NTUMS Eleven was honoured to have Dojany as our guest speaker for the signature ‘Meet-The-Contributors’ (MTC) event, and we learned so much from him. In this article, I will share some key takeaways from his talk and sprinkle in some of my thoughts too. Hope you enjoy!
To give some background on our esteemed speaker, Donjany is a Malay-Muslim content creator, focused on bringing people closer to Allah SWT and getting people to be interested in Islam. He has inspired a great deal of Muslims in Singapore, through many initiatives including ‘Geng Subuh Solat Macam Jumaat’, garnering the attendance of thousands of people to mosques for the Fajr prayer. He is also the founder of Al-Fajr, a startup offering services in fulfilling Islamic obligations and supporting the Muslim community beyond just Singapore’s. However, one thing that stuck with me was his Why; his reason behind doing what he does.
Donjany’s upbringing and backstory is one that touched my heart deeply. His love for his grandparents who imparted the knowledge of being kind Muslims – ones that are humble and do not look down on others -- inspired and drove him to upload his first few videos to spread the same knowledge to others. His first few videos were put up on social media, spreading the very message taught to him by his grandparents.
Today, society uses the anonymity of social media as a weapon to justify their rash advice. Thus, being non-judgemental, humble, and kind Muslims is a challenge for us, admittedly. I think it is a reminder to everyone, including myself, that perhaps those who struggle with wearing the hijab, the alcoholic, or the individual struggling with their sexuality, has a closer connection to Allah SWT than us. Who are we to judge? Who are we to think we are better? Are we any better even? If He willed our sins to be revealed, we could even be objectively more sinful than them! Who are we, except servants to Allah SWT, the one and the only God, all equally created by Him and equally powerless before Him?
Donjany’s sharing also touched on the importance of intention and dua. It was comforting to know that intentions changing to something apart from doing an action for the sake of Allah SWT is normal. On hindsight, actively thinking of Allah SWT in every simple action we do daily such as eating or commuting to school, might not be second nature to everyone. InsyaAllah, may we all be guided to return to Him and be more conscious of Him in every step we take, every bite we consume, and every good we do.
An advice shared was to remember that Allah has seen the sins we have done, yet He doesn’t open our aib for everyone to see. For that, we must be grateful, and show our appreciation by doing as much good as we can in our lives while always keeping Him in mind. As for dua, Donjany defines his definition of success as receiving dua from people. MasyaAllah. Honestly, this made me quite emotional. Often, we may only be grateful that people make dua for us and our success, but have we ever deemed our lives successful because we have dua coming from others?
My biggest lesson from his journey was learning about the challenges he faced, and continues to face, as a public figure. Dealing with hate comments and the pressure to behave a certain way under all that scrutiny can be demotivating and exhausting. However, you build your own path to Jannah. We cannot please everyone, but if we please Allah, then that is sufficient. There could be controversy over inviting influencers as means to entice people to come to the mosque for prayers. There could be controversy on putting a price towards Islamic knowledge/services. There could be controversy on certain stances we take today, regarding certain conflicts in the world. There may always be people who deem our deeds as unfavourable, no matter what we do.
But, we build our own path to Jannah. And that concerns only you and your Creator.
Seek goodness in this life and the hereafter. Put in your due efforts and Tawakkal. Most importantly, do it for Allah SWT. Do it for the betterment of our brothers and sisters, and for ourselves.
After all, we build our own path to Jannah.
To end this piece, I would also like to take this time to ask us all to recite Al-Fatihah for Donjany’s grandfather and make dua for ease in his affairs, InsyaAllah.