ISLAMIC
ARCHIVAL WORK
DR UMAR AZAM BA PHD DCL DIP.FJ DIP.IM
MANCHESTER
UK
MARCH 2003
A.
DEFINITION
'Islamic Archival Work' may be defined as 'a collection of
personal papers [original work, letters written, letters received
etc.] systematically filed and preserved so as to form a personal
Archive of potential benefit to posterity'. This Archive
would consist entirely of 'Islamic' ['relevant directly to
concepts of the religion of Islam'] documents: anything not relevant
to the religion would not form a part of such an
archive.
__________________________________________________________
B.
AIM
I built
up my own personal Archive from 1984-2003 [1] and I would like to reveal my 'secrets'.
[2] Why should any
ordinary person have an archive? It
will:
a] encourage the creation of original
knowledge
b] encourage the distribution of this knowledge [3]
c] original knowledge will boost the quality of library
stock
d] this knowledge will be helpful to young Muslims [4] as well as teachers/academic staff in
schools, colleges and Universities
e] your Archive will be a significant personal success: an
achievement of which you did not think you were
capable
f] you would be able to use your Archive to write your
autobiography
g] you would be able to use your Archive for publishing
letters: selected and interesting specimens of your
correspondence
h] you would be able to display your original work and
related documents on the Internet for browsers worldwide to
use.
[1] THE DR UMAR AZAM
ARCHIVE is still ongoing.
[2] According to the terms of our
religion, I must do this. The Prophet Muhammed
[PBUM] has said: 'None of you can truly be a believer unless he
wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself'. [MUSLIM]
Also, the Prophet [PBUM] said said: 'When a person dies, the benefit
of everything worldly finishes, except for two things: charity,
for which the reward is ongoing, and pious children who pray for
him.' [MUSLIM] Now if a person produces important Islamic
work from which others derive benefit, this falls under the category
of [religious] charity. So a personal Islamic Archive,
whose documents are the product of such work, and an archive,
too, which itself has the potential to be educationally
valuable to posterity would be a definite means of
religious and educational charity to others. If the readers of
this paper can gain the know-how and inspiration to form their own
[valuable] archives, they will get their reward from Allah Most High
and so, too, will I - for revealing my specialist
knowledge!
[3] This paper contains information
(addresses etc.) relevant to the United Kingdom. Please check
the directory of your specific country for such addresses. However,
the methods and strategies outlined herein are obviously applicable
to the building of a Personal Islamic Archive in any
country of the world.
[4] The population of the younger
generation of Muslims in the UK is, Masha'Allah, growing every year,
so effective Islamic work will teach them knowledge of our
religion. There is a need for this kind of work: Later
generations of Muslims who don't know much about their religion
could drift away from Islam and then their destination will be
Hell. We have a huge responsibility to leave for them
something of Eternal importance. There is a similar need
for Islamic knowledge (especially now that the politics of
Islamic countries and factions is so much in the news nowadays)
in schools, colleges and Universities - for the information of
RE staff, academic lecturers and (for research purposes)
Professors. This specialist knowledge is also in demand from
the media: television and radio, newspapers and magazines
etc. Also, thousands of non-Muslims convert or 'revert'
to Islam every year in the UK. Islamic work -especially the
production of valuable, original Islamic publications written in a
clear, easy-to-understand style, and then distributed or published
on the Internet- will help them too.
_________________________________________________________
C.
METHOD
In order to impress the reader with the Islamic
effectiveness of working toward a Personal Archive, I'm first
going to present my own results and then, in the second
section, I'll explain the methods my readers can use to try to
do the same for themselves. If you follow my methods to
the letter, you -as an individual- could become as effective and
efficient as an entire organisation (which doesn't get much done!).
These methods, as far as I know, are original.
