Cracking the success code

Bill Gates was spot on when he said, “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” Failure, on the other hand, leaves no room for arrogance. It forces a ruthless, honest audit of your strategies, uncovering blind spots and highlighting exactly where you need to adapt. Losing hurts, but that sharp discomfort is precisely what drives resilience, sharpens judgment, and fuels genuine, lasting growth. Organizations like the US Military adopted rituals like AAR (After Action Review). In my software engineering discipline we also have mandatory rituals after system outages and service degradations. We may call them Post Mortems, incident reviews and retros. However the intent is the same; blameless, objective, action oriented review of the failures, understand the whys’ and specific steps we will take to avoid that scenario in the future. Looking at the life of Hazrat Muhammad (S.A.W), there was only one tactical loss suffered by the Muslims in a battle. The role of the archers, the outmaneuvering of Hazrat Khalid bin Waleed, and the subsequent tactical loss are household stories.  It is not hard to imagine that marked angles that were present at Badr could have been present on the outer flanks thwarting Hazrat Khalid Bin Waleed (R.A) plans. The last part of Surah Al-i’Imran addresses the battle of Uhud. It is as if the divine speech is conducting an After Action Review or Post Mortem of the battle. After a few miscellaneous topics all of a sudden there is a mic drop moment. Allah (S.W.T) reveals one ayat summing up the entire recipe for success. In most Quran copies, it is usually the last verse on the page. You turn over the page expecting more but are met with a deafening silence. Mic drop! A new surah has already started. And you are just left to ponder over the wonders of this formula. So today, let’s just ponder over the wonders of this one ayat. Before we delve into the ayat, let’s just take two brief tangents that will help us get grounded. The first tangent is that all seekers of knowledge and scholars are in agreement that there is not a single extra word in the Quran-e-Majeed. Each and every word serves a purpose. The divine speech is incomplete even if you omit one word from the Quran. The second tangent is a brief comment on the Arabic language itself. Hebrew and Arabic are both semitic languages. The verse, Surah Al-i’Imran (Ch 3:200). The verse is addressed to the believers. The outcome is achieving success. It outlines 4 ingredients necessary for success. Let’s try to understand each ingredient. It is individual self-restraint and quiet endurance in the face of hardships. The word sabiru follows isbiro. It is coming from the same triliteral root (S-B-R) and has similar meaning. As we have already established that there is not a single extra word in the Quran-e-Majeed. The main distinction of these two words is that Sabiru is mutual, relative and competitive. It denotes the collective and collaborative effort as well as competitive effort outdoing the competition and the obstacle. While iṣbirū is personal patience, ṣābirū means “patience in reaction/relation to others.” It means out-enduring your obstacles, standing firm collectively against external pressure, or vying in patience so that your resolve outlasts the struggle. Success is not sheer luck. It is the collective sum of personal steadfastness, collaboration for greater good as well as excelling/competing, and discipline or consistency; the rope that ties you to the goal post and doesn’t let you wander far. It is tied with a force multiplier of Allah Consciousness or fear of God. You may pour your heart out with the 3 ingredients but with zero fear of Allah, the whole equation becomes success = 0. Despite the untiring efforts you may stand with the likes of Hitler and Pharoah. Interestingly the force multiplier can also result in a bigger impact and success even when the patience, perseverance and discipline falls short. I would like to conclude by saying two things. First and foremost, you as the reader have the complete right to disagree entirely with this interpretation and subsequent equation. Please use your discretion. It is your prerogative to agree or disagree, adopt or not adopt. The developed world is facing the critical challenge of declining birthrates. And there is a huge opportunity for developing countries like Pakistan. Pakistani youth could be the future problem solvers of the globe. Crafts, skillsets, technologies, and professions will continue to evolve and change. The engineering principles and medical studies of today may become completely irrelevant in the years to come. However the timeless values of Individual Endurance, competitive perseverance, discipline and Allah’s consciousness will stand firmly the test of time. They were relevant in the stone ages, dark ages, industrial revolution, and information technology age. And they will continue to be the recipe of success in the coming age of Artificial Intelligence.

Sayed Nayab Hassan

The writer is a US-based Software Engineer (Amazon Web Services, Block) and an alumnus of Purdue and GIKI.

Sayed Nayab Hassan

The writer is a US-based Software Engineer (Amazon Web Services, Block) and an alumnus of Purdue and GIKI.