You won’t survive on your own

The Battle of the Trench: Leading by Example

In the Battle of the Trench, when the Prophet's companions were digging the trench — digging, digging, digging, digging — they were getting hungrier and hungrier and hungrier and hungrier. And they got to a point where they were starving to the extent that they could feel their stomachs were coming out of their bellies. And they went to complain to the Prophet ﷺ: what do we do? We feel like our hunger is getting to the point where we're about to give up.

The Himmah — the motivation — is just running out. And at this point, the Prophet ﷺ lifts his shirt, and he has two rocks tied to his belly. In this moment, they think: a sudden burst of motivation enters their body. We can keep going. Look at our leader.

Islam Is a Collective Religion

We have to realize this religion is not an individualistic religion. It's a collective religion. You will not survive on your own.

Allah's hand is with the collective and the Shaitan is with the individual.
(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2165)

There's a reason why the idea of congregation exists. There's a reason why the idea of doing things together exists — because alone is very difficult.

The Hadith of the Gathering of Remembrance

One of the most beautiful hadith about this is the hadith where the Prophet ﷺ informs Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that a group of people have come to remember him. And Allah sends the angels to check: why are they gathering? They say, O Allah, they are gathering to remember You. He says, but what about this one man? He doesn't seem to be there to remember Me. They say, no — he just came because the rest of them came. Allah says: forgive him as well for all of his sins. Just because he was there with the pack.

The Company We Keep

And so this is something that we have to realize. Motivation is often linked with the company that we keep. If we keep the company of people who are just on survival mode every day of their life, we will also become in survival mode.