CONTENTMENT:
THE SECRET TO SUCCESS
There’s a well-known saying that reflects an important truth about life. It goes: “One who lets go of half in pursuit of the whole ends up with neither.” The truth is that most people make decisions based on their desires and ambitions. Because of this, they often take actions that, in real-life situations, are not actually achievable. The result is that their efforts end in total failure—they lose what could have been theirs while chasing what was not.
This has been the story of many well-known Muslim leaders in modern times. Ignoring the facts, they made big decisions driven only by their desires and ambitions. The result was only destruction for the community. To understand this better, let’s look at a few examples.
1. Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan was a prominent Pakistani leader and the son of the late Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, the former Prime Minister of United Punjab. Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan started his career as a military officer during World War II. In 1943, he became actively involved in Muslim League politics. After the creation of Pakistan, he served as a minister in Punjab and held several high-ranking positions.
He wrote an English book about his life titled The Nation That Lost Its Soul. Its Urdu translation, Gum Gashta Qaum, was published in Pakistan by Jang Publishers, Lahore, in December 1995. The Urdu edition has 461 pages.
One chapter of the book is titled “Liaquat Ali Khan,” referring to Pakistan’s first Prime Minister. Several topics are covered in this chapter, and one of them is quoted here:
Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan was not fully acquainted with the facts or the geography of the nation over which he assumed the office of Prime Minister. Later, during the Kashmir conflict, Lord Mountbatten visited Lahore and delivered a message from Sardar Patel at a dinner attended by Liaquat, Governor Modi, and four Punjab ministers. Patel, a powerful figure in India, had sent a message stating that the principle agreed upon between the Congress and the Muslim League regarding princely states should be followed. That principle indicated that a state should join either Pakistan or India based on the majority population and geographical connection.
Patel said Pakistan should take Kashmir and, in exchange, give up its claim to Hyderabad Deccan, where Hindus were the majority and which had no land or sea connection to Pakistan. After delivering the message, Mountbatten went to rest at Government House.
I was fully responsible for the Kashmir operation. I went to Liaquat Ali Khan and suggested that we wouldn’t be able to drive out the Indian army from Kashmir with the help of tribal fighters. Even our regular army might not succeed in this mission. Therefore, we shouldn’t reject Patel’s offer. Nawabzada turned to me and said, ‘Sardar Sahib, do you think I’ve gone mad that I would give up the state of Hyderabad Deccan—which is bigger than Punjab—for the sake of Kashmir’s hills and valleys?’”
When I saw the Prime Minister’s reaction, I was shocked to realize how unaware he was of the country’s geography. His judgment was so poor that he prioritized Hyderabad Deccan over Kashmir. This was like living in a fool’s paradise. The idea of gaining Hyderabad was just a fantasy, while Kashmir was practically coming to us on its own. He had no real understanding of how important Kashmir was to Pakistan. So, in protest, I resigned from overseeing the Kashmir operation. (Pages 231-232)
This statement by Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan is a clear example of the painful truth—that modern Muslim leaders fell into the trap described in that well-known saying. They couldn’t tell the difference between what was possible and what was not. They chased after what they could never get. As a result, they lost what they could have had—and the thing they ran after was never really within reach.
2. Now here’s another example of the same kind. This one goes back to the time before 1947, when the British still ruled the Indian subcontinent. It’s taken from the Urdu weekly Al-Jamiyat:
Just a few days before the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind conference in Amroha (May 3-5, 1930), a senior member of the Viceroy’s Council, the late Sir Mian Fazl-i-Hussain, invited the renowned scholar Hazrat Maulana Ahmad Saeed Dehlvi and made him an offer. He asked the Maulana to ensure that the Jamiat didn’t pass a resolution supporting cooperation with the Congress at the upcoming Amroha meeting. In return, he said, he would work with the British government to grant the Safdarjung Tomb and the surrounding property and land to the Jamiat for its scholarly work.
