Muslim Life Hackers

Almir Colan: How Riba Affects Our Lives and Building Real Wealth

• Mifrah M • Episode 9

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In this episode of the Muslim Life Hackers Podcast, host interviews Almir Colan, an expert in Islamic economics and finance. They discuss the concept of risk-taking in life and delve into the principles of the Islamic economy. Almir explains the issues with riba (interest) and its negative impact on society and economies, contrasting it with the ethical and productive nature of wealth creation in Islam. They explore the importance of initiative and being forerunners in various aspects of life.

Timestamps:
01:41 Understanding Islamic Economics
02:34 The Impact of Riba on Society
03:06 Riba and Historical Perspectives
07:45 The Riba Mentality
11:24 Capitalism and Its Flaws
15:10 Islamic Solutions to Economic Issues
29:38 The Importance of Initiative
36:53 Life Hacks and Book Recommendations

About Almir Colan:
Almir Colan teaches and advises on Islamic finance, economy and management. He is the founder of Muslim Money Matters, an adviser to a number of institutions that provide Islamic finance, and a member of a working group at AAOIFI. Previously, Almir was a consultant lecturer for the Master of Islamic Banking and Finance Course at La Trobe University.

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Almir Colan:

Everything in life worth doing, takes risk. to get anywhere, you need to embrace that risk. And so, more you do that, you develop this capacity to deal with the risk

Mifrah Mahroof:

As-salamu alaykum and welcome to the Muslim Life Hackers podcast. I'm your host Mifrah Mahroof and this is the podcast where we get better every day. Through conversations with experts, leaders, and inspiring individuals. We're going to give you actionable insights to help you win in this life and the next. So if you're ready to level up in every area of your life and you committed to living with excellence for the sake of your Lord. You're in the right place. Get ready for insights, inspiration, and a whole lot of life hacks. This is a Muslim Life Hackers podcast. Let's dive in. Asalamu Alaikum, and welcome to the show.

Almir Colan:

Wa'alaikum Salam, thank you for inviting me.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Well, thank you so much for coming on. I know that when it comes to the whole topic of Islamic on economy, MashaAllah, you have a wealth of knowledge in that. So I'm looking forward to learning more and exposing myself to these new ideas that you have. So first of all, for those who don't know, would you be able to introduce yourself?

Almir Colan:

My name is Almir Colan and for last, maybe decade or two, I've been researching and studying Islamic economic and finance. It's one of those areas that is very exciting. It's a new in the way that we institutionalize some of these principles in today, day and age, but it's principles are go to the early days of Islam, and I think today they are getting a lot of attention because of what we are experiencing in our economy these days.

Mifrah Mahroof:

What do you mean by what we are experiencing in the economic

Almir Colan:

these days? I think a lot of people find it a little bit that they are not convinced direction or set up architecture for our economy that it might not universally work. Or there might be some principles, that people are not happy. I remember during the global financial crisis, there was an Occupy Wall Street movement, and there was this lady that used to carry the sign, Let's Bank the Muslim Way. And I think it reflects the situation that people think that what we have created is a little bit inhuman, the way that we bank, the way that we do the finance. There is a bit more demand for more fair and balanced way of doing things that is a bit more, stable and not so much prone to these turbulences. A bit more ethical, a bit more human than what we are seeing around ourselves.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Okay. So, when we take a step back and when we look at the whole economy right now, we see that it's interest and riba is actually a very big part of it. And so I guess like as Muslims, we know that it's prohibited, but you know, when we have this conversation with our non Muslim friends, they'll be like, Oh, what's the big deal? You're just getting some money and you're paying a little bit extra. But I wanted to take a step back and understand on a wider scale, like what is the effect interest riba is having on us and on our societies and economy as a

