Welcome to Spiritual Intelligence

As-salaam alaykum!

Welcome to the Spiritual Intelligence newsletter. I am so excited to be on this journey with you. May Allah put tremendous barakah in it 🤲

Every Thursday, you will receive one simple spiritual practice to deepen your connection with Allah on Friday (and beyond).

So, what is "spiritual intelligence"? Spiritual intelligence is the essential inner skills to thrive in an increasingly turbulent world. But unlike "artificial intelligence" or "precision medicine", the science of spiritual intelligence isn't new. As Muslims, we've had access to it all along but chose not to use it - at least I didn't.

For most of my adult life, I was the textbook Muslim: worked hard, accomplished a lot educationally and professionally, prayed five times a day, fasted, went on Hajj and Umrah, and ticked virtually every single Muslim-y check box there is.

But it all changed in 2017 when I was CTO of a $30M health and AI institute. The organization that I was working for mistreated employees, and the leadership was lying to investors about the efficacy of our AI tools. As things became increasingly difficult at work, I turned to self-help to improve my situation. But the more I dabbled in the tactics of time management, negotiation, and fundraising, the worse my situation got. It reached a boiling point where I had to quit my job with no "plan B".

What followed were the hardest 7 months of my life. However, those difficult times forced me to confront my beliefs and practices. What I realized was that I was Muslim on paper but I hardly applied all the Islam I knew in my career beyond praying and working hard. Once I started utilizing the Islam that I already knew, my life improved dramatically. That’s spiritual intelligence.

What I also realized is that the most popular self-help gurus were repackaging Islamic principles, but they lacked the spiritual potency of the original Islamic material. So while "Atomic Habits", "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", etc., have value in them, they fell short of the original Islamic source material. Specifically, self-help books may have a similar message to Islamic texts, but the intention behind self-help is often capitalistic, whereas we engage in Islamic spirituality to deepen our awareness of Allah, not for a material outcome.

Another benefit of increasing our spiritual intelligence is to integrate our siloed personalities: our professional, religious, social, and fun “selves” into a single aligned person. Heightened spiritual intelligence gives us the confidence and awareness of God to act and speak the same way whether we are in the boardroom, at an Islamic school, or with our best friend.

Given my AI background, I often get asked what is the best skill I must develop to ensure I have a great career. Should you learn ChatGPT? What about “prompt engineering”? Or maybe “reinforcement learning”? After two decades in AI, I can tell you with confidence that what makes you “irreplaceable” isn’t the skill but your faith. There will always be a new technology that threatens to “replace” us but these spiritual intelligence principles are timeless. While everyone is chasing the “artificial intelligence” fad, timeless spiritual intelligence will be your edge.

I am writing Spiritual Intelligence to help you develop the spiritual tools and fortitude to become the top 1% in whatever you do. Not to be a "high performer" but rather to be a Muslim of excellence who connects with Allah SubhanaHu Wa Ta'ala deeper and deeper.

That's it! I would love to get to know you better. Feel free to reply to this email and share what you hope to gain from this newsletter and how I can support you.

May Allah’s Peace be with you 🤲

James