However, it may be the case that similar stategies are
carried out by individuals, organisations and institutions all
over the world! Although the primary purpose is to encourage
the creation of Islamic archives, this paper will also
hopefully benefit non-muslim readers to build a personal
Archive on any subject. Muslim organisations will
have tremendously comprehensive archives if they preserve the three
main ingredients: orinal work, outgoing letters and incoming
letters; for the larger organisations, the number of such documents
may well run into hundreds of thousands of
documents. I would suggest that all organisations keep copies
of their Archives in boxes in some kind of room resembling a
library, or a Library itself, so that their visitors have the
opportunity to consult such documents and perhaps find source
material for research, original work etc.
_______________________________________________________
D.
SECTION 1. RESULTS OF DR UMAR AZAM'S ISLAMIC ARCHIVAL
WORK 1984-2003*
RESULTS OF NUMBER OF LETTERS RECEIVED
________________________________________________
RESULTS BY YEAR
1984...................................................................... 23[a]
1985.........................................................................56[a]
1986........................................................................228[b]
1987........................................................................115[b]
1988..........................................................................44[c]
1989..........................................................................98[c]
1990.........................................................................178[d]
1991.........................................................................
89[e]
1992..........................................................................
52[f]
1993..........................................................................236[g]
1994..........................................................................159[g]
1995........................................................................... 56[h]
1996.............................................................................36[h]
1997............................................................................269[i]
1998............................................................................341[i]
1999...........................................................................
216[i]
2000...........................................................................
307[j]
2001...........................................................................
739[k]
2002............................................................................910[k]
2003
..........Jan/Feb/Mar....................131[l]
Notes
[a] My documents begin with the year 1984;
inexperienced for the first two years; distributing mainly THE
BRITISH MUSLIMS
[b]
Distributing THE BRITISH MUSLIMS, PRAYERS IN ISLAM, SELECTED
VERSES FROM THE QURAN
[c] Low figures due to pressures of beginning of
an arranged marriage
[d]
Distributing RUSHDIE'S SATANIC VERSES: AN ISLAMIC
RESPONSE
[e]
Pressures of end of arranged marriage
[f] Lack of funds because substantial funds
already being expended on publication of 'DREAMS IN
ISLAM'.
[g]
Writing to libraries and bookshops to sell published copies of
DREAMS IN ISLAM; donating copies of this title.
[h] Ill Health
[i]
Distributing THE PHILOSOPHY OF ISLAM; receiving comments on my
appearances on radio stations [BBC Radio Lancashire, GMR, Derby];
writing to leading foodstuffs manufacturers [British Bakeries,
Nestle, Walkers etc.] regarding vegetarian ingredients in products;
writing political letters to British and US Governments, and British
newspapers.
[j] Relatively high figure because of replies from
poetry magazines to whom poems were submitted for
publication/assessment, and from THE INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY OF
POETRY
[k] With INTERNET facility; guestbook entries and
e-mail messages
[l] Relatively low figure because of production of new