Almir Colan:

whole Riba is an interesting phenomenon. Even just the translating the word Riba, it's very difficult. It's a complex phenomenon. And We usually recognize it in commercial transactions such as loans, when you are basically transacting, getting some money, paying some money more. And if you go from the beginning, people used to find earning from interest by selling money, making money from money is a very unnatural way. Philosophers are like Aristotle used to talk about that this is most unnatural way to make money. In every religion you would find, like Christianity, let's say Judaism, you would find that Jesus, for example, when he would enter a temple where money changer used to change shekels, which is silver, for silver and charge extra that he threw them out from the temple. In Talmud, also you have references, and they mention the word ribit, which is very similar to riba. And again, Quran, Bible, other revelations, they all talk about this idea that charging people extra for giving them money is something that is against the law of God. And so, naturally people always had this idea in their mind. Even the Shakespeare wrote a book, Merchant of Venice, where he's talking about money lender. And he reflected the society, how people saw these people. They saw them as somebody who is like a parasite, leeching. And he coined the phrase, extracting the pound of flesh. This is how they called these bankers of his time. Because they were universally disliked for these practices. And so, universally people would think about Riba, that is a way of making money without providing counter value, without really engaging yourself in productive economic purposes. And that frame translates to how you then construct economy. Once you have a way for somebody to make money from just moving money around, then all of your setup reflects that lazy way of making money. We now have institutions where you make more money by giving loans, credit cards, then by doing real things. So, your banker who is just sitting in the office doing nothing, makes more money than the baker, the mechanic, person who makes the food. And, so we intuitively start thinking that the way that we incentivize this profession may be not be the most, in line with what is the best for human interest. In Islam, therefore, the objective is to connect the money with the real productive purposes. So that as Imam Ghazali say, if you start making money from money, then incentives will be always to make money easy way. But for human progress, you need to make money from engaging and taking risk to make something that benefits people. Maybe on small sort of individual level, somebody might say, I just took a loan to do this. It doesn't matter. But once you start building the system where this is the way that money moves around, then we open the door to what we see, possibility to exploit, possibility to unjustly take other people's wealth. And that continues, and even today, for instance, if you look at how we manage inflation, it's basically just by increasing interest rates, which means that we take more and more money from people who had loans originated some time ago. But because we need to manage now inflation, we say this teacher who is already paying 25 percent of their salary for the mortgage, will pay another 10 percent because that's an easy tool to extract the wealth from people. And there are many examples, where this brings about harm, brings about destruction, especially when it comes to the compounded interest. Many of the countries that get into these loans, they keep growing. We have the experience with the shark loans. In Islam, we look at these kinds of activities as very predatory activities. And Islam is trying to prevent, like all the other religions, to prevent this kind of exploitation of the people.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm. I see. You know, it's interesting how you mentioned, like in today's time, there's a lot of money that's made from loans, credit cards. And even when you start reading like the mainstream finance books, they say, the rich people make money by moving money and like doing all these kind of like lazy ways of earning money. And that's encouraged as well. I guess like what I'm hearing that Islam incentivize actual productive work, rather than making money the lazy way, which actually leads me to ask the next question about the whole idea of riba mentality. So that exists as a result of this world that we're living in this riba mentality. Can you elaborate more on that and why

Almir Colan:

