subject because it matters to you.

And you would be committed to it even if you were the only person on this planet. Even if no one ever saw you, you'd still do it. You do it because you can't help but do it. You understand me? You're not doing it for money.

You're not doing it for renown. You're not doing it to compete with anyone else. You're not looking for validation from anyone. You're not looking for appreciation for any from anyone. You're not looking for applause.

You're not looking for any title. You're not looking for any position. You're doing it because you personally value it. You want to master it for yourself out of your own personal drive, your own sense of this thing being important to you. You understand me?

You're competing with your own inhibitions and you're competing with your own limitations. Okay. People gather around that. That's the truth. People gather around excellence.

They gather around you like a well in the desert. But only if you did not become that because you want people to gather around you. You see? This is the irony of it. Now the thing that you are good at, the thing that you excel at should not just be a vehicle for trying to gain authority and gain leadership and gain respect and so forth.

But if you excel at it, authority and leadership and respect will naturally follow your excellence. Now I'm not saying that you should not be concerned about other people, about being useful to people, and about what other people think. Obviously, not. But understand that the most effective way to even be useful to people is through this approach. You know, said that the most beloved people to Allah are those who bring the most benefit to the people.

So obviously, we're not saying that there's anything wrong whatsoever in trying to improve yourself, in trying to improve your knowledge, in trying to improve your skills, basically trying to improve your ability to benefit people. There's nothing wrong whatsoever with doing all of that with the intention of helping others when you have achieved that level of being able to be beneficial to people. My point is that genuine and authentic self improvement in all of those types of areas has a particular methodology. You know? We're not just talking about usefulness.

We're talking about irreplaceability. We're talking about being indispensable. Anyone can acquire skills. Anyone can skills are learnable. Skills are transferable.

So if all you are is skilled, well, you're replaceable then. You are replaceable. There's always gonna be someone who has a comparable skill set as you or a better one, a better skill set. There's always gonna be someone who knows what you don't know. There's always gonna be someone who knows the same thing that you know or who knows more than you.

That's not what makes you indispensable. What makes you indispensable is that people trust you. That's not a skill that you can acquire. Trust is a verdict that people reach about your character, about whether you're honest or not, about whether you're consistent or not, about whether your motivations are what you say they are, whether you show up the same way when no one is there, no one is watching, as you do when people are around and watching. You understand me?

Is there a verdict about whether or not you can be counted on? About whether or not your ego is gonna get in the way or your fear is gonna get in the way or your greed is gonna get in the way? That verdict that people have, this is what people are actually assessing about you all the time. Whether they articulate it or not, people are assessing that about you. And you can't fake that.

Okay. I mean, you can fake it for a while. You can fake it for a while. People fake it all the time, but it collapses. It always collapses.

Because you can only maintain a performance for a limited period of time and in limited context and limited circumstances. But character or the lack of character, well, that eventually surfaces. It leaks through the cracks. And when it does, everything that you built on top of it will collapse. It will collapse.

This is why we talk about tezkiyah, the purification of the self. Before everything else, before knowledge, before action, before leadership, even the prophet himself, his mission began with purification. It began with purification. Allah said, First, he purifies them and then he teaches them. That's the sequence.

Purification first, then knowledge. Because knowledge, if it's given to an unpurified self, that knowledge can become a weapon. It can be misused. Leadership is given to an unpurified self can become corruption. Skills that are given to an unpurified self can become tools for ego or for greed or for manipulation or for oppression and so on and so forth.

So when I say build your character, I mean actually do the work. Actually do the work of confronting yourself, your actual self. Not the self that you present to people. Not the self that you want to be. Not the self that you describe in your intentions, in your always wonderful good intentions.

No. Your actual self with its actual weaknesses, with its actual motivations, with its actual fears and its attachments and its contradictions and its flaws and so forth. That confrontation and the sustained effort to address what you find in that confrontation, that's the work. That's the real work. Everything else is downstream from that.

Everything else is downstream. And this is where the West completely fails. They completely fail you because they have no serious framework for this in the West. You've got therapy, which just pathologizes but does not moralize. Does it pathologizes, doesn't purify.

You have, self help that tries to optimize you instead of purifies you. None of these things are actually asking you to become a better person in any morally substantive sense. None of them are asking you to submit to a standard outside of yourself. None of them are asking you to hold yourself accountable to something greater than your own preferences, than your own preferences and your own comfort. But Islam Islam asks that of you.

That's the entire architecture of worship as discipline, as structure, as daily practice of subordinating the to something higher than itself. The five times a day sola, five times a day prayer, it's not just a ritual. This is the repeated, deliberate interruption of your ego's agenda. And so obviously, fasting. We're in Ramadan now, the last day of Ramadan here.

It's not just abstaining from food. You're training your will against your appetites. And zakah isn't just charity. It's loosening your grip on material attachments. These aren't performances.

Allah doesn't need your prayers. He doesn't need your performance. He doesn't need your charity or your fasting. These are mechanisms for you, for the cultivation of the kind of person who can actually be trusted with knowledge, who can actually be trusted with responsibility, who can actually be trusted with the welfare of other people. So come back to that hadith that the most beloved of people in the sight of Allah is the one who brings the most benefit to the people.

Okay? That's the that's the the destination that you wanna get to. But the road to actually becoming that person genuinely, authentically, sustainably in a way that holds up under pressure and that holds up over time, well, road runs through here, through the inside, through the work that nobody sees, through the work that nobody applauds, that nobody gives you a certificate for, no one pats you on the back for it. That's the irony. That's the irony, like I said before, because this work has to be done internally in the isolation of your own self, in your own private self.

You know? In order to actually be useful and to be beneficial externally, you have to turn inward first. You have to dig that well. You have to dig that well before anyone can drink from it. You understand?

And you have to dig deep. And you can't keep climbing up out of the well. Every time you get just enough water, you find just enough water in there to fill a cup to give to somebody. No. You have to focus on your work.

You have to focus on your work until you can create a sustainable resource, until you can become a sustainable and an irreplaceable resource. You understand me? In order to benefit people, you have to put people aside in the process of becoming beneficial. Do you see? Just like you have to put aside other people's ignorance, other people's arguments and debates and so forth.

You have to put all of that aside. You have to you have to put aside the idea of trying to look smart in front of those people if you wanna actually become knowledgeable. You have to do it for its own sake. None of this can be for validation. None of it can be for other people's impression of you.

None of it can be for becoming something in their eyes. None of that has to all of that has to not matter. That doesn't mean becoming selfish or it doesn't mean becoming isolated or antisocial or not caring about what people think. It means that the process of your own cultivation has to be self contained for its own sake. It has to be proactive, not reactive.

And if you make the effort if you make the effort on yourself, for yourself, then the benefiting of others is gonna be effortless. You are the territory where you live. I'll say that again. You are the territory where you live, whether anyone else is around or not. So tend to your territory, expand your territory, cultivate your territory, make it vast, make it abundant because that's where you live.

That's the territory where you live. Make it beautiful. Make it rich and make it thriving and make it dynamic. And then your authority and your benefit to others will just be a consequence of your existence.