The Digital Hijra: Why I Stopped Debating to Grow

Bismillah. Asalam alaikum. Welcome to the Baraka Blueprint podcast. I'm your host Ibrahim Sharif. I am a brand strategist, a graphic designer, a project manager. Alhamdulillah, I am a of the Quran. I believe that every Muslim should strive for excellence to become the best version of themselves in dean and dunya. And I believe that I am far away from this. So I started this podcast as an experiment with myself as the test subject to show my followers, show my audience everything that I am learning and share what I have learned so that we can collectively benefit and collectively build towards the best version of ourselves. I believe the way to do that is by following the one singular manual for success. And that is why I call this podcast the Baraka blueprint. the blueprint that brings you blessings in your life and success in the life to come and that is by following the Quran and the prophetic tradition of our beloved messenger Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. I also look forward to share some insights. Insights that I have learned in my career, insights that I have learned in my entrepreneurial journey and in the companies that I'm building so that everyone that watches this can benefit and use that in their own journey. Now today I want to tackle a topic that is a personal struggle of mine. something that I am still struggling with as I'm recording this particular episode which is something I I thought I will call it and not not just to introduce Islamic nom but seriously I'm thinking of calling it a digital hij a digital migration from a cluttered mindset to a more how do you say to a more clear mindset uh especially when it comes to I mean this is this is more this is very important for me as a content creator for example because ultimately most of what I am doing is digital. So I feel like I have a very cluttered uh pathway and workspace and workflow as well. So one thing that I really do need is a digital hijra. So I' I've taken some I've taken some notes during the last couple of weeks of what I have learned and what I wish to have done differently. And I hope that my audience can find some benefit in this inshallah. So um starting off with with the following. I feel distracted. I feel very distracted from my mission. And this is something that I spoke about a lot in the previous episode which is about building a brand with Baraka. So I feel like during this year uh and I'll post in the season finale my reflections during the year and my reflections during the um season 2 specifically but also the uh year that I've started as a content creator and in my personal branding and even in my entrepreneurial journey here in Dubai and the UAE. So there's there's a lot of reflections to share but honestly I feel distracted and I feel like I've been telling people to avoid analysis paral paralysis and to uh avoid this comparative disorder and I fell into that. I fell into that more often than not. Why? Because alhamdulillah Allah subh has blessed me to have surrounded me with so many so many wonderful successful people Allahbar that I couldn't help itan's whispers were always there saying like ah look this person achieved this and that at that age or with these disadvantages and then look at yourself h and this of course makes one feel down and ultimately what you do is you end up downplaying every single thing that you're doing. And then when you think about it or when you reflect ultimately you realize that this downplaying of your abilities and your outcomes and your achievements. This is something that is strictly from Allahh told us even about this. He says for example, the devil has promised you poverty. And this thinking, this poverty thinking or the poverty mindset be not necessarily from a monetary point of view, but also from a skill set or achievement point of view. This is something that is strictly from and this is not whispers that you should heed to or listen to. And with all of that I want to say this is easier said than done. And what you need my listen my fellow uh audience member listener subscriber by the way most of you are not subscribed. So go ahead, click that subscriber button and uh stay tuned because the Baraka blueprint has a lot more to offer inshalla and especially especially with 2026 coming up. There's going to be a lot more interesting content inshall. So make sure to subscribe and make sure to follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you prefer to listen to the baraka blueprint. So what you need to hear about is a digital hijra. What does that mean and how can we together achieve that and what will we achieve by that to begin with? Uh spoiler alert, this will mostly be about this. This is mostly a minimalism mindset situation that uh you utilize to streamline the workflow and the work stream that you're that you're having so that you can execute with better focus, clarity and inshalla with better baraka. So uh let's start with the first one. I believe that most Muslims aren't lacking talent. I don't think I don't think our ummah has a talent issue if I'm going to be very honest. Like I've met so many incredible minds. Even people that are not in the creative space honestly like people who you don't really see or hear much from. Uh talent is not really an issue in our soc in our Muslim nation and society. I believe the issue that we're having is clarity. It's a clarity issue or a lack of clarity if I'm going to be very frank. Why? Because we are living in an era where it hasn't been that easy to become successful and even wealthy, but it's also it hasn't been that easy to be distracted. So, it's equally easy to be successful as it is to be distracted. So, what happens is like uh you're drowning with notifications, reals, clips, carousels, and whatnot. Uh or let's say if you're in the Tik Tok sphere, you're drowning with debates and rebuttals and this person refuting that person. Even in our daisphere, even that has become a situation which is quite sad. Honestly, brothers to brothers, sisters to sisters, brothers to sisters, sisters to brothers, like it's all noise. All right? And then what happens is and this is what I have realized and this is very sad that people talented people brothers sisters both none like everyone seems to focus their talents and their energy on noise like refuting each other like