that is problematic? So once people get used to making money without really risking anything, they get accustomed. That everything is safe and profit is guaranteed. Then they are less likely to engage in something where they might risk something, where there might be a question, uncertainty whether it will be delivered or not. See, if you are a farmer and you put the seeds, you don't know what will happen. Maybe there won't be rain, maybe something will happen. Then, you have to work, you have to depend on other people, and, it's something that is a real thing. So what starts happening with these people once they got used to this way of, what I call synthetic way of making money, which is not connected with reality of economy, more and more, this starts to penetrate and infects the rest of the economy. Because now, even when you are in the real economy, you are not really trying to make money from making the better products. You are very accustomed to making money or somebody who is giving you money. They want money, profit guaranteed. So you also want to create a system where you are not so much concerned how you make money. As long as you do make the money. And so, what people start doing, let's say you are creating the food, you will see more and more people, in order to satisfy this Riba loans that they have, they will start creating more synthetic food, more lab food. You buy yogurt, there won't be yogurt in that, it will be just some chemicals. You buy bread, you buy whatever. There is no real food in that. And so now you have totally synthetic product that looks real, but it's designed to extract the maximum wealth from the people. So you are not anymore growing wholesome food, pure food, something that is good for people. You're just growing food that is good for profit making, maximizing the profit. And why is that? Because you are really lazy to engage in real things. You are lazy to wait for real profit, real growth of what you're doing. And so this kind of way of synthetic way, lazy way of making money or creating value, it's become synthetic from both sides. And so at the end of the day, this feeds in the capitalist framework. which is all about numeric growth, that we celebrate numeric growth, we talk about numeric growth. When I get a job, I only think about how much I'm going to be, package I'm receiving. And so we reduce the economy to just the numbers. And the human there is totally dehumanized. We don't care about him as a consumer, as a worker, nothing. He's just there to deliver, on this endless, tale of making more profit and chasing some illusion where he will spend, that profit on. And this then becomes a very negative cycle in our life.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah, starting from interest and then the mentality that it brings about. And then as a result, the consumer, us, we start have synthetic foods out there for example, and then you have exploitation of humans in different countries. Then you have the environment effect that it also has, because at that point it's all about money. Would you say that is the issue with capitalism? That it's just that, or was there more

Almir Colan:

to earn. Well, we know that Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us that closer to the end of days, even if you don't engage yourself in the interest, the dust of Riba will touch you. And so, you have to ask yourself, where is this dust coming from? So, this dust is on your hands, on the products, when you open the fridge, when you look at those products, everything is touched by that. From the moment we start investing and how we are investing in these things, to the moment we consume. There is a dust, even if you are not directly, there is indirectly affecting the whole of our system.

Mifrah Mahroof:

About capitalism, is that the main problem? Because like myself, even growing up here in the West, you've always hear things like capitalism is great because you put in value and you get money from that value. So then what is the issue with that?

Almir Colan:

So, this is connected with the engine of capitalism, now, what is the capitalism? I mean, you could have a lectures on capitalism, but, Capitalism is simply freedom. Let's call it that way. It's not exactly, but it's advertised as you are free to engage. It's incentivize your desire to earn, to own, to put yourself, be rewarded for hard work. And that is true. That is definitely part of the capitalism. But capitalism that is not centered on some values will also incentivize the worst of the human behavior. And so if I can exploit, if I can do something that, benefits me, extract the wealth time, from the people, I will do that. And so, without values, this engine that is free to do whatever it wants, you can do great things when you are free, but you can also create enormous harm. And once you concentrate so much power and money in few hands, and that person is not driven by any ethics, any values, any norms. That is a very powerful machine that can crush so many people. And the people don't have easy way to resist, this powerful machine. That's why you see this massive corporation, the way that they extract the time from people, the way that they calculate to the second what you are doing and how much to pay you, just enough to survive and where you can't have enough just to switch even the job. They perfect this, game of incentives and reward just to keep you where they want you because they're dealing with a large number of people. They're dealing with a large system and on the scale they know how get to you. How to maximally extract what they want from you. And how to keep you busy with the products, with the illusion, with spending to get their products. And so, at the end of the day, the whole lifestyle that is constructed for maximal control of you. Not in the typical way, but maximal control in consumer society that is broken and automized in the individuals who really cannot resist and large corporations and their incentives that they deploy. This is of course much different than in socialism where they coerce you into these kinds of things, but without values, freedom can be very dangerous thing.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah, true. Because then you don't know, what it's going to end up as how and how it looks like. I've a few ways to go about with my next question, but since you mentioned it, you were saying, the whole system keeps you busy and it's designed in a way that you can't get out of it. So I guess my question is as a Muslim, as a practicing Muslim, is there a way that, there's a different way we can see this? is there an alternative that we can learn about, that there's a solution in our deen for this?