works: DREAMS OF REWARD IN PARADISE, ROMANTIC DREAMS, DREAMS OF
STRENGTH AND POWER, A LETTER TO NON-MUSLIMS
_______________________________________________________
RESULTS
BY
MONTH
Each figure is the
total number of letters received for that month in that
year
___________________________________________________
YEAR 1 * 1984 * 1405
MAY 3 JUN 3
JUL 2 AUG 0 SEP
3 OCT 0
NOV 10 DEC 2
TOTAL 23 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
23 AV/YR 23.0
__________________________________________________
YEAR 2 * 1985 * 1406
JAN 6 FEB 2
MAR 3 APR 0
MAY 1 JUN 0 JUL
5 AUG 15 SEP
11 OCT 11 NOV
2 DEC 0
TOTAL 56 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
79 AV/YR 39.5
______________________________________________________
YEAR 3 * 1986 * 1407
JAN 6 FEB 13
MAR 5 APR 18 MAY
47 JUN 39 JUL
23 AUG 13 SEP
20 OCT 22
NOV 13 DEC 9
TOTAL 228 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 307 AV./YR
102.3
______________________________________________________
YEAR 4 * 1987 * 1408
JAN 11 FEB 16
MAR 24 APR 17 MAY
12 JUN 7 JUL
9 AUG 3
SEP 3 OCT 9 NOV
3 DEC 1
TOTAL 115 CUMULATIVE
TOTAL 422 AV./YR 105.5
_______________________________________________________
YEAR 5 * 1988 * 1409
JAN 8 FEB 4
MAR 4 APR 7 MAY
5 JUN 1 JUL
4 AUG 2
SEP 0 OCT 5 NOV
2 DEC 2
TOTAL 44 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
466
AV./YR 93.2
______________________________________________________
YEAR 6 * 1989 * 1410
JAN 3 FEB 8
MAR 9 APR 6
MAY 16 JUN 10
JUL 7 AUG 3 SEP
11 OCT 16 NOV
5 DEC 4
TOTAL 98 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 564
AV./YR 94.0
_______________________________________________________
YEAR 7 * 1990 * 1411
JAN 8 FEB 6
MAR 13 APR 18 MAY
40 JUN 21 JUL
11 AUG 6
SEP 12 OCT 12
NOV 19 DEC 21
TOTAL 178 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 742 AV./YR
106.0
_______________________________________________________
YEAR 8 * 1991 * 1412
JAN 7 FEB 7
MAR 17 APR 4 MAY
17 JUN 9 JUL
2 AUG 8 SEP
5 OCT 2 NOV
3 DEC 8
TOTAL 89 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 831 AV./YR
103.9
_____________________________________________________
YEAR 9 * 1992 * 1413
JAN 5 FEB 3
MAR 4 APR 5
MAY 6 JUN 5
JUL 5 AUG 1 SEP
3 OCT 2
NOV 5 DEC 8
TOTAL 52 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 883 AV./YR
98.1
______________________________________________________
YEAR 10 * 1993 * 1414
JAN 21 FEB 12
MAR 21 APR 18 MAY
23 JUN 21
JUL 20 AUG 12
SEP 18
OCT 11 NOV 28
DEC 30
TOTAL 236 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
1119 AV./YR 111.9
________________________________________________________
YEAR 11 * 1994 * 1415
JAN 28 FEB 16
MAR 9 APR 12 MAY
7 JUN 11
JUL 24 AUG 18 SEP
18 OCT 6 NOV
7 DEC 3
TOTAL 159 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 1278
AV./YR 116.2
_____________________________________________________
YEAR 12 * 1995 * 1416
JAN 7 FEB 4
MAR 8 APR 6
MAY 31 JUN ? JUL
? AUG ? SEP
? OCT ?
NOV ? DEC ?
TOTAL 56 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 1337 AV./YR
112.2
_______________________________________________________
YEAR 13 * 1996 * 1417
JAN ? FEB ?
MAR ? APR ?
MAY ? JUN ? JUL
? AUG ? SEP
? OCT ? NOV
18 DEC 36
TOTAL 36 CUMULATIVE
TOTAL 1370 AV./YR 105.4
_____________________________________________________
YEAR 14 * 1997 *
1418
JAN
31 FEB 17
MAR 23 APR 15
MAY 22 JUN 16 JUL
19 AUG 17
SEP 18 OCT 28
NOV 32 DEC 31
TOTAL 269 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 1639
AV./YR 117.1
______________________________________________________
YEAR 15* 1998 * 1419
JAN 34 FEB 39
MAR 33 APR 24 MAY
27 JUN 31 JUL
41 AUG 28
SEP 21 OCT 21
NOV 27 DEC 15
TOTAL 341 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
1980 AV./YR 132.O
________________________________________________________
YEAR 16 * 1999 * 1420
JAN 16 FEB 26
MAR 10 APR 19
MAY 14 JUN 12
JUL 22 AUG 14
SEP 17 OCT 15
NOV 23 DEC 26
TOTAL 216 CUMULATIVE TOTAL 2196AV./YR
137.3
________________________________________________________________
YEAR 17 * 2000 *
1421
JAN 16 FEB 29 MAR
17 APR 14 MAY
27 JUN ?
JUL ? AUG ?
