COLLEGE PARK, MD –
After praising God, I’d like to extend my gratitude to all those who contributed to making our first official year of operation as well as our 2nd annual fundraiser resounding successes.
I very much appreciate the generous show of support last night despite the snowy conditions. Whether you are a staff member, volunteer, beneficiary, giver, or dutiful subscriber to this column, thank you!
At this point of the year, I am in a bit of reflection mode. There is much to be reflected on and processed into beneficial action in the coming year, God willing.
Why?
With the clarity of lessons learned over a period of time, we can be empowered to grow and improve moving forward.
Some even define intelligence as the ability to extract lessons from our experiences. So, there is a great deal of benefit in stopping and reflecting on what the point of all this is.
Producers, not leaders
At the Center for Muslim Life at Maryland, we endeavor to invest in people. We believe that to be the Prophetic Model.
There is a nuance in this point, however. We do not attempt to invest in people for the commonly stated purpose of developing “leaders.” While this is a worthy by-product, the real goal to is produce producers, if you will.
As we stated before, consumers don’t decide. Many fruits are born from exiting the state of consumer and becoming a producer.
Among those fruits is the health of our relationships.
When we have a critical mass of producers, the horizontal relationships we have (ie peers and colleagues) will be more fulfilled and the vertical relationships we have (ie parents, scholars, teachers, elders) can become healthier.
Bringing it together
When we have enough producers amongst us, it makes each person more able to serve their peers and it allows leaders to guide the process as opposed to being someone called upon to serve an entire community one-by-one – an impossible task whose futility is eventually exposed. It is simply a matter of time.
In the model of leaders guiding producers who serve, everyone is able to give more of their natural gifts and do so at a comprehensive, grassroots level.
When that time comes, God willing, we’ll authentically find our place.
With that in mind, I say the point of all this is to produce producers. The rest should take care of itself.
With purpose,
Tarif