Almir Colan:

It's a very deep question that goes to the root of who we are as a humans. Sometimes I think about it when I look at our life as if there are layers. There are layers of reality, and sometimes person look at neighbor, they got a nice car, nice house, nice something, grass is always green there, and person now desires all of these things. And sometimes they say, well, my life is like this. They always look at these deficiencies that they might be missing in life. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, told us that when you see somebody whose material is doing better than you, to be really content and not to be in a state where you are ungrateful and unhappy, look at the person who has less than you, but what is this life is teaching us? It's opposite. It's always look at somebody who is better than you. So we are in a constant, unsatisfied state. You have this car, but that one got another bigger car. Okay, you have iPhone 13, but he's got 14, you got 14, he's got 15 now, 16. We are always in perpetual state of wanting to buy something, and as soon as we get that, we immediately don't want it anymore. We want another next thing. So you have this by design. Unsatisfied, ungrateful, never stopping to reflect, to be content, to enjoy, but always hungry for more. And this is something in the human, when you start creating this setup, that you can never satisfied. The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, said that if son of Adam were to have a mountain of gold of Uhud, he wants to have another one, and another one, and so on. He said, what will satisfy him? is the dust of his grave. And so this goes back to our grandfather in paradise, who had everything except little. But the devil approached and said, look, you really need this last piece, and then you will be fully satisfied like angels and so on. So this trick, this exploitation of insecurity or scarcity that we have is the game. And so shaitan is scaring us with poverty. And so what the game is, just consume, buy more, buy more. There is another thing, another thing, another thing to have, to be mindful, to consume, to get, to work for. And while we are in that perpetual state of fear and consumption and buying and grabbing and taking, he takes all of our time. And we don't realize that we are not even happy. This is not even working for us. We don't see our children. We don't have relations. We lose our health. It's time. And so, by the time we realize that time is wasted, life is wasted. And even when I get it, there is no utility of it. By the time you go through that, then we realize the depth. And we said that, this was always the trick. Always make you wanting more. And so, unfortunately, this is something that, sooner we realize, some of these values Islamic, not just being grateful, content, but also other invisible impacts on wealth, like blessings of wealth, Barakah. There are some of these intangible Layers that are there, that if there is a Barakah, it will behave differently your wealth. The things you buy with Barakah will have different effect, they will have Barakah. So person today,

Mifrah Mahroof:

What do you mean

Almir Colan:

so the Barakah? is special divine blessing. It's something that when you put it inside of something, that something becomes more. And when it is not present,

Mifrah Mahroof:

Mm

Almir Colan:

you feel something is missing, and so you sometimes, look at the Barakah in your time. Sometimes, in one day, you do so much. You are very productive, organized, you don't waste your time, and you say, I have Barakah. Like, this day was like a week, like deep, deep work.

Mifrah Mahroof:

hmm.

Almir Colan:

Some days, week pass, you have done nothing. So no barakah. Similar, you earn something and you go to the shop and I buy a few items, there is no money. I don't know where it went. And so, with your time, with your actions, we want to have this blessing. This is a special boost inside the things that gives you more than what numerically it looks like. That is why you see people who are very, very rich, but nothing, they have everything, everything from this life. That's why in paradise, Adam had everything. Every single thing, but still he wants something. So as a human, there is always that, in reality, what, what, what is missing is the heart. Here is the point is the heart that connects itself to the creator of everything, or it starts to link itself to material things. And, once you start linking yourself to the material things, then person is happy to cheat, to do whatever, does not care, how they get it, is it in the right way, wrong way, so spending or making money, it become just a game, just to get that material. And so, that craving for material then preoccupies the heart, and this is something that can never fills the heart, and that's why the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, You have one mountain, you want another one, and another one. In reality, you are just increasing your appetite. What will fill it up is when you die, when you realize that this is just a dust. What is this all things? It's a metal, cement, steel. What are we accumulating? Dirt from the land. What was all of these things about? What is it doing? So this is where having that perception, having that understanding, that you are here to purify your heart, purify your soul, to tie yourself with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and not to the other things. And that is how you free your heart from these fears. Once you remove these links from your heart to these other things, material things. And so, yes, have it in your hand as much as you can. Get without sacrificing all of your time, but understand that it should stay in the hand, not in the heart.

