The Silicon Valley and Western startup world often glorifies a particular mindset: be “delulu,” be delusional, be the narcissistic founder who wills something into existence through sheer audacity. But Islam offers a different paradigm entirely: one that is rooted in the Quran, deeply natural, and accessible to everyone.

Here’s something that often confuses people: there is almost no correlation between intelligence and building a financially successful business. In fact, the relationship might be inverse. The more intelligent a person, the less likely they may be to actually start. Why? Because intelligent people have the foresight to identify every roadblock, every risk, every reason it won’t work — and they overthink and over-engineer before they’ve even begun. They fail before they start, or they check out entirely under the weight of limitations they’ve already mapped out.

Meanwhile, the person who doesn’t fully see all the obstacles ahead? They just… go. They push through: fueled by optimism, ego-ism, or sheer focus on their mission. They start messy. They iterate. They figure it out as they go.

This is actually what startups are built on. Founders rarely get it right the first time. They start with a rough idea, learn from their customers, pivot, adapt, and build on top of what they discover. It’s not that they were smart enough to get it right: they were brave enough to start, and humble enough to keep iterating.

And this is exactly what the Quran anchors me to when I feel paralyzed.

وَأَن لَّيْسَ لِلْإِنسَانِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَىٰ ۝ وَأَنَّ سَعْيَهُ سَوْفَ يُرَىٰ

“That the human being will only have what they strive for — and that their striving will be seen.”

(Surah An-Najm, 53:39-40)

This ayah is not telling us to figure everything out before we move. It’s telling us to move. To explore. To try. None of us hold success solely in our own hands — that’s not the nature of this dunya, and that’s the reminder: Allah holds all power, and He is the One who grants success. But what we learn through this ayah is that as human beings, we are meant to strive. We are meant to learn from our mistakes, iterate, prototype, and explore. We are creatures of pattern and growth. We are not meant to get things right on the first try (otherwise we’d be angels).

And yet: that expectation of perfection is exactly what stops so many of us from starting at all.

So if you have a business idea, a side hustle you’ve been sitting on, a startup concept that keeps coming back to you, the Islamic paradigm isn’t asking you to have it all figured out. It’s asking you to begin. Start small. Stay sincere. Make duaa. Trust in Allah. And build from there.

Edited with the help of Claude AI — because we’re real like that. ✨ (you probably already guessed it anyways with all the em dashes…)

How vast your rank, how luminous your way. These days I sit counting my sins — the hours I squander, the smallness of my concerns, the little good I manage to offer — and then I look toward your legacy. What did you not give to mankind? You carried revelation, endured exile, buried children, forgave enemies, wept for your ummah in the night. And what have we carried except ourselves?

The Lord of the Worlds chose you above all of us. I lower my head in shame at the thought that I share your humanity — yet how far apart we are in station. There is no comparison. I come with nothing before my Lord but repentance, and even that trembling return is only by His permission, and known through your sunnah. Any claim we make to “impact” or “legacy” is a wisp of mist beside the oceans you left behind.

And still — you love this ummah. Still you are described as ra’ūf and raḥīm toward the believers. You feared for our ending. You worried for our standing before Allah more than we worry for ourselves. Our hearts, with all their noise and volatility, are pebbles beside your mountain of mercy. How beautiful, the man who the Lord of the Worlds chose to guide us all!

Yā Rasūl Allāh ﷺ, may Allah send peace and blessings upon you — in numbers known only to Him, equal to the weight of His Throne and to the measure that pleases Him — and may He allow us, despite our shortcomings, to follow your path.

At-Tawbah - Verse 128

لَقَدْ جَاءَكُمْ رَسُولٌ مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ عَزِيزٌ عَلَيْهِ مَا عَنِتُّمْ حَرِيصٌ عَلَيْكُم بِالْمُؤْمِنِينَ رَءُوفٌ رَّحِيمٌ

There certainly has come to you a messenger from among yourselves. He is concerned by your suffering, anxious for your well-being, and gracious and merciful to the believers.

The first days of Ramadan are not always outwardly luminous. Sometimes they are disorienting. The appetite resists. The sleep shifts. The heart, suddenly stripped of its distractions, feels louder than usual — some of us may try to silence it even more than in other months. For the western Muslim, this experience is heightened. No lunch break, no quick run to the store for a bite to eat, no coffee run to kill some time to buy our dopamine away. Time seems plentiful and our anxieties have free rein and ample time to consume us. Many of us, including myself, attempt to stifle it.

Classical scholars understood this turbulence. In Ihya Ulum al-Din, Imam al-Ghazali explains that fasting unsettles the nafs because it interrupts its habits of consumption and comfort. Agitation, in this framing, is not failure— it can be the beginning of refinement. The Prophet ﷺ taught that when Ramadan enters, the gates of mercy are opened and the devils are chained (reported in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim). Yet scholars like Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, in Lataif al-Ma’arif, remind us that while external whisperings may be restrained, the habits of the self remain. Ramadan does not erase the nafs; it reveals it. And revelation can be uncomfortable. When distractions fall away, we meet our impatience, our attachments, our fatigue, our anxieties, and our addictions. This manifestation of your previously stifled self is not a sign that the blessings of Ramadan have “missed” you. It may be the very sign that the cleansing is beginning. In order to know what needs correction, it needs to be made visible. It makes sense for this to happen to the believer in the beginning of the month. However the believer must hold on, remain steadfast.