or calling people out on things that should be twominut private conversations and then the entire matter is Now we have to publicize these things, right? and then together with all of that you have the like valuable input from other areas like the hormosis of the world or righteous and rich or and you you have you have like so many other valuable pieces of content that you can extract, I don't think I don't think we have an input problem. I really don't think that I don't think we have a lack of good content. We do. We have fantastic content available. All right. What we do need is clarity to remove these distractions from our way so that we can focus on the right input that already exists. the input that you already have access to don't need more input. You don't need more good content as we mentioned before. So there are three things that uh that you risk killing especially with all of this noise and nonsense that is around us. Number one is the lack of iman, the lack of faith. Because think about it this way. What the antidote the the antidote to faith and iman especially what we can see in the Quranic discourse is specifically the ego and whatever feeds your ego kills your faith. I'm going to say it again because this is this is very very important. Whatever feeds your ego kills your faith. So the more you indulge in content that feeds your ego or the more you produce content that feeds your ego, know for a fact that your level of faith is heavily decreasing if if not being fully killed sooner than later. Secondly is uh focus because when when your ego blinds you and this we can this we can see in many pieces of literature like ego is the enemy by Ryan Holiday or one thing that Islam already told us far before that. the Quran tells us already and I'm going to paraphrase uh the verse here. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala takes the example of the person who took his ego his nfs his haha as his lord as his divine guide. The ultimate consequence is that this person became blinded. Everything became covered. His hearing, so he doesn't hear any other input except his ego. His sight is covered. His heart is covered. Everything is covered. So he doesn't see anything. He doesn't hear anything. He can't be convinced by anything. And that's why what many westerners clocked much later is that ego is actually the enemy. Don't listen to your ego. Don't feed into your ego. And then finally your creativity because when you are blinded when you're losing that focus and when you are losing your purpose your imi uh your creative abilities are not going to be translating proper properly from your talent and knowledge. Again, like I'm not going to mention names, but literally go online, find any of those people that engage in any of this ego feeding activity and you're going to realize exactly what I mean. These are people that are very, very talented. They can produce so much benefit to the um yet choose the ego pathway. And that's why I'm talking about a digital migration, a digital hij because it's not just a physical migration. Hijra is not just physically relocating from point A to point B. It is firstly about the heart as the hadith already establishes. You start with your intention. You migrate your intention. You migrate your focus and then only then the ship will steer to the other direction. But it won't it won't travel to the other direction unless you pivot the ship. what does a digital hijra mean? First of all is identification. Identify what is putting you in a state of in a state of you know stealing your presence. I don't even know how to translate the word. I will say what mental absence maybe that's one way to translate it right so identify what it is that puts you in this comaike situation that that ends up making you unfocused or you know in your own trans if you may right identify what these factors are number two uh add obstacles add obstacles that doesn't allow you to feed into these activities. I'll give you an example. So, this this was subh this was a very very very important that I got um a year and a half ago and far earlier as well. We're in December 2025, so like what early 2024 and onwards. A very good friend of mine in Sweden, a well-known da in Sweden gave me an after I was in a Tik Tok live room where I was arguing with a couple of people that were from and people that were even even kufur even non-Muslims. Now let me just give you some insight of what I thought I was doing. I thought I was nobody is guiding people except Allahh. But I thought I genuinely was doing a service to the to the public. I genuinely thought I was doing public service. Why? Because I was very convinced that I had good manners. Alhamdulillah. That I had a good rhetoric that I was able to present arguments respectfully. I was able to let people talk and speak fully and elaborate on their points. And even like through rhetorical devices and abilities, I was able to draw traps where people would ultimately realize that they're themselves failing. I'm not trying to pat myself on the shoulder, but again, I do need to emphasize that I was very convinced that my methodology was different from other Tik Tok noise, if that makes sense, from other people that are also in this debating sphere. Hence thinking that I'm doing public service but ultimately this brother may Allah bless him and must gave me and he told me this is a waste of time because what you're going to end up doing is you're going to end up infuriating infuriating yourself because you're going to be faced with rhetoric that is I mean borderline bananas and this will infuriate you especially because not everybody is respectful like yourself. So, you're going to find people that are very disrespectful and this will rattle you and then you're going to see a version of yourself that you're not going to appreciate. Lo and behold, that's exactly what happened because I didn't stop immediately. But that be and then once I realized that this is actually a waste of time and I am spending many wake awake hours on this even late at night because I mean I was talking mostly to people in Sweden and here in the UAE where what between 2 to 3 hours ahead so usually it's very late at night so a lot of time is being wasted when I could well be in bed comfortably preparing for the next day right or even do creative beneficial production. ive work. So what I ended up doing