Mifrah Mahroof:

That's a very profound point. So it seems like when you get stuck in the game, then you're just on a perpetual cycle, but the way to actually get out of that game or that they say that whole rat race is to take a step back and connect your heart with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and purify your heart and find ways to have more blessings in your wealth as well. So that's a very good point that we can really think about more. Another thing that I was really interested to, actually, expose myself to these new ideas is that we spoke earlier about the economy. And I also want to know, like how would the Islamic economy, like how is the Islamic economy different to that? I know that you mentioned that Islam rewards, productive work. But is there more to it? Like, what's the whole aim that makes it different and more just like you were saying earlier?

Almir Colan:

So, Islamic economy would work a little bit differently. So, number one, when it comes to Islamic economy, like any other economy, Wealth creation is critical. So sometimes we don't often talk about it, but when you think about companions like Uthman, for example, helping Muslim community of Medina in the early days, whether by buying the wealth ruma, which he gives as endowment to the community, or he's giving away enormous amount of caravans of food and supplies for people, we often like to quote these instances when it comes to charity event to encourage people to give, like Uthman or any other companion. But we should also reflect that, how did he make this wealth? Because companions came from mecca to Medina as refugees, they were running away, they were economically boycotted, they are looking for the home, and so, how come within a few years, suddenly you have people who are giving gold, and resources, which are now maybe in billions of dollars, some of these things. So, When he was in Medina, was Uthman just not thinking about his business or was he just waking up one day and thinking, okay, let me just rock up to the market and maybe something happens, or maybe he had a bit more, strategic way of thinking about these issues, And that's why we see in the, in the Imam Bukhari's book about business transaction, you know, Abdulrahman Ibn Nawf, even people wanted to give him wealth, he refused it because he wanted to go to market and start his own business. So we see that entrepreneurial, that initiative mindset of the early companions, who even during the time of the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they were in the markets doing business, trade, and so on. So, Wealth creation is a very important part. Wealth creation is significant because this is what solves the problem of people. Once you have a market where things are done, that means people can buy and sell products. These are the products, like today's economy, that any economy is producing. This is what helps you buy this laptop so we can talk, microphone, lights, car, internet. So your economy, your market, is solving for your needs. Because business people and other investors, they are producing what you need. So the best way to solve the problems is by, in this way, productive way. Now the second thing what happens is that people get the jobs. So they are able to, not just, help you by producing for you, but they're able to, earn the income and, be self sufficient, feed their own family and so on. And then, What happens as a result of the work and production is that you generate a surplus. So this surplus is very important for a second part of economy, which is that from our Islamic perspective we are very generous and we like to give as a charity, whether it's Zakat, Sadaqah, leave the Waqf or the will to the other

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm

Almir Colan:

