The Missing Skill Muslims Can't Afford To Ignore
How achieving our goals faster and healing our divisions go hand in hand.
This is probably one of my biggest weaknesses.
But becoming world-class at this skill could save years—if not decades—from achieving my goals.
It’s one of the foundational skills successful people utilise to be able to do what they do…
And since Strategic Sunnah is about emulating the effective strategies used by the most successful people in history…
Including our enemies…
I’m going to study anything I can on the subject and share it with you.
This skill is networking.
And to give you a better idea of what it entails… here’s a bit of background on where I’m coming from:
Most of the paid subscribers to these letters will know me from the Telegram group chat of Sheikh Omar Baloch.
And generally speaking, the people in his chat group and similar ones talk about the same handful of topics.
One of them is the subject of jamaa and more specifically the need to form jamaas as Muslims.
(Jamaa is simply an organised group. Better yet, just call it BEING ORGANISED!)
So you will regularly see someone posting something along the lines of:
“We need to form a jamaa in order to solve X!”
“Anyone here from Y? Please DM me so we can form a jamaa!”
“We can’t do Z until we have a jamaa!”
“The Muslims are weak because we don’t have a jamaa!”
But no one, not even the group owners, would ever explain or elaborate how to do any of these things they were very happy to post about… repeatedly.
(I used to try to find answers. And I think that’s why so many of you stuck with me. This will be important for understanding networking.)
Bill Mollison, the late founder of Permaculture, said in any endeavour you will always find “yes dictators” and “no dictators”.
Yes dictators are people who always tell you what you should do but never do it themselves or offer any practical steps on how to do it.
No dictators are people who are ever ready to tell you why you shouldn’t do something but never offer you a viable alternative.
If you have spent any time talking with Muslims—especially online—you will undoubtedly have come across a few yes dictators and no dictators.
And I hope it’s already becoming clear how this relates to the subject of jamaa.
But I want to take an even wider view on this:
We aren’t ready to talk about the effective methods for organising a jamaa…
Because we don’t even know each other.
And I mean that in the broadest sense: we don’t really know each other as Muslims.
Think about it.
How many individual Muslims do you know?
And I don’t mean following them on social media. Or knowing a friend of a friend.
Outside of your family and friends:
How many Muslims do you know on a personal level?
Professionally?
Their financial situation?
The projects they directly work on?
Do you share ideas or have needs in common?
Do you visit them in person?
Can you rely on them to visit you?
How often do you speak face to face?
Or on the phone?
Text or email?
How many can depend on you?
How many trust you?
How many are using your products and services?
Are you helping improve their lives?
Is knowing you useful or valuable to them?
If I asked myself this question my honest number might not require both hands to count.
Yet here I am talking about helping the Muslims when I don’t even love them enough to know them.
So how will I randomly call for a jamaa when I haven’t served the Muslims yet?
Networking comes before jamaa
Networking for us, then, is the skill of making effective connections with fellow Muslims in order to serve them first.
And it should be to serve them FIRST.
Not ask or demand of them first—even if it is for starting a jamaa.
I realised this after stumbling upon the work of Dr. George C Fraser, arguably the world’s leading guru on networking.
He defines networking as:
“The identification and building of relationships for the purpose of sharing information, opportunities and resources.”
The emphasis being on building relationships and sharing.
So before we can talk about building jamaas…
We need to work on building relationships.
And we can and should be sharing information, opportunities and resources…
Even before there is a formal jamaa.
Because the Muslims who are already building relationships and sharing resources will be the ones who will form a jamaa much quicker than the relative strangers who are simply demanding it and waiting for it to appear like a ghost.
And they will be years ahead in terms of opportunities and resources because that’s where they started.
Networking is your circle of influence
We’ve talked about the importance of understanding the difference between your circle of influence and your circle of concern.
Your circle of concern is always bigger than your circle of influence.
And to be effective you must have the discipline to set aside your broader concerns so you can focus on what you can actually influence.
And trust in the fact that working on what is within your influence will eventually start to affect what is outside your influence.
And one of the ways this happens is when your circle of influence overlaps with the circles of influence of others.