to solve this problem to avoid you know entering into these rooms I started restricting some accounts or even blocking some account. I didn't have to block that many accounts alhamdulillah but I I had to restrict many accounts. Uh I had to clean my feeds. That would even include unfollowing certain Muslim content creators or certain Muslim influencers or pages. Uh suddenly I decluttered that space. I am not as invited to enter these spaces. I don't see these rooms popping up that you know triggers me to click into that room. And after and this is all you the only thing you need is to get over a particular threshold which is where you add these obstacles. Now I mean alhamdulillah I am equally how do you say I see these rooms all the times right but I don't enter into these rooms. Sometimes I just keep it as background noise just because it's fun but I'm not as intrigued to enter into these rooms. And if I would do that once that once in a blue moon it would be a couple of minutes say say a beneficial word inshallah and not rattle myself. Right? So again, so step number two would be to after you identify the things that put you in this mental absence or absent mind itself, add obstacles to prevent yourself from entering into that space. And finally number three which is number one and number two and on and on and on is to is to purify and to correct your intention and to renew your intention because it's very easy and this is again a personal reflection of mine. It's very easy to enter into this um this mindset where you think you're better than people. It's very easy because the same shaitan that whispers in your ears, he whispers in mine because after you've done that and you see people in these rooms for like let's say in my in my example, my example is that I was involved in um certain live events in a social media application where some people weren't you know how do you say as bright. Okay, it's very very easy to that your ego then tells you after you've you know pivoted away and entered into a mind space that is better for yourself and better for your iman because shaitan wants to ruin your good actions. Shaitan wants to ruin what is working well for you. So he wants to add and feed your ego and say, "Oh, look, you're better than them." That's good. Add a boy. Keep it up. All right? And this is very dangerous. May Allah protect us. So it's very important to keep renewing your intention. Why are you doing all of this? For whose sake is it? Is it for the people or is it for the Lord of the people? uh some closing thoughts about this is the following one that I want to leave all of you with is this is especially for you guys who want to create something beneficial for those of you that want to create something meaningful. Again, take this from the guy who is inviting people to enter his school community and to, you know, access my page or access the content that I share or whatever noise I would potentially share. Right? What you need, you don't you don't need input. You don't I'm not sitting on a gold gold mine that will transform your life. Honestly uh what I what I am sitting on alhamdulillah and I'm what what I have is I have some reflections I'm I'm openly and honestly and transparently reflecting and if this benefits you then that's good alhamdulillah but honestly what you need is space seriously you don't need another podcast, another transformative podcast or another uh like key course whatever mentorship whatever that lets you transform your entire workflow and suddenly you'll become a 7 to9 figure entrepreneur or whatever. Okay, there is tons of free value out there. There's tons of beneficial value both in dean and dunya both for your uh pocket and for your paradise. What you need my dear listener and viewer space, emptiness, quiet for this input to land. You focus on one thing. You focus on one pathway. You focus on one learning path. And make sure that in your schedule, in your workflow, you have ample time that is away from everything else, even the learning path that you're within. Spend it on your do your Quran. Don't even don't forget that this is this is the most important part. Your relationship with Quran at the end of the day. not the course that you're going through to uh you know end up learning brand identity and graphic design your relationship with Quran is still like first second third fourth fifth and seventh place even more important than everything else everything else comes after seventh place Quran is the first seven so have space to you know step away from everything so that the information that you're going through so that it lands so that you're able to go through with it. Now, this may not make sense, so let me let me rephrase it in a way that makes much more sense. All right? So, if you keep cramming knowledge and you keep and you cram studying, chances are you're not going to score that high on the final exam. But when you study smart like for example you have this very very interesting uh lecture by Marty Lab Dell called study less study smart and he was going through many techniques like the pomodoro technique there are many pockets of silence and breaks where you are not to study you are not allowed to study within these pockets so you have short-term bursts of you know knowledge acquisition or studying or reviewing or whatever And then you're going to have pockets of breaks where you're not to study. This is the way to ensure that whatever knowledge you've gone through that it sits because during the silence is when you're going to get these aha moments. When your subconscious mind goes through and formats whatever your preffrontal cortex has filtered through. Hope I'm using the terminology right. Unless uh Andrew Yuberman is here to uh quickly tell me no, you're wrong, bro. [laughter] So, with that being said, and without any further ado, this would mark the conclusion of today's episode, episode 38 of the Baraka Blueprint podcast. If you like what you've seen, make sure to leave this video a like, share it with your friends and family and whoever will benefit from this. Follow me on Spotify or Apple Podcast and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you want to see more videos like this. And until next time, remember, focus on your mission, focus on your why, and keep renewing your intention. And I ask Allah subhana t to bless your path to success and baraka style.