and so this creates a protective system where the money circulates and those who cannot participate in the market or help themselves, they get opportunity to get back into the market because now you are supporting it. And this brings people much more closer together when they see, uh, Wealthy people who are generous, and we have example of this in Islamic society where the companions used to go to Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and they would say, Oh, Messenger of Allah, these rich people overtake us. And so they would look at them and how they spending wealth on society as a something by which they overtake them in the good, and Righteous Deeds, unlike today where it is not necessarily that you look at the rich people, for example, of how to be charitable, usually those who are the least wealthy, they are the most charitable, and the third is, a third piece of that equation, is that you produce wealth in an ethical way, you are not trying to make wealth from the things that have detrimental impact on society, like maybe gambling or some asset classes or things that are really, harmful for the society. So, from the way the wealth circulates, from the way that you protect your wealth, to the way you create your wealth, Islamic economy has a system that incentivize wealth creation, but in an ethical way, and by producing something that benefits the people. So this is a model that I actually developed called Shepard's Model that summarizes the basic bits and pieces, and when we compare it to any other model, we can see by its ethics and prohibitions, how it differs from other systems, by the way it regulates distribution and circulation of the wealth, by the way it incentivizes the creation of the wealth. And so we can easily see that, this is more humane, more balance way of living. And of course, it is supporting Islamic way of life, which centers around the family, around the community. It's not trying just to exploit, it takes into consideration your environment, different stakeholders. The purpose is not just to make money, it's to create Islamic lifestyle. That really is a, it's got a balance. So the wealth would not be just the numeric wealth. Wealth would be time to spend it with the people that you love, to be good, to be beneficial. So success would not just be in this life, but in the next life. it's much more than just individualistic, consumer based, desire driven, fear driven, as you call it, rat race. It's more enjoyable with other people, and it brings you to be more human, and less afraid, but more connected to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and more interdependent with other people. So you feel good about living, You are not as scared and you are really find so much joy in your life.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yes, there's so much justice in the Islamic model and how it actually supports human flourishing and advancing, human beings. And it's just, when you see that, when you actually read about that and then when you see what's happening in today's time with, Like the rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, and so much hoarding of wealth happening. And the people who are making the money are the ones who are just good at moving money and not really adding productive things or producing productive things. And then we see this kind of model. It's interesting how you actually break this down. And, what it reminded me of is we only hear about Islamic economy as like a lay person, just about the charity part of it. And, you're right. Like we don't hear about the part where, how did the companions build this wealth? Like what was their mindset and their perspective about it? so definitely there's a lot of food for thought in that. One of the points you actually mentioned though, is about taking initiative actually. So you were saying that this is something that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam encouraged, taking initiative, making high quality decisions. Can you provide some practical examples of how we can be able to take that on in our

Almir Colan:

life? Initiative is something that, in Quran you have the verse that talks, first always first, and first, these are the forerunners called in Quran. Because when you look at who are these people on the Day of Judgment, they will be people on the right, people of the left. So people of the paradise and people of the hellfire, basically. But amongst the people who are on the right, there is a group of forerunners people who are ahead of everybody. Who are these people? These are the people who are always first in everything that they do. And this is why in Quran you find Many calls race with one another and go forth, march forward. So these people who take action and are first, you ask question, who will help us build this mosque? He's first hand. Who will help us put this event together? That person is first. Who will help us for Gaza event? So these people always first. Always out competing, out performing, they are putting themselves. So these people have a special place. These are, Allah says that He brings these people near to Him on the Day of Judgment. So initiative is something that, you can always see the quality of people who come first, even those people who embraced Islam, hundred first people, versus those who came later. Big difference.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm.

Almir Colan:

big difference between people who are there, When they see Islam as a vision, it's not yet materialized in the state and so on. They want to serve Islam versus people who later become Muslim because Islam now is stronger state and I can benefit from Islam. This is a different mindset, different people. And so these people who want to serve, who want to be first, who put themselves forward, these are the real resource that utilize all of the other resources. And that's why we see, as I mentioned the story of Abdurrahman ibn Nawf. As soon as he came to Medina, we see when people ask him to give him a wealth, he says, show me where this is the market. And Imam Buhari puts these sort of examples before he discuss rules. Because rules you can learn, but if you don't have this mindset, what's the point of learning these rules? You need to first have the mindset to be self sufficient, to be upper hand, and then the rules are easy to learn. But, once you lose this Initiative, this spirit, then what do you become? where do you go from there? This translates in economy that is, not able to take on the risks. it's afraid of taking any kind of chances of anything. And any economy, in reality, the biggest risk of any economy is people. Not willing to take any risk because they become passive they become afraid and for us to solve any real problem You need people who will risk but not just risk It's calculated risk and not just to win.

Mifrah Mahroof:

yeah.