SEP ? OCT ?
NOV ? DEC 32
TOTAL 307 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
2503 AV/YR 147.2
_______________________________________________
YEAR 18* 2001
* 1422
JAN 19 FEB 23
MAR 35 APR 31 MAY
70 JUN 43
JUL 72 AUG 85
SEP 106 OCT 81 NOV
104 DEC 69
TOTAL 739 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
3242 AV/YR 180.1
________________________________________________
YEAR 19 * 2002 *
1423
JAN 75 FEB 51
MAR 39 APR 62
MAY 59 JUN 65 JUL
150 AUG 116 SEP
87 OCT 34 NOV
86 DEC 86
TOTAL 910 CUMULATIVE TOTAL
4152 AV./YR 218.5
_________________________________________________
YEAR 20 * 2003 * 1424
JAN 48 FEB
37 MAR
43
***************
The
Dr Umar Azam Archive
LATEST STATISTICS (as of 30 March 2003)
Letters
written: 2 2 5 8 *
Letters
received: 4 2 6 9
No. of
original works on Islam: 1 2
* I made the
mistake of not filing letters I had written myself in the period
1984- c.1997, until a holy dream advised me to do so! I had
always considered receiving a letter to be more important than
writing one - since to receive one can't be guaranteed in the same
way as to write one!
______________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
My records
are based mainly on my following Islamic
writings:PRAYERS IN ISLAM (1983-4) SELECTED VERSES
FROM THE HOLY QURAN (1984) THE BRITISH
MUSLIMS (1984) DREAMS IN ISLAM (TYPESCRIPT, 1986)
RUSHDIE'S SATANIC VERSES: AN ISLAMIC RESPONSE
(1990)DREAMS IN ISLAM (DORRANCE, PENNSYLVANIA, 1992)
PRACTICAL ISLAMIC ADVICE (1995), VISION OF
PARADISE [by ZAHEER AZAM] (SIRAJUDDIN & SONS, LAHORE,
1997), IN AWE OF GOD: A COLLECTION OF ISLAMIC POETRY
(2000), DREAMS OF REWARD IN PARADISE (2003),
ROMANTIC DREAMS (2003), DREAMS OF
STRENGTH & POWER (2003), A LETTER TO
NON-MUSLIMS (2003) and Comments/Correspondence re: THE DR UMAR
AZAM WEBSITE (http://www.dr-umar-azam.com/).
I have also written letters on political themes to
the British Government and newspapers in
Britain and various other correspondence e.g. to libraries,
periodicals and Universities worldwide.
_______________________________________________________________________
E. SECTION
2. METHODS OF ISLAMIC ARCHIVAL WORK
I.
RESOURCES/EQUIPMENT
The following is a list of the various materials and
equipment that I have found indispensable over the years: lever
arch files; cardboard document wallets; a ream [500 sheets] of
plain white paper; stapler and staples; hole punch; paper clips;
clipboard; Parker,
Schaeffer ballpoint and fountain
pens; Osmiroid, Lamy fountain pens;
bulldog clips, presentation files etc. etc.
This is only a small sample
of the diverse stationery equipment I have used over the
years. The point is that you should not be afraid to spend
money on stationery and facilities [e.g. investing in a computer,
printer, subscribing to Internet firms etc.] because, obviously,
your work will be the more effective the better equipped you are [if
worthwhile use is made of such equipment and
facilities].
_______________________________________________________________________
II. INDIVIDUAL OR COLLECTIVE WORK?
Once you
have produced your work, it is essential to work individually and be
secretive if necessary: you don't want to get demoralised in
the early stages! When I first began my organised Islamic
work in 1983, I made the mistake of telling people that I was trying
to write a book on Islam. Even friends became resentful,
and I wondered if they were trying to block my success. Others
were outwardly jealous and I remember one fellow Muslim urging me to
'burn it [your work], brother!' Also, try not to join Islamic
groups/associations for meetings etc. to help your Islamic
work. As well as the jealousy problem mentioned above,
people are unreliable: meeting are cancelled, members turn up near
the finish times, nothing gets done. Certain ideas and plans
for action are adored by some members, but abhorred by others.
