Reflection 3 – This is how I influenced Dr. Muhammad Al-Erian in my knowledge and understanding of life and the Holy Qur’an.

May 2011:
I was on my way to completing the first year of preparing for my doctorate. Because the University of California system operates on a quarterly basis, I had completed nine subjects/courses, which made me mingle with many professors and colleagues in a relatively short period of time. One of the most important and prominent of these was Richard Mathew, who later became a member of the defense committee for my doctoral thesis. I studied the Social Entrepreneurship course with him, which was special and different in terms of firstly the content and secondly the great guests he hosted to make the course richer.
One of what distinguished Richard most was his ability to combine theoretical principles with reality in practical life. He is not only a professor who excelled in teaching, but he also practiced many activities outside the scope of the subject or classes, including many humanitarian works at the international level. Therefore, when I learned that he would be a speaker at the next TEDx with one of the prominent people, the economist and financial expert Dr. Mohamed El-Erian, an Egyptian-American, is considered one of the most famous economists in the world. I decided to attend this occasion to hear their words.
Dr. Muhammad Al-Erian’s speech was entitled “The Power of (How).” It was a very inspiring speech in which he talked about how most of us (companies in particular) do not deal with international changes in a proper manner, and therefore many of us fail to behave well in some important situations. He summarized the speech by saying that the answer is in the “how” and not the “result.” Then this idea stopped me and I began to analyze how it affected my life. For example, all political parties seek the same goals. Most of them ask for a decent life, a suitable job, clean air, etc., but the clear difference is in how they achieve their goals and present their demands. And many things in life are like this.
This principle remained in my mind for a few months, but it did not crystallize until I found two verses in the Qur’an with this meaning, which is that God Almighty sent us caliphs on earth to see “how” we would work to achieve His Sunnah. (Ayah 129 from Surah Al-A’raf and Verse 14 from Surah Yunus).
They said, “We were harmed before you came and after you came.” He said, “Perhaps your Lord will destroy your enemy and make you your successor in the land, and then He will see.” How do you work?
Then We made you successors in the land after them, that We might observe how you would act.
This principle is repeated and appears in many ways in the Qur’an and Sunnah. It is quality in work, not just quantity or result. Unfortunately, many of us are preoccupied with achieving the largest number of results, but most of them are not of high quality, and this results in incorrect evaluation of many things and of each other as well. Therefore, it is the “how” and not the “result”, the amount of success.