# Uves Sareshwala

> Books, essays and reflections by Uves Sareshwala on faith, character, family, work and the Deen in daily life. A companion's reflection, not a scholar's verdict.

Writings are by Uves Sareshwala (Ahmedabad, India). Pages under /shared are posts by other creators that he shared, credited to them.
Pieces marked "free to read" are open to everyone; the rest are for readers who sign in on the website, which is free.

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## Writings

- [Guard Your Mind: Curate Your Consumption](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/guard-your-mind): Written amid the Iran-Israel conflict, argues that a Muslim’s eyes, ears and heart are an amanah to be guarded: verify before sharing, confine news to set windows, judge sources by the muhadditheen’s standard, and turn g
- [Ikhlaas-e-Niyyat](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/ikhlaas-e-niyyat): Explains ikhlaas as the invisible condition of the heart on which the acceptance of every deed depends, drawing on the Sahaba and the Salaf. Maps its contaminants (riyaa, sum’ah, ’ujb, hubb al-jah and hasad) and sets out
- [Ikhlaas-e-Niyyat, Part 2: Masabeeh al-Huda](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/ikhlaas-e-niyyat-part-2-masabeeh-al-huda): Continues the series on ikhlas through two narrations describing the Mukhliseen as Masabeeh al-Huda, lamps of guidance, and the hidden ones Allah loves. Argues that hiddenness is the credential of sincerity, that the Umm
- [Lessons from the Fire](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/lessons-from-the-fire) (free to read): A first-person account, written from inside a comprehensive crisis at sixty-two, of discovering that the author’s emaan was dangerously weak and beginning to rebuild it: presence in salah, muraqabah, istikhara before eve
- [Nurturing the Next Generation](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/nurturing-the-next-generation): Presents teaching as a sacred trust and the work of building the Ummah, not merely a career, and offers three daily practices (reviving Iman through La ilaha illallah, Zikr of the Third Kalima, Durood and Istighfar) to w
- [Prohibit Controversy, Not Wisdom](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/prohibit-controversy-not-wisdom): Argues that WhatsApp groups are right to ban fiqh disputes, fatwas and sectarian arguments but wrong to ban the Qur’an and Sunnah, whose guidance on honesty, fair dealing and conduct is universal. Noting that IIMs use th
- [Stick to Mashwara for Teamwork](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/stick-to-mashwara-for-teamwork): Argues that mashwara is a Divinely commanded act of collective ibadah, not a borrowed management technique, and grounds its etiquettes in Qur’an and Sunnah: spiritual preparation, who qualifies, the duties of the Amir an
- [Super-Specialism in Islamic Knowledge](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/super-specialism-in-islamic-knowledge): Argues that the Ummah needs scholars who super-specialise in one sub-domain of Islamic knowledge, combining classical depth, a contemporary professional qualification and supervised practice, and uses India’s halaal inve
- [Tabligh Jamaat, Part 2: Emotional Intelligence, Management Mastery, and the Mathematics of Scale That the World Has Not Noticed](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/tabligh-jamaat-part-2-emotional-intelligence-and-management-mastery): Argues that four months in Tabligh Jamaat develops emotional intelligence and management skills more deeply than a two-year MBA, because it works on the real person under unscripted conditions and with a spiritual anchor
- [Tabligh Jamaat: The World’s Most Underestimated Life-Coaching Programme](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/tabligh-jamaat-the-worlds-most-underestimated-life-coaching-programme): Drawing on leading a 40-day jamaat of twelve men from sharply different backgrounds, argues that Tabligh Jamaat is an underestimated life-coaching programme: the six points and Fazail-e-Aamaal are scaffolding for an imme
- [The Forgotten Half of Deen](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/the-forgotten-half-of-deen): Argues that much wrongdoing in Muslim homes and businesses reflects a Deen taught by halves: ʿIbādāt in detail, Muʿāmalāt, Muʿāsharat and Ḥuqūq al-ʿIbād rarely with equal seriousness. Invoking Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, 
- [The Hidden Judge](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/the-hidden-judge): Argues that conflict of interest in family firms, trusts and committees becomes khiyanah when concealed, and that feigned ignorance of it is a second betrayal. Drawing on Surah Sad, al-Mutaffifin and the Sunnah, it answe
- [The Human Laboratory](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/the-human-laboratory): A first-person account of years spent deliberately engaging people across classes, countries and degrees of closeness to understand them and himself. Argues that Allah educated the prophets and companions through exposur
- [The Man Who Never Left You Guessing](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/the-man-who-never-left-you-guessing): Argues from the Seerah that words create expectations and expectations are an amanah. Points to the Prophet ﷺ confirming he was understood, Ka’b ibn Malik admitting he had no excuse, and the deposits he arranged to retur
- [The Myth of Fearlessness](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/the-myth-of-fearlessness): Argues that fearlessness carries no automatic virtue: courage means feeling fear, weighing consequences, taking precautions and still acting on examined conviction. Drawing on Musa’s “Indeed, we fear”, the Companions at 
- [The Network That Never Goes Incommunicado](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/the-network-that-never-goes-incommunicado): Contrasts worldly networking, which often fades when prolonged adversity makes a person less relevant, with the connection with Allah, which needs no appointment and can grow stronger through difficulty. Urges readers to
- [The People Allah Sends](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/the-people-allah-sends) (free to read): Argues that adversity’s greater discovery is not who left but whom Allah sends: unexpected supporters who are a form of rizq and temporary bridges while His decree unfolds. Urges readers to correct negativity bias, thank
- [Two Systems, One Lord](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/two-systems-one-lord): Explains the distinction between Allah’s Takweeni Nizaam (His decree over events) and Tashree’i Nizaam (what He commands), arguing that anxiety over the Ummah’s crises and end-times obsession come from confusing the two.
- [What Exactly Is a “Religious Post”?](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/what-exactly-is-a-religious-post): Argues that WhatsApp groups are right to bar fiqh disputes, fatwas and sectarian argument but wrong to exclude Qur’anic, Prophetic and Seerah guidance on honesty, trade and conduct, when the Gita is openly studied in man
- [When Adversity Becomes a Laboratory of Human Behaviour](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/when-adversity-becomes-a-laboratory-of-human-behaviour): Argues that prolonged adversity after prosperity reveals more than friend and enemy: withdrawals have many causes, sympathy can mask opportunism, help can become control, and pain distorts the observer. Drawing on the Qu
- [When Depth Meets Discernment](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/when-depth-meets-discernment): A personal reflection on how a disposition to understand and forgive left the author repeatedly exposed to the same harms. Drawing on the Qur’an and Sunnah, it separates understanding from permission and forgiveness from
- [ʿĀfiyah in the Middle of the Storm](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/afiyah-in-the-middle-of-the-storm): Argues that once a trial has arrived, asking Allah for ṣabr is not asking for affliction but may be one of the deepest ways of asking for ʿāfiyah. It reads the narration ‘you have asked Allah for affliction’ as addressed
- [“Stop Trying to Control Your Feelings” — An Islamic Critical Analysis](https://uvesnotes.com/writings/stop-trying-to-control-your-feelings): Critiques the popular advice to stop trying to control your feelings. Grants that it rightly lifted shame about emotion, but argues from hadith and the Qur’anic levels of the nafs that feelings must still be governed, an