For example:
You are concerned about food prices so you can choose between moaning about it on a conspiracy chat group or you can buy some seeds and soil and pots and… you know the rest. You decide to be proactive so you start putting seeds in soil. Maybe all you can grow are beans so you feel like it won’t make a difference and often find yourself peeking at the conspiracy groups again. But you stick with it and before you know it you have a sizeable harvest of beans. Sure, it’s not enough to make your food bills disappear… but it’s something. Now one of your neighbours decides to grow potatoes in bags because he saw it on YouTube. Your cousin has an apple tree that he just leaves in the garden. And so on. Everyone is working to various degrees within their circles of influence. You can all spend time in chat groups talking about the impending doom—circle of concern. Or you can realise your circles of influence overlap… and now you need to figure out how to share your beans and apples and potatoes so everyone thrives TOGETHER.
Once you combine your efforts you would have a real life solution to the food crisis.
And it happened because you focused on what was inside your influence… growing food…
Not wasting time on things you can’t control… like chatting about jabs and the Great Reset…
And in doing so you became better able to deal with your broader concerns because now you have an invaluable life skill with which to defeat them.
But the key element will be your ability to connect with others who are also working on what they can influence.
(This also means you can only really work effectively with others who are also focused on their circle of influence…
And will be less effective if you rely on people who are focused on their circle of concern—i.e. majority of people in chat groups.)
That’s where networking comes in.
You have 3 networks
Dr. Fraser explains we all have 3 networks:
Personal Network. These are you closest friends and family and the people you care about the most.
Operational Network. These are the people you need to get things done. It could be your employer, customers, services you use, etc. It’s also people you work with or need on a project.
Strategic Network. These are the people who are smarter than you, ahead of you in knowledge, business and other areas important to your goals. They are mentors, teachers, scholars, the wealthy, etc.
Each of your networks are important for becoming an effective person in anything you do.
Having a solid Personal Network gives you confidence, support and peace of mind.
It provides you with a advisers and well wishers. People to test out ideas on and provide feedback. People who deserve your service and loyalty which in turn makes you a more effective person.
Growing your Operational Network allows you to do more in less time. It gives you the opportunities to pay for your lifestyle and fund your ideas and projects.
Serving your operational network opens you up to more knowledge and resources.
Your Strategic Network gives you access to opportunities and knowledge you cannot find in your other networks.
It provides you with the big leaps in your personal development and opens the doors for your biggest goals.
Your Strategic Network is there to grab you by the hand and pull you up so you can in turn pull your other networks up with you.
Imagine for example, you want to build wells in impoverished areas.
People in your Personal Network will be the first to encourage you. They will be your first donors. They will even cover you to give you the time to work on your project.
You can rely on your Operational Network to get help on registering your charity. The largest chunk of the volunteers and donors will come from here.
Someone in your Strategic Network might know (or even is) the director of a major charity organisation with people on the ground.
The more you work on the relationships in each of your networks…
The more effective you will be and…
Ultimately… the more wells you will build for people in need.
Networking for influence vs concern
What I’ve described above is a good example for explaining the importance of working on what is within your influence, but seemingly unrelated to your concerns…
To indirectly—but much more effectively—affect what is a matter of your concern, but seemingly outside your influence.
Let me explain:
If you were concerned about the lack of access to safe drinking water…
You might have done one or more of the following:
Donated to a faceless charity
Tweeted about it
Shared a reel about it
Argued with someone about it on a chat group
Sat awake at night thinking about it
Forgot about it after a while…
In other words, you would be stuck in an loop of concern and might never do anything practical to fix it.
And the danger of being stuck in a loop of concern is you get used to the feeling…
Until you don’t feel the same way and eventually fade off or forget about it altogether.
And one of the major reasons for this is we feel helpless due to not knowing where to start: the first step.
This is the same mental block I’ve observed in the chat groups I described earlier.
Everyone wants jamaa… everyone wants Khilafah…
The group chats are drowning in concern but no one is talking about what we need to do as individuals… what is the first step I can take today… NOW?
Because we aren’t able to see how our influence—small as it may seem—is enough to spark the series of actions that will eventually affect our concern.
And I mean SMALL.
Consider the example about building wells:
Maybe you needed an hour each night to write out your plan. Was your relationship with your wife such that she would take care of the kids so you can have an hour of quiet to work?
Your first donations are vital to build momentum. Were your relationships good enough where you could confidently ask friends and family for donations?
How much support and encouragement can you get from people you didn’t do the same for?
Can you easily find volunteers from your contacts?
Do you know enough people who know enough people to grow a significant donor base?
Where are you in terms of career, education or experience based on the connections you’ve made and the people you’ve helped over the years? What is your track record?
Have you established relationships with and served people in positions of power and greater influence than yourself so that you van rely on their connections to get your charity to where it needs to be? Do they even know you?
