Ali and Malcolm: Developing The Victorious Muslim Mindset

2) Seek Knowledge by Constantly Reading!
“You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I’m not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.” – Malcolm X

Reading is crucially important to developing a victorious Muslim mindset. While in prison, Malcolm X read texts on science, theology, philosophy, and even wrote out the entire dictionary to improve his vocabulary. However, he did not read and study just to gain useless knowledge; the purpose of him reading was to help fellow black people. Nowadays, most people use 15 free minutes to idly scroll social media, whether it be Twitter, Snapchat, or Facebook. We aren’t taking full advantage of our time in the pursuit of knowledge and its making us intellectually weaken as a people. We need to be constantly reading books and literature from scientific journals, critical studies, philosophy, and theology We also need to read books on business, trade, economics, and enterprise.

Most importantly, we must act upon what we learn. Give yourself a challenge, such as reading fifty pages of critical literature a day. Read a book on philosophical issues every week. And, of course, when it comes to theology, collect books on the seera and companions of the Prophet (SAW) and read them zealously. With the advent of Google books and other internet resources, knowledge is more accessible than any previous time in history. The classical scholars of Islam would often have to make month-long journeys for access to books. Still, great scholars such as Muhammad Bello was said to have read over 26,000 books, and Al-Jahiz was said to have read the entirety of Greek philosophical works. Often times, people make excuses for why they can’t read. “I’m too busy,” or “I am short on time.” No excuses, we must make time for knowledge and identify in our schedule where we are being idle to make time for reading.