You may be working at something which you might consider is not as
important as another, more valuable task. Who makes the
final decisions? Who gets the credit? Who gets the
blame? What is the 'pecking order'? Or is everyone truly
equal? If you work as an individual, there is absolutely no
barrier to your progress, achievement and advancement.
____________________________________________________
III.
PRODUCTION
Although it is acceptable to distribute other
people's work and then build your Archive, I would say that
for the Archive to be truly your own, the letters should
mostly be relating to your own work. So it follows
that you must try to produce valuable written work in
the first place; for it to be valuable, it must be original, not
copied from work which already exists. Look for gaps in
subject areas: for example, I have been writing research papers
on 'dreams'; Islamic psychology is a rare field, unlike,
for example, general themes in the history of Islam.
You could write an essay, a collection of religious poetry, a
book, an Islamic-religious research paper, a journalistic
article or compile a significant collection of meaningful and
educational or letters serving the purpose of an Islamic political
campaign.* Because you are working independently and producing
your own work, if you do not feel that such work is technically
accurate [and the religion of Islam is too valuable to spread
misinformation] or lack the experience of 'professional' [as
opposed to academic writing i.e. at school, college or University],
THEN HAVE THE WORK CHECKED by a few Islamic organisations, by
academic staff of colleges and Universities [if you know any] or, in
the last resort by myself ([email protected],
[email protected])
You should always obtain the opinion of more than one source because
one negative and malicious comment will be unfairly spiteful and may
have the effect of making you throw away valuable work! When I
was distributing PRACTICAL ISLAMIC ADVICE, a few of my readers were
jealous of my independence and wrote cheeky comments such as, "Have
you had this work checked?" As well as being an Honours
Graduate from a leading University, I had done wide background
reading of my subject and was, in fact, a published author and an
authority on my particular speciality [(holy) dreams in
Islam]. I therefore felt that such 'comments' were rather
impertinent! Once your work is given approval by the
majority of those organisations whose advice you sought,
and after making the necessary recommended alterations and
adjustments, you will be feeling confident that libraries and other
recipients of your work will be receiving something of worth.
Moreover, the corresponence you send out and receive in return
whilst arranging for your work to be checked and approved will add
extra documents to your Archive.
* See my Website
(www.dr-umar-azam.com) for examples: e.g.
'book' = 'DREAMS IN ISLAM'; essay = 'RUSHDIE'S
SATANIC VERSES: AN ISLAMIC RESPONSE'; collection of meaninful
letters = 'POLITICAL DOCUMENTS'; journalistic article = 'THE
PHILOSOPHY OF ISLAM'; poetry = 'IN AWE OF GOD: A COLLECTION OF
ISLAMIC POETRY'; Islamic-religious research paper = DREAMS OF
REWARD IN PARADISE.
______________________________________________________
Working on
the Internet
I will assume that you have your own Web Site
and more than one e-mail addresses.
Log onto your e-mail addresses [e.g. 'Yahoo'] and
click 'COMPOSE'. Type out
your work for that day. Save it and label it: 'HARAM
INGREDIENTS IN CONFECTIONERY C1', for example. C1 means, 'Copy
No. 1' : that is to say, the first draft. 'SAVE' this
draft. 'SEND'
this draft to a different e-mail address of your own e.g.
'Hotmail'. The latter two steps will prevent
accidental deletion of your hard work. If you
accidentally press a wrong button and your work disappears from
the screen, click the 'REFRESH'
icon.
The next time you COMPOSE a stage of your
work, call the draft, 'HARAM INGREDIENTS IN CONFECTIONERY
C2'. SAVE
this draft and SEND
to your other e-mail address, then DELETE the SAVED C1 and the
SENT C1. Repeat these steps every time you do a stage of
your work.