To really drive the point home…
Think about when the Allah’s Messenger made his first public call to Islam.
The people were ready to hear him out…
Because of the relationships he had established (influence)… long before the mission of Islam (concern).
In fact, the Seerah documents a series of actions and events regarding his growing influence that continues to grow to this day and affects to the greatest concerns of mankind.
Seriously think about this:
Are you in group that talk about Khilafah or do you have opinions and conversations about Khilafah…
But you have little to no deep, meaningful and effective connections with the Muslims?
Networking is about serving others
Effective networking is done by asking how you can serve others…
Not by asking them to serve you.
You might be able to reach a thousand people but they will be less motivated to help if you only contact them when you want something from them.
Would you be happy with someone who only calls you when they need something?
NO! No one likes feeling used.
They will be even less likely to connect you with a contact (or information or opportunity or resource) of their own… which is the whole point of networking.
When you serve others they will naturally be more inclined to support your idea.
Be interested—stop trying to be interesting.
People also like to recommend you to their contacts because it makes them look good… but that only works if you can offer some sort of value in the first place.
The same goes for reviews, referrals, recommendations, etc.
It’s the law of reciprocation.
People want to network
I can’t think of a better example to demonstrate the demand for networking than the groups chats themselves.
Those who are familiar with Sheikh Omar’s group chat know one thing is for certain:
He can’t answer everyone’s questions (and doesn’t).
It’s not for lack of trying.
How can you answer over 200 daily messages… most of which are off topic or downright loopy?
And this comes from an audience of tens of thousands who view his videos.
In other words, he provides value and people want to learn more.
That’s a huge audience of happy, interested and curious Muslims he has served over the years by providing value in the form of his YouTube content.
(And by the way… he has always encouraged us to connect with others in our localities.)
And so THEY want to contact him directly.
Now, if he has some project he needs to promote or fund, people virtually knock his door down to help.
Think about someone you know who has this type of support and see if they don’t have a strong network behind them… even if they don’t realise it.
Networking is the perpetual gap in the market
You might feel you started too late or have little opportunity to do the big things in life.
It sounds daunting to start your own business.
Why should anyone donate to your charity when there are hundreds of established alternatives?
Who’s going to watch your content when you start from scratch?
Here’s the answer:
Who you know matters more than what you do.
It’s true in business and it’s true in pretty much every sphere of life.
That’s why networking gives you an advantage over even the most established competition.
Remember that you should always be interest-ed… not merely interest-ing.
Put another way, no one wants to sit there and hear about how wonderful you are.
(And that’s perfect if you’re just starting out and have little to no track record to show off in the first place.)
You become more valuable if you are interested in how wonderful THEY are…
And exponentially more valuable if you are able to make THEM more wonderful by knowing YOU.
Ask questions. Offer support. Genuinely care.
Be interested.
Things we can do every day
Effective networking carries incalculable benefits.
And you don’t need to dedicate 15 years to producing YouTube videos to build an effective network…
Just some simple, easy, daily actions are all that’s needed to build powerful networks.
Dr. Fraser says he does the following every single day:
Phone at least 5 close friends and family every day for a short catch up to find out how they are and what’s happening in their lives currently.
Phone at least 5 people who have bought something or used your services and genuinely ask them how they are getting on (not to sell something).
Introduce at least 5 people with someone else in your networks so that they can connect and benefit each other.
Contact at least 10 new people who you can serve (particularly by introducing them to someone else in your network.
Now, this is coming from a top networking guru…
So I’m not saying all of us can do that much right off the bat.
But we can at least take one of the above actions and contact 1 person a day. These small actions build up over time.
And even better than that:
Make it relevant to your mission.
So for example, if your mission is to build wells, you might commit to contacting at least 1 person every day who is involved in charity work…
And tell them your’re calling/emailing because you read about their work (which you certainly should have already if you’re contacting them) and was wondering how you can help them get the word out.
They will probably give you their donation details—which you can find yourself—but the point is you made a new contact AND you provided value.
Keep doing this and in a few of months you have a contact list of 100+ industry figures who got some value from you.
And I think you would contact more than 1 person once you realised the value.
Wouldn’t that be outstanding for someone trying to get their own charity project off the ground?
Now think about YOUR wildest goals…
Wouldn’t you want:
100+ fitness influencers in your contacts if you were a gym owner?
1000+ business owners who know you as a helpful contact who just so happens to be an accountant?
10000+ subscribers to your newsletter about Muslim betterment when you’re beginning your networking journey?
Think about it.