What Unique SKILLS do YOU have to help the Ummah?

format_quote Originally Posted by Tragic Typos

Salaam,

Can someone give me a list of skills to learn to help Muslims? My background is business, finance, statistics, legal and mediation.

To help others one of the most important skill we need to develop is the skill of influence. We need to learn how to influence, persuade and inspire others and ourselves. This is a crucial skill in life, specially in Dawah, whether we are giving it to a stranger or our own children.

To help other Muslims with your background Akhee, I would advice you to seek unique and persuasive ways you could advice Muslims to handle their finances as individuals, families, or as businesses. What tips would you give to Muslim students, parents, business owners, or even Muslim children? You probably have heard of the question; "How should a child spend a dollar?", maybe you could ask instead; "How should a Muslim Child spend a dollar?"

You could also take your financial concepts and Islamisize them. for example in retirement planning, there are those who set their financial goals and plan for their retirement. They follow strict plans so that they may retire at a certain age or in a certain location, with a certain kind of life style. They discipline themselves, make many sacrifices, always seek advices for their retirement etc. Now you can flip that and remind Muslims that they too are on a retirement plan, its just that instead of desiring to retire in Florida, we Muslims desire to Retire in Firdows Al A'la. Florida vs. Firdows, compare and contrast. reclining on a wheelchair with Tom and Bob or reclining on lofty beds with Muhammad(pbuh) and Gibreel(as).

Train your mind to always seek ways it can convert, translate your knowledge in these fields into an Islamically acceptable concept, idea, tool. And this is an advice for all of us, no matter what fields we are in. If you are a painter, doctor, lawyer, teacher, mother, always ask yourself, 'how can I use this skill/talent, to help myself, others, while still submitted to Allah?" "How can I do this while still submitted to Allah?" "How can I use this while still submitted to Allah?

So once you have found and developed skills, talents, ideas, tools that would benefit the Ummah, then the second stage is to find ways you can present, share these ideas with others. So maybe you'll need to develop the skill of public speaking if you want to give speeches to large number of people, or maybe the skill of writing if you want to reach even a larger number of people. Maybe blogging or video blogging, these will again probably require that you develop some more unique skills.

So these are the two basic skills we need; Always seeking ways to please Allah swt by discovering the unique skills and talents He(swt) gave us and the ways we can help ourselves and others with those unique skills and talents. And then developing those, or new, skills and talents continually so that we can help ourselves and others even better. So Discover and Develop then Distribute.

Now the highest aspirations we all have, as Muslims is Akhirah, to Please Allah swt so that we are saved from Nar and enter Jannah. Wisdom then tells us we must use these skills and talents towards our main goal, Akhirah.

(Al-Israa v.36) إِنَّ السَّمْعَ وَالْبَصَرَ وَالْفُؤَادَ كُلُّ أُولَٰئِكَ كَانَ عَنْهُ مَسْئُولا

Wow this is Fard Kifayah isn't it?

format_quote Originally Posted by Hulk

Wow this is Fard Kifayah isn't it?

really??

format_quote Originally Posted by Periwinkle18

really??

I think so at least from what I know. In a muslim community everyone must know their fard ain. Fard kifayah on the other hand often refers to knowledge that is only required for one person to possess and he will lead the community when required. While usually referred to in terms of religious practices I think it is not limited to it.

One of the reasons why the muslims in the past were very advanced was because they had at least one person specializing in a particular field to contribute to the ummah.

Allahu alam!