BeeSpree: The Blog

The following article represents the authors opinions and is in no way an ‘Islamic Ruling’, scholarly article, or otherwise.

You turn on your computer. You open up your browser - firefox, IE, opera, safari, whatever. You type in the URL for your favorite Islamic forum. Perhaps it’s even set as your homepage. You have a look around, take a look at threads you’re subscribed to and check out today’s compulsory marriage thread (Okay, okay, it’s not that bad). You love the forum - the people, the discussions and perhaps even the drama. The forum teaches you something everyday and it inspires you. Now, that’s all well and done, but are many of us falling into a trap? How much time are we actually spending on the forum? Could that time be used for something far more important? Are we actually learning anything, or is it just ‘fun’?

As Muslims, free time is extremely valuable to us and should be treasured as a blessing. We all have time. We are all given 24 hours a day. Most of us have relatively firm control over those 24 hours, and exactly how we spend them. How we manage our lives, work and family are all important and have a huge effect on how we spend our time.

Forum users need to ask themselves the following questions:

- How much time am I spending, per day, on ‘forums’?
- Am I learning anything new or am I going around in circles?
- Am I spending idle time on the forum which I could have instead used to read Quran, Pray or make more efficient use of my body (Da’wah work etc)?

These three questions create a base off of which we need to start assessing ourselves. Life’s short and we don’t have a lot of time. We need to maximize our blessing with the time that we do have.

Forums are great, but you need to make sure that you’re spending the right amount of time, and are actually learning something. Ask yourself, what has the forum taught me in the last one week? Can you put it down on a paper? Would it have been far more beneficial to read a book instead, and halved the time spent on the forum?

Take, for example, the person who spends 1, 2 or even 3 hours a day on forums but fails to read Quran for even 30 minutes! If that’s the situation you’re finding yourself in, then that needs to change. Sure, there are different situations for different people - perhaps someone is new to Islam and wants to learn as much as they can, for example. But, in most cases, we know where our time goes and where it could go. So, what’s the solution? Behold! the Islamic KPI sheet!

We need to set ourselves KPI’s - Key Performance Indicators. As Muslims, we know, in general, what our KPI’s are. Sure, there’ll be slight (or even major) differences for each person, but in essence, it’s the same. For example, someone may set the following daily KPI’s for themselves:

- Hours of Quran read per day (Including Tafseer, translations etc)
- Number of prayers done at the mosque
- Hours of Islamic Books read (Including Hadith etc)
- Time spent helping parents and family

… and the list could go on, and on… and on.

Set yourself goals. Set your KPI’s and make sure you achieve them. Prioritize your time. If you’re finding that you’re ‘bored’, then you’re doing something wrong.

Ask yourself, honestly. Answer yourself, honestly. I have done my part (InshaAllah!) and tried to warn my Brothers and Sisters of something sad that I see quite frequently. The ball’s in your court.

May Allah help us all achieve our goals. If you’ve got some views on this, please feel free to leave a comment. Wassalaam!

Part 2: Division, ‘Takfeer bombs’ and more, coming soon!