Introduction

In the name of God, the Infinitely Merciful and Compassionate.

My name is Timothy Abbott, the son of James Frank Abbott and Shirley Jean Thompson. From my earliest age, I have fond memories of going to Sunday school before church on Sundays and attending vacation Bible school during the summers. My parents provided my siblings and me with a loving home, principled instruction, and a deep concern for our education and how it would become a gateway to future success. I attended several Catholic schools growing up. The last of these, and perhaps the most impactful and intriguing for me, was Cascia Hall Preparatory School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There, I took a theology class taught by the magnificent Father Richard Jacobs. I was deeply impressed by his grasp of the material and by the similarities, differences, and connections he showed us among the world’s religious traditions. I believe that was one of the first times I was challenged to reflect on my own faith and its implications for me personally, the world collectively, and the strong interconnections among faith traditions, which was something I had never considered. This prompted me to dig deeper than I ever had and began a life of studying, searching, pondering, questioning, and reflecting.

Many years have passed since those early formative experiences, but I will always be grateful to my mother, who sat in Father Jacobs’ office and asked him to admit me to the school because of how strongly she wanted to see me succeed in life. I understand that moment differently now than I probably did then. I see it as the catalyst for my eventual transformation. While we were not financially challenged, the school was not for students like me or families like us. However, this was one of the many acts of love and sacrifice my parents made for me out of faith and hope for something better, even though they did not necessarily know that this particular act of love and care would influence the direction of my entire life. This book is not about me, nor do I want it to be, so I will stop discussing my origin story. I gave some insight into my background because I wanted you, the reader, to know something about where this journey began. I also wanted you to always know that you should never minimize the smallest acts of kindness because they naturally compound like stacks of bricks, one on top of another, creating interconnecting links of goodness that can eventually morph into monuments of impact. One of my ardent desires and audacious hopes is that wherever you come from, whatever you believe, and whatever brought you to these pages, you will find something here worth thinking about.

Over the hills, valleys, mistakes, successes, and missteps, my heart was guided to Islam, and as I have studied and tried to live it, it has made my many weaknesses readily apparent while challenging me to improve them without overburdening me with perfection. Its examples of excellence have forced me to be honest with myself, admit my countless mistakes, say sorry much more than I have ever been comfortable doing, ask forgiveness from others, and seek guidance while trying to understand it more deeply. So much of spreading goodwill and positivity, improving relationships, and giving people what is due to them requires empathy and simply doing two things: following the Golden Rule, “treat others how you would like to be treated,” and saying sorry when you make a mistake that violates their rights. While the pillars of Islam cover man’s recognition of his Creator and dutifulness to Him, the far wider corpus of its rules concerns man’s appropriate interactions with the rest of God’s creation. Conceptually, this is certainly not something unique to Islam, which is why I find much of what we call “religion” to be a continuum of masterful concepts, treatises, and lessons that originate from a single source rather than separate or disparate perspectives.

Seeing Islam as a continuation of previous dispensations has made me ask myself fundamental questions like: Why does Islam care so much about how we earn money or the way we treat a debtor? Why does it repeatedly warn against corruption, injustice, wastefulness, dishonesty, and exploitation? Why does it speak about fair measures in the marketplace, care for the poor, restraint in wealth, mercy toward others, responsibility toward family, and accountability in leadership? Why does our human story in the Qur’an begin with the extraordinary idea that humanity has been entrusted with a particular leadership role here? Over time, I began to see these concepts as parts of something much larger. They are connected by a view of the human being that I find beautiful, challenging, and rewarding. While we are physically weak in comparison to much of creation, we have been given tremendous power over even more physically imposing things by God’s wisdom and will. We can build cities, cut roads through mountains, tame lions, and create companies, governments, technologies, and institutions. We can accumulate wealth, transform landscapes, and educate generations. We can influence people whom we may never meet. We can make decisions in a room today that affect thousands or millions of people tomorrow. Human beings possess an astonishing ability to shape the world around us, so it is critical for us to consider an important possibility: What if the things within our power are not simply ours to use as we please? What if power itself creates responsibility? What if leadership is not primarily a privilege, but a trust? What if wealth gives us opportunities, but also obligations? What if ownership does not give us dominion to do whatever we like with what we own? What if our responsibility extends beyond the people we know personally to people we may never meet, like the borrower whose circumstances we do not understand, a customer who relies upon our honesty, a community downstream from our factory, or even a child who will be born after we are no longer here? However, what if there is something even more critical to understand? What if doing the right thing must not only be done for the right reasons, but also matters when there are no lights, no witnesses, and no one else knows we did it?