After you have completed your work and added it
onto your Website, join YAHOOGROUPS [
category: RELIGION subcategory:
ISLAM] so that you can e-mail
details of your Website and the actual work [a very important
additional advantage of having prepared your work in e-mail
format in the first place!] to hundreds and thousands of potential
readers simultaneously. MSN COMMUNITIES
may also be useful.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
IV. PRESERVATION
Once you have produced your work, treat it like
gold! You don't want to lose it. Keep all the rough
drafts, photocopy the master copy, store a copy in the hard
drive of a computer and another copy on a floppy
disc. Then it will be impossible to
lose!
________________________________________________________
V.
DISTRIBUTION
Next, send a copy to each of the following copyright
libraries: THE BODLEIAN
LIBRARY, OXFORD; CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, THE NATIONAL LIBRARY
OF SCOTLAND; THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES; THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY
COLLEGE, DUBLIN. Also send a copy to THE BRITISH LIBRARY in
London and another one to THE BRITISH LIBRARY DOCUMENT SUPPLY
CENTRE, Wetherby, Yorkshire. If your work can be used by
newspapers, or is useful for newspapers' information -for example, a
paper on the Palestinian problems- then do send it to newspapers and
relevant magazines e.g. THE ECONOMIST. [+] If your work
is only a few sheets of paper, you need to bind it firmly to
make it suitable for library use. [*]
1. Look
for addresses of UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES in SAUR'S
DIRECTORY OF WORLD LIBRARIES
[This specialist book would be available at
any University or public Central library, or through
inter-library loans].
2. Look
for addresses of PUBLIC LIBRARIES in SAUR'S
DIRECTORY OF WORLD LIBRARIES.
3. Look for
the addresses of Islamic
organisations/associations/charities/Mosques in the MUSLIM
DIRECTORY [a link has been provided in the 'LINKS' section of
this website].
_________________________________________________________
Letters
Here is an example of an outgoing letter you can
write:
Dear
Librarian,
I have pleasure in sending you a copy of my research
......................... for addition to library
stock.
Yours sincerely,
................... [Signed]
____________________Name and any qualifications e.g. B.A.
(Hons.)
This letter should be addressed to 'The Acquisitions
Librarian'. You should then, within two weeks get a reply like
this:
Dear
..................
Thank you very much for sending us a copy of your research
.........................
It will be added to stock in due course but for now I wish to convey
our appreciation of your thinking of us.
Yours sincerely,
............................. [Signed]
________________________
[Name]
______________________
[Position]
If there is no response to the work you sent out
within two weeks, write a polite letter reminding the
librarian concerned that you are still awaiting a
response:
Dear
Librarian,
I would like to enquire whether you have received a copy of my
research .........................which I posted to you
on .........................
Please acknowledge receipt of the work, confirming that it will be
added to stock.
Yours sincerely,
.......................... [Signed]
.......................................[Name and
Qualifications]
You will
then either get an acknowledgement, or your work back with a letter
regretting that it cannot be added to stock for some reason or
other. Don't get offended: even the letter rejecting your work
is a letter and, so, a result: if you had done no work at
all, then you wouldn't even have got this negative
letter. Don't tear up the letter; file it in your
Archive. When you are successful in the long run, such
temporary setbacks will be insignificant! Overall, if your work is
useful, you will find that far more libraries will accept
your work than will reject it.
[*] I recommend
A4-size Rexel Project Files with clear face.
Stationary Box, Partners, Office World, WH Smith
and all the other leading stationers are bound to have
this product, or an equivalent one, in
stock.
[+] Aim for quality. Junk
mail gets a 4% response. If your work and letters sent out are
excellent, you will get a response of approximately 70%, which
is the aggreggate figure of the response to my letters between
1984-2002. So make sure v. high results justify your
expenditure.
_________________________________________________________
VI.