Almir Colan:

You want people to have environment where we encourage people who take risk, who try, not just who succeed, because no one will succeed all the time. If we look down at people who don't succeed, then, we become, commentators. Sports of just commentating, oh, this one didn't succeed, this one didn't succeed, ha ha ha. No. We should celebrate the person who tried and that is become a culture of trying, striving for something. And then you produce success from these things, so initiative is very important. And opposite of it is Helplessness, which you can kind of say is a very deceptive excuse. When people start making excuses for not doing anything, so it's again, a very, very lazy mentality, very scared mentality, risk averse mentality, that at the end is very, very detrimental. Because everything in life Worth doing, takes the risk. There is nothing in this life, you wanna apply for that job, you wanna get married, anything in life, you have to take risk. This will not work out, I'll be rejected, something will go wrong. You put a video on this podcast on, somebody will dislike it, somebody will say a comment. There is a risk. Maybe this doesn't sound good. Maybe I'm, you know, I'm just talking something that doesn't make any sense and people say, what is this guy talking about? So there is always a risk. But to get anywhere, you need to embrace that risk. And so, more you do that, you develop this capacity to deal with the risk. So it's not that you are brave. the brave person doesn't fear or doesn't have anxiety, but the brave person really become brave because they move beyond despite that fear of failure. they build themselves up to take on those challenges. So you become you become more.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, that whole verse of being the forerunners and, the thing I've always thought about, when I think about that, it's like being forerunner and it's in like, charity, for example, like you said, Oh, who wants to build a mosque? You put your hand up. Or like Gaza, the ones who put it, put a hand up. But actually, looking at that, even from a perspective of being the forerunners in becoming more self sufficient and contributing towards, human flourishing really, and being a forerunner in that. I never really thought about it that way, actually. And to see that these are Islamic concepts and these are the kind of characteristics we should strive for is really a lot of food for thought.

Almir Colan:

that is a good food, good idea to think about, because how did this person become forerunner in giving charity? I mean, it has to come from something, unless somebody gave him as a charity. Now, to be in the position where he is

Mifrah Mahroof:

that's

Almir Colan:

one who is earning that income, he would be doing something like, let's say, back in Medina in those days, I have to put the caravan together, have to go somewhere. The first, I mean, if I'm the last in the caravan and selling something and everybody already bought that or is not interested in that, I'm not gonna be the number one person in terms of the wealth or anything. so I have to be the taking the risk, moving the goods. You can, you imagine the risk those entrepreneurs had to face. They didn't have a Google map. They have to put it on the animal goods and then go somewhere. There's no, let me tag. I'm arrived safely at this place and there is an Uber if I'm hungry. You know, you have to, I mean, logistics of doing the business and taking on the risk and uncertainties and what will happen then. it's much different, that even more is prominent.

Mifrah Mahroof:

It's a really characteristic of taking the risk, being a forerunner, being the first and in whatever you're doing. And when you think about that, it really makes, well, at least me think about my own life and thinking about where I'm not being a forerunner and where I'm being held back because of that fear of not wanting to take a risk and Yeah, I guess it's something that I really have to think about more. Subhanallah so many food for thought. but, I know that we're getting close to the end of our interview. And so I want to actually go on to our questions that we ask all our guests. So the first one is what's one life hack that has improved your life? I

Almir Colan:

would say, especially because your audience is a bit younger, maybe they are students, when I was a student, I developed a system for myself to be very effective in studying. And, that system helped me a lot, which is, I understood that before every lesson I would prepare myself a little bit. About the concepts, I would try to sit in front and listen and absorb as much as possible and then revise. And then I would put myself in a group to teach and discuss it with a group of other students. And so this sort of a skill and learning what works for me, how to study, how to break the concept, how to, learn things quickly. As one of my professors said, the purpose of university is to learn how to learn things quickly. Because guess what you will be doing the rest of your life? Learning a lot of, things. And you hopefully do that quickly. So the purpose of university was to learn how to learn things quickly. How to read, how to consume information, how to manage it. and how to work with others. How to really, learn for the sake of learning and understanding as almost like a game and not really to learn something for the marks or because of other things. So, learning how to learn quickly and in the organized setting, really helped me, opened a lot of doors for me. and I think that's one of my skills that I'm pretty confident now that I kind of in my head developed that sort of system of how to learn quickly, how to read it properly. And extract for the sake of really learning. That change a lot of things in my life.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah, and that whole getting in front of the lecture and revising, it sounds like a very forerunner characteristic, taking initiative to teach your