These questions eventually brought together several ideas that form the heart of this book. The first is vicegerency (khilāfah), which is simply the Qur’anic description of humanity’s extraordinary place and responsibility upon the earth. The second is trust (amānah), which is the idea that what passes through our hands carries responsibilities with it. The third, and genuinely the most important, is sincerity (ikhlāṣ), which requires us to do what is right without ostentation—not because it makes us look good, strengthens our reputation, improves our social standing, or produces some other benefit, but because goodness itself must be done for the sake of God. The fourth is justice (ʿadl), which requires us to give the rest of creation what is rightfully due to them, refuse to take advantage of unequal power dynamics, and ensure that our decisions do not create unfair harm for others. The fifth is balance or proper measure (mīzān), which requires us to keep things in their rightful balance, whether in trade, the use of wealth, the exercise of power, or our interactions with the natural world. The sixth is service (khidmah), which emphasizes that leadership and capability should ultimately be used for the service and benefit of all, especially when we have more influence, authority, knowledge, or resources.

Together, these ideas have given me a way of understanding that almost everyone can be a leader because, in many cases or situations, each person must exhibit leadership. Leadership is a responsibility that is much wider than leading large groups of people in business or government. Leadership occurs whenever the wellbeing of others—even the fish in the sea, the trees in the forests, or the birds in the sky—is affected by the reach of our decisions. A sibling can be a leader when a parent is not around. A parent is a leader of his or her children. A child can be a leader when taking care of a pet. A teacher is a leader. A business owner is a leader. A manager is a leader. A neighbor is a leader. A government official is a leader. A person with wealth can occupy a position of leadership toward someone experiencing financial hardship. Someone with knowledge can hold power over someone who does not possess that knowledge. The question of leadership has commonly been understood to mean, “Who do I have power over based on my position?” when it should always be, “Who or what has been placed within the reach of my care?” This distinction changes a great deal. It changes how we think about influence, responsibility, and authority. It changes how we think about leadership in all of its manifestations and spheres. It changes how we think about parenting, lending and debt, custodianship of the environment, service to others, and what it means to be successful. This understanding of leadership as a trust gives every one of us the chance to view ourselves as leaders and to do things that seem small at first but lead to impactful legacies that multiply in goodness after us.

This book grew partly from another question that has become more important to me as I grow older: What do I wish to leave to my progeny? Like most people, I hope to leave my family something useful. No one wants to leave his or her family impoverished, but property eventually changes hands, companies are built and disappear, and achievements that once seemed enormous become a few lines in someone’s biography. However, ideas can travel further and propel those who follow us to act on the right examples. Values that are implanted can take hold like the roots of a tall oak tree and grow to amazing heights as long as they are principled, firm, watered, nurtured, and pruned. The proper way of looking at the world can be taught and instilled from one generation to another, so part of my motivation for writing this book is to instill the proper perspective in my family, including those whom I may never live long enough to meet. If one day one of my descendants wonders what I thought was important, I hope these pages provide part of the answer. I hope they know that I believed ambition could be good when tempered with sincerity for God and empathy for others. I hope they build things that help others. I hope they create companies that not only prosper but also give charity and establish the spirit of goodness in all of their dealings. I hope they explore and discover new things and new insights, guide ambitious organizations, earn wealth and spend it for good, pursue education and beneficial knowledge, travel to meet people unlike themselves, and explore the beauty that God has placed throughout the earth. However, I also hope they understand that having more does not make us worth more. They should always remember that someone else’s weakness never gives us the right to exploit them. Legality does not constitute justice or necessarily represent the intent of the law. They should know that when something important passes through their hands, they should try to leave it better than they found it. Most of all, sincerity matters, and even if no one is watching, they should know that God is.