In his usual humorous style, the Maulana replied, “Mian Sahib, all the respected scholars and leaders won’t let me be fooled like this. We are about to pass a resolution aimed at gaining the entire country—and you’re offering us just a tomb, which is already Muslim endowment land.” Mian Sahib was deeply disappointed by this response. The Maulana personally told this story to the writer. (Fifty Years of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, by Sheikh Abdul Haq Pracha Dehlvi, General Secretary of Jamiat Ulama Delhi Province, published in Al-Jamiyat Weekly, Delhi, January 2, 1970, page 8)
Now consider this 1930 event in light of what happened 75 years later, and it becomes clear that this situation turned out just like the popular saying mentioned earlier. Leaders at the time were given a valuable opportunity without even asking for it—but they missed out simply because their minds were set on something much bigger. The problem was, that the “bigger” goal was never truly achievable.
The British offer held the same potential as a proposal made to an English trader during Emperor Jahangir’s reign—one that trader quickly accepted. If the Muslim leaders 75 years ago had embraced the offer and transformed it into a hub for education, scholarship, and outreach, the long-term consequences could have been so profound that history itself might have looked very different.
The two examples above show what has happened with almost all of today’s well-known leaders. Each had great chances to do meaningful work. But almost all of them aimed for the impossible and chased after it. As a result, they didn’t even get what was possible—while the impossible, of course, never came to them.
For example, Syed Jamaluddin Afghani was given significant opportunities to work by the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. However, he chose to turn against the very empire that had supported him. As a result, he was forced to leave Turkey. In Egypt, Syed Qutb considered the offer to work in the Ministry of Education too minor. Instead, he set out to overthrow President Nasser’s government. The result was that he lost both the smaller opportunity and the larger one.
A similar situation happened in Pakistan with Syed Abul A’la Maududi. The former president, Muhammad Ayub Khan, offered Maududi and his associates the chance to create a large national university with full government backing. Through it, they could educate and train the younger generation. But once again, Maududi saw the offer as too small. He started a vigorous movement to take complete control of the government. After all his efforts, the result was that he lost both the small opportunity and the big one.
This is the story of many Muslim leaders today. They became so absorbed in their imagined ambitions that they failed to see reality. They kept pursuing big goals, even though those goals were never truly within their reach. Meanwhile, they completely overlooked the opportunities that were realistically available to them. Due to this unrealistic mindset, these well-known leaders only ended up setting examples of failure. They never became models of practical success. In their attempt to gain more, they ended up losing even the little they had.
The root of this serious mistake was that they saw the small as merely small. They couldn’t recognize the potential for something greater hidden within the small. They didn’t understand the basic truth of life: that every action begins with something small. No journey starts from the top. A person who understands this truth begins small and eventually reaches greater heights. But someone who fails to understand this will never even find a place to start—due to their unrealistic thinking. The law of this world is: whoever finds a starting point for their journey will, sooner or later, reach their destination. And whoever fails to find that starting point will never reach their goal—no matter how hard or how long they keep struggling. In the language of reform, this life principle is called contentment—and contentment is, without doubt, the one true secret to all individual and collective success.
A well-known saying of the Prophet appears in several Hadith collections with slight variations in wording—for example, Sahih Muslim (Book of Zakat), Tirmidhi (Book of Zuhd), and Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal. The wording recorded in Musnad Ahmad is translated here as follows: “The Prophet of Islam said: ‘Successful is the one who accepted Islam, was given just enough provision for his needs, and whom God made content with what He gave him.’” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith no. 6572)
This Hadith is often understood in a personal and financial way. However, its meaning is actually much wider. The full message is this: whether for individuals or nations, whatever they receive now—or what is realistically possible given current circumstances—they should accept it willingly. By being content with it, they can start their work. The first benefit is that they will succeed in making the most of what they already have. Additionally, what they lack today may come to them in the future—through planned and determined effort.