RESULTS/FEEDBACK
Don't be shy to solicit comments on your work which
you will then file in your Archive. Soliciting, whilst asking
respondents to be honest, is just a matter of getting people to
comment - people who don't realise how important their feedback is,
or who just need to be somewhat pressurised to give an opinion,
otherwise not caring less! But if someone is wary and firmly
refuses, there is no need for pressure - you'll always find fresh
respondents! Some respondents will give a terrible comment
just to be spiteful and obtrusive! Also, I've
encountered college students who are very wary of filling a form in
with their comment and then signing it. But they gave me their
comments orally! So I filled in the forms on their behalf,
labelling the forms 'ORAL COMMENT' and putting the letters 'PP' on
them! What matters is that the comment was not fabricated
by me; those were the genuine comments of the respondents,
whether written or oral.
________________________________________________________
VII. BUILDING UP
YOUR ARCHIVE
In the early stages of your Islamic work, it is better
to file original documents in plastic pockets
in lever-arch files. Files should be as
follows:
1. 'MANUSCRIPTS', containing
all your rough work and notes.
2. 'LETTERS
RECEIVED', containing all incoming correspondence. The
following filing system is recommended:
5* 23* 222* or
5/23/222
'5' denotes the 5th letter of that month e.g.
February.
'23' denotes the 23rd letter of that particular
year.
'222' is the cumulative total of letters received since the
very beginning of your Archive.
When you have received many letters in a week, or on
a day, the asterisks may be impractically cumbersome, so over the
last two years or so, i have started using the slashes
instead.
3. 'LETTERS
WRITTEN', containing all the letters you are sending
out. I use a very simple system for outgoing letters: I
just give the reference, for example, L1757 i.e. its
unique reference for its placing in the order of
outgoing letters. There is no complex filing system here
because it is far easier to find a letter which you have written
yourself than to search for a letter received in the
past.
When you receive a letter, make a copy of it.
Officially, it is illegal to photocopy a letter without
the writer's permission [copyright], but I take the view that
once the letter is sent to you, it becomes your own property
and, moreover, if the original documents are donated as your
personal Archive to a University or public library in the future,
you need to keep copies for reference. But you are more than
welcome to ask your correspondents if you can photocopy their
lettters [I suspect it may lead to unnecessary suspicion on their
part and a curious desire to inquire into your motives for wanting
to build up an archive]! File the original in the LETTERS RECEIVED file and a
copy [including copied sheets of any accompanying leaflets,
circulars etc.] in a cardboard document wallet marked Copies of Letters
Received. Similarly, when you write a letter, file
it in the LETTERS
WRITTEN file
and a copy of it in Copies of Letters
Written cardboard document
wallet.
________________________________________________________
VIII.
SELF-MOTIVATION
You need to be serious about doing Islamic
work. It should hurt if you get a bad letter, and you should
feel genuinely pleased when you succeed. You need to be
consistent, working a little every day, rather than doing a
lot once in a while. Fit this work around your employment
and family commitments. You need to be able to continue
the effective work after illness, domestic problems, external
problems etc. This ability to 'bounce back' is crucial.
You need to have the strength of character to override everything:
jealousy, criticism and snubs. You should be like a
championship-winning football team that tries to defeat every
team that it plays; it may not eventually defeat every team,
but it does defeat most teams because of this initial
ambition. You should make tables, charts and graphs of
statistics to know how effective your work is. Sport is
competitive. So you should draw analogies with, for example,
football and cricket scores and draw such tables, charts and graphs
for a period spanning many years (you can see my own statistics in
this paper, as above).
The Football
Analogy
Treat each letter received like a goal! If you are
receiving many letters, you are scoring well, at or near the
top of a league table. If, however, letters are few and
far between, the converse is true: you are at, or near, the bottom
of the table and in real trouble. How can you get
relegated? When you are completely unsuccessful and receive no
replies! In practise, this would not be the case, for if you
put in the hard work of writing information and then posting
letters, you must receive replies! Even if not everyone
replies, you will still receive many replies: these will be your
reward and something very productive than if you had not made
any effort at all! Make a table for each week. Each
week will be your match. Each day which passes will
be a goal conceded. So you have to score more than seven to
win. In the early years of my Islamic
work [1984 and 1985], I frequently lost, as in the
hypothetical example [from
1984] below:
MON 4 MAY
..... 0
TUE 5 MAY
..... 1
WED 6 MAY .....