This book is also not only for my family; I write as a Muslim to other Muslims. We have inherited an extraordinary moral tradition. Sometimes, however, it is possible to become so focused on whether we have technically complied with a rule that we lose sight of what the rule was protecting or preserving. We have become very concerned about whether a financial structure technically avoids usury (riba) while paying less attention to whether the transaction exploits someone who is vulnerable. While loans or mortgages may be permissible, we often forget to ask whether loans taken without necessity are what was actually intended. We can speak about Islamic leadership while treating employees without dignity, and we can give generously in charity while conducting business in ways that unnecessarily create hardship. Many of us care deeply about personal religious practice while giving surprisingly little thought to how we conduct ourselves while driving on the road, dumping waste, throwing away food, using public resources, reviewing institutional integrity, or ensuring the wellbeing of people who do not share our beliefs. I do not raise these things as accusations because I genuinely include myself among the offenders, and by God, there is no humility intended in this statement. I was inspired to write this as a reminder to myself and others that there are things in our tradition worth remembering together. Sometimes I reflect and am amazed by the lack of perfection that God requires of us, even while still challenging us to become better. I often reflect that the rules of Islam were never intended merely to produce technically compliant Muslims but to cultivate giving, caring, conscious, empathetic, sincere, and attractive human beings that would be like walking, talking, sharing, leading beacons of light that would be able to guide a traveler down a dark country road. In terms of time, we can be insignificant because our lives are so short, but hugely impactful because of what we contribute during our short sojourn on the earth. Such human beings could then create illuminated families, neighborhoods, education systems, marketplaces, institutions, and societies. This thought and its possibilities fascinate me.

Finally, I am writing this book for my neighbors near and far. By this, I mean something broader than the person who happens to live next door. You may be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, or simply someone who has never thought very much about religion. I am not asking you to pretend that we believe the same things. We obviously do not, and I am not going to hide the Islamic foundations of the ideas in this book in order to make them more palatable. However, I am certain that there are prophetic origins or influences in your faith traditions if you are a person of faith, and religious origins to many social systems and structures even if you have no “religious” faith. After visiting many countries and meeting many diverse people, it is clear to me that there are many more things we agree about than disagree about. I do not believe we have to agree about everything, nor do I think it is natural to do so. My own children and I do not agree about everything, and if you could observe our home, it would be apparent that my children disagree about many things as well. Thankfully, these disagreements have not stopped us from coming together, and I am confident that, with God’s grace, they never will. If you believe that powerful people should not exploit weaker ones, we have something to talk about. If you believe that businesses should be able to prosper without deceiving customers, we have something to talk about. If you believe that lenders should consider the humanity of borrowers, we have something to talk about. If you believe that leaders should understand that their decisions affect people beneath their authority, we have something to talk about. If you believe that we should not pollute a river merely because the people harmed by it live somewhere else, we have something to talk about. If you believe that our children should inherit a world at least as livable as the one we received, we have something to talk about. Finally, if you believe that a person’s character may be revealed most clearly by what they do when nobody is watching, then we have quite a lot to talk about.

I hope that is how this book feels. I hope it does not feel like a five-, ten-, or twenty-point plan, but instead gives us all something to reflect on. This book is not a sermon, a treatise of religious doctrine, or a debate. I would not write it if it were intended to be a concordance of religious rules. I am not qualified to write such a book, and we have a long and incredibly rich tradition of noble people who have done that. I hope it feels more like a conversation between neighbors. Throughout this book, I will speak as expediently as possible, expressing complete thoughts without specifying every doctrinal relationship that could be at play unless I believe it to be relevant and insightful to the concept under discussion. I do not want to bore the reader. When speaking about the capabilities of mankind, it should be assumed that I believe everything occurs with God’s ever-active and present will and providence over His creation, so I will refrain from explicitly restating this throughout the book. While I will explain some things that Islam has taught me about God, human beings, money, power, responsibility, justice, mercy, leadership, and the earth, I do not expect that you should begin by agreeing with me. I only ask that we think about them together and perhaps, by the end, even if we arrive at different conclusions, you might find yourself thinking: Even if I don’t agree with Tim, he would be one heck of a neighbor, and I would like to live among people who tried to behave this way.

That would mean a great deal to me because what underpins everything that I will discuss here is a set of questions that I would like you, the reader, to be able to reflect on and answer in your own words: What has been entrusted to me? Who am I doing this for? Did it become better in my hands? For me, the questions ultimately lead back to obedience to God within the context of human mistakes, frailties, and renewal. When you answer them for yourself, your answers could also lead to outward benefits for our families, neighbors, businesses, institutions, societies, and the earth we all share. We did not create this world. We were given its keys for a while. This book is about what we might do with them.