Almir Colan:

positions you when you read a little bit few concepts, it's almost like you position yourself like a cup, like you know how they say usually you need to put a cup like this before it works. If I flip the cup upside down. By the time I come and adjust myself to the lecture, lecture is already pouring, but the cup is not yet positioned properly. So you position yourself in the right way. You already start going and you're already in the frame of mind. So when that starts happening, you are already on receiving end. So you are already ready to go. And so this gives you a lot of advantage. You have to always think about what can I get, advantages in terms of the time. Especially as a student, you don't have unlimited time. You have a time which you want to use as maximum as you can. One of the blessings we did, discount your youth, your health, your time. and you can do so much if you are guarding those things, not to be robbed by other activities.

Mifrah Mahroof:

That's very true. It's very true. SubhanAllah. So the next question is, what's a book that has helped you level up in your life? A book, it can even be a video or article as well.

Almir Colan:

with the books, there are a lot of books, you come across that you read and, that is very interesting. if I were to think of one particular book, it's very difficult to say. I like to read a lot of material if I have to mention one, book that I find very interesting is one that I shared with, almost 20 years ago, more with, late Sheikh Mohammed Sharif. When he was starting Al Maghrib, and at that time he came on the first lecture tour here in Melbourne, Australia. And, he was talking about how he's putting the organization together. At that time I was very interested in, leadership and management topics. I did my first master in this area. And at that time I would read these books series called One Minute Manager. Very short books, tackle few, very simple, ideas. And this was by Kenneth Blanchard at that time written. In this particular book, it's called One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey. And it's a very interesting book. Shaykh Muhammad Sharif would later tell me that how that book, was very interesting for him, that he structured the whole Al-Maghrib based on that book. And it's a very small, little, story about a person who is trying to manage organization and the data are certain. the challenges that he come across and just, the story about monkey and so on, illustrate the problem that we have sometimes when we delegate, when we become person who just collects other people problems. Somebody call us, we say, I'll get back to you then. Somebody wants something, oh, I'll get back to you. And so we collect other people problems and everything, every next move from every conversation is become something that we carry in our bag. And so these kind of practical book through the story illustrate a point and then give you a solution. I really enjoy reading, books like that. So it's a one minute manager series. one minute manager means the monkey.

Mifrah Mahroof:

I think I remember reading that very long time ago, but I definitely have to revise on some, because I feel like I do take on a lot of problems, and then make it my own. and where I don't actually need to do that. thank you, for reminding me of that. Awesome. So these things will all be linked in the show notes. And also where can, our listeners find you if they want to learn more

Almir Colan:

information. I have a YouTube channel and a website. just my name, Almir Colan, and I also recently started a new platform called Muslim Money Matters, which aims to increase financial literacy of Muslims in the areas of economics, business, finance. And so we are, building a small community of like minded people who would like to explore some of these concepts and ideas and also encourage each other to try to do something.

Mifrah Mahroof:

MashaAllah. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Almir, for coming on. I really appreciate it. And as always, I learned a lot from talking to you. So thank

Almir Colan:

very much. It was my pleasure

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hey everyone, that wraps up another episode of the Muslim Life Hackers podcast. I really hope you enjoyed our chat today and got some great takeaways from it. If you like what you heard and don't want to miss out on our next conversations, hit that subscribe button. It really means a lot to us and helps us grow the show. And you know what? If you're feeling extra generous today, drop us a review or a rating. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you again for tuning in until next time, keep striving and getting better every day.

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Mifrah Mahroof

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