2
THURS 7
MAY.....0
FRI 8
MAY .....1
SAT 9 MAY
.....0
SUN 10 MAY ..... - [no post
on Sunday]
There were 6 days on which I could have received a
letter. I received 4 letters that week, so Iost 4-6.
Therefore the real score was 0-2, giving the result as the final
difference between the figures. If it had been 6-6, then the
score would have been 0-0.
So you can make a table of scores over many weeks. For
example, week ending:
SAT 9 MAY 0-2
L
(4) LETTERS RECEIVED
SAT 16 MAY 0-1
L
(5)
SAT 23 MAY 0-4
L
(2)
SAT 30 MAY 0-0
D
(6)
SAT 6 JUN 1-0
W (7)
The results will be shown
as:
P
W D
L F
A PTS
5
1 1
3 24
30 4
Although your scores have not been too good, you still
received twenty-four letters, which is 24 more than someone
who was not using this footballing means of motivation and received
none at all!
Incidentally, friends have often been critical of my
competitive nature but you should not feel guilty to be doing
something very worthwhile individually and thereby beating fellow
Muslims who don't strive in the same way. In the Holy Quran,
Allah Most High urges us to be competitive: 'And vie one with
another for a Garden whose width is that of the distance between the
Heavens and the Earth'.[Proof] Just keep in mind that if
people cannot keep up with you because of lack of willpower and
ability, rather than admit defeat and give you due credit, they will
try to demoralise you and haul you down to their sub-standard
level!
The Cricket
Analogy
Consider each day as a ball bowled and each week as an over
completed. So every month has four overs in it. A
year consists of 52 overs. In the above example, 24 letters
were received in 5 weeks, so the run rate per over would be: 4.8,
which is very good! Perhaps the cricket analogy will be a
comfort if the footballing scores begin to demoralise you!
At an approximate rate to this, you would receive 260
letters in the whole year, which is excellent! If you can
reach the stage where the number of letters that you received has no
parallel in cricket, e.g. 8 letters reeived on a certain day,
whereas the maximum score off a bowl is 6, you will
be exceeding reasonable targets (for individual
work) by far! If you consider that the 260 runs have been
scored, not by an entire team, but all by yourself, then this is an
extremely impressive individual score! Treat each month as a
wicket; when the month passes, the wicket has fallen. Because
there are 12 months in a year, you have two months in hand, as in a
cricket match 10 fallen wickets means that the team is all
out: a fact that can boost morale at times of poor
results. This luxury was a great comfort to me in those
years during which my yearly score was running low: I felt
glad that there weren't just ten months in the year, and felt
glad of the extra 8 weeks. More often than not, at times
of scarcity, I would count the period to October as the
fall of the eighth wicket and then write an exceptional number
of letters in November and December to receive more correspondence
and to boost the totals of these months, as well as January of
the next year (replies to letters can take a painstakingly
long time to arrive)!
Note that these two methods
[the cricket and football analogies] are obviously not the only two
methods of self-motivation which can be applied to enhance one's
exertions. You may be able to adapt to an alternative
system, to gain exceptional results, which best suits your
enthusiasm- e.g. tennis scores, a system for which you would need to
categorise results into games
and sets!
____________________________________________________
F.
CONCLUSION
The thousands
or hundreds of thousands, and collective millions, of valuable
documents which form archives of so many individuals and
organisations will be invaluable assets to society.
Their function in being a means of source material and inspiration
for new ideas, and to begin fresh work, will be invaluable. Such
collections will be a result of remarkable effort,
organisation, determination and ability, all combined to further the
cause of our, Masha'Allah, great religion - Islam.
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