If these early days of Ramadan feel heavy, do not rush to escape them. Mercy does not always arrive as sweetness; sometimes it arrives as clarity. In your lowness, humble yourself. Meet Allah the Exalted not with a polished version of yourself, but with your need, your shame, your rawness cupped in your hands. Better to turn to Him here — confessing weakness, asking for guidance — than to meet Him having never surrendered in the dunya. Our hidayah is in His Hands. Relieve yourself of the illusion that your habits, your systems, your discipline will carry you to the finish line. Simply ask the One Who Guides to continue guiding you. Praise Him. Thank Him. Seek forgiveness, even if that is all you can offer. A single moment of true humility before the Lord is more valuable than all the treasures you can amass.

I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed satan

Bismillah.

A moment of humility towards the Lord Almighty, The One Who Our souls are in His Hands. The One Who Guides Whom He Wills.

the goal of this write up is not to be pretentious, map on to the superflous tech yap, or to add to the thousands of unread articles on ethical ai usage. my aim with this is to be concise, authentic, and to share some of the principles i attempt to follow when my 9-5+ is all AI development.

i use these principles on a consumer/personal basis level (i.e. not aimed for organizations or masajid using ai) — this is more for the average Moe. let’s keep it quick and dirty —

Principles

• principle: limit as much data about yourself that you put into any LLM whenever possible. Anything you put in any LLM (Claude, GPT, Gemini, etc) is used to most likely build a mental, psychological, professional, social, etc. map of who you are. the ultimate goal is to always collect as much data as possible about you.

  • provides multiple benefits; ecological, data preservation, critical thinking skills, not becoming brain-rotty, list goes on

• principle: frame your questions as an objective researcher, very distanced from the question at hand. If you are tempted, as I often am, to have your email edited, to do some brainstorming, to get emotional advice, to learn about a topic, and you ultimately use an LLM, do not reference yourself as the user of this information, and give as little context as possible as to why you are putting it into the LLM. E.g. instead of saying, “I’m in an argument with my wife about X topic”, say, “What are the research recommendations for couples across the US who struggle with X, Y, Z marital issues…”

  • this provides multiple benefits; namely we’ve seen that LLM conversations are not privileged and have been used in criminal court against people. also, minimizes the “mental map” that the LLM is building of you because it can’t associate it to you exactly.

  • extra credit 1: tell the LLM to be as concise as possible. for your sake and energy wise.

  • extra credit 2: be concise in your input. dont paste in thousands of words — energy +1

• principle: i don’t recommend to ever use the conversational/voice feature with the LLM. I actually have no upfront reasoning for it. just seems creepy and also im sure they store the recordings of your voice.

• principle: if the question to the LLM can be phrased as a duaa, make the duaa instead. for muslims, Alhamdulilah, Allah the Exalted has protected us from the inane discussions around AI ‘consciousness’. however, idolization/shirk happens in subtle layers.

the Prophet peace be upon him ﷺ said, “O Abu Bakr, there is idolatry among you more hidden than the crawling of an ant.” Abu Bakr said, “Is there idolatry other than to make a god alongside Allah?” The Prophet said, “By the One in whose hand is my soul, there is idolatry more hidden than the crawling of an ant. Shall I not tell you something to say to rid you of it, both minor and major? Say: O Allah, I seek refuge in You that I associate partners with You while I know, and I seek Your forgiveness for what I do not know.”

• You may find yourself self soothing with a conversation with the LLM or rationalizing your emotions — sure, great for practical secular psycho-conversational socialization. however the equivalent of this is stuffing a wound with synthetic biomaterial that will disintegrate and still leave you empty, rather than turning to your Lord. (or at least, another soul?)

• principle: don’t add into the ‘AGI’ will take over the world doom and gloom oh my god we are done for- discussions. at most, its result is dajjalic-aiding, with the Prophet ﷺ already elaborating the forthcoming events. the end of the world is near, we already know. why are we so hung up on how we are getting there? AI is just another talking point. why are we attaching emotional fear and stress to it? Instead, reorient your focus on what we are are doing day to day to be upstanding Muslims and/or how we are contributing to it. may Allah guide us to fear only Him.

• principle: try not to make images unless you have to. especially ones of people.

• principle: make the intention, even if you’re not ready or deem it possible, to ultimately offload from harmful ai tools and data mining apps. its almost unimaginable for most to believe they can get off instagram, youtube, stop using gpt for personal reasons, etc. however, do we have taqwa in Allah? Do we believe His ability to do anything? to guide us to goodness? the only thing we are lacking in is in our prayer — in any case — we are not guided to do anything without His Support or Permission. therefore, why do we think any differently when it comes to technology usage? it’s an addiction and reliance, and pray to Him to guide us to the best usage of technology in a way pleasing to Him. may Allah grant us this!

  • my personal technique is to go from ‘most adhd app’ —> ‘least adhd app’, and to continuously progress towards reading longer form text and watching longer videos/podcasts. this has gotten me off tiktok and instagram almost permanently Alhamdulilah and this is from the grace of my Lord

وَٱلْعَصْرِ

By the ˹passage of˺ time!

إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ لَفِى خُسْرٍ

Surely humanity is in ˹grave˺ loss,

إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلصَّبْرِ

except those who have faith, do good, and urge each other to the truth, and urge each other to perseverance.

Surat Al-Asr, The Declining Day (103:1-3)

Marking the Hijrah.

With lessons of struggles, defeat and sacrifice. Of those better than me tenfold.

My struggles are seeds on a strawberry, scarcely noticed and swallowed whole.

While true Sabiqoon before me toiled on the very earth that plowed the garden for the strawberry to grow.

Thank to them, and the leader of them, the Rasool ﷺ

and Glory to the Almighty, the Raheem, for blessing us to toil on this earth as an act of Remembrance of Him.

In luscious lands we are born and in His wondrous Garden we Hope to return.