## Pages

- [Life Taught Me What Success Never Could](https://uvesnotes.com/pages/life-taught-me-what-success-never-could): A short personal introduction: after years of success, losing financial security and seeing how people responded became one of his greatest educations. Sets out the questions that now shape his work, from fairness when h
- [My Story](https://uvesnotes.com/about): An autobiographical page on how a life of privilege and business success gave way to collapse and uncertainty, and how that adversity became an education of the heart. It describes his mentoring, which asks less how to s

## Talks

- [My Address to the Teachers of Shama School, Ahmedabad](https://uvesnotes.com/talks/address-to-the-teachers-of-shama-school): A talk urging teachers to treat their work as building the Ummah, not merely a job, and to withstand pressures at work and home by strengthening heart and mind through daily Iman renewal, Zikr, Durood and Istighfar, with
- [The Responsibility of Representation: Mirroring Islam Through Action](https://uvesnotes.com/talks/the-responsibility-of-representation): An address in Auckland arguing that belonging to the Ummah is an honour that carries responsibility: under global scrutiny, Muslims must let Islam’s beauty show through their amal, as the companions did. Urges immigrants

## Short Reflections

- [Prohibit Controversy, Not Wisdom](https://uvesnotes.com/reflections/prohibit-controversy-not-wisdom-post): A short social post, teasing the full article, arguing that groups should ban fiqh disputes, fatwas and sectarian arguments but not Qur’an and Sunnah guidance on conduct. Citing texts on short measure, wages and cheating
- [The Network That Never Goes Incommunicado — A Summary and an Invitation](https://uvesnotes.com/reflections/the-network-that-never-goes-incommunicado-summary): A short invitation to the full essay. Notes that prolonged difficulty thins a person’s network, since some people were connected only to his relevance, and turns to the network with Allah: the one Connection in which no 
- [The People Allah Sends — in 15 Points](https://uvesnotes.com/reflections/the-people-allah-sends-in-15-points): A fifteen-point summary of The People Allah Sends: in adversity the greater story is not who left but the unexpected people Allah sends as human rizq and temporary bridges of mercy. It urges correcting the negativity bia

## Books

- [The Command of the Moment](https://uvesnotes.com/books/the-command-of-the-moment): Argues that the ummah lacks not religious information but tafaqquh fid-deen: the faculty to recognise, fulfil and convey what Allah requires of a believer now. Drawing on the Qur’an, sahih Sunnah and Ibn al-Qayyim, it te
- [The Prophetic Economic Model](https://uvesnotes.com/books/the-prophetic-economic-model): Ninety-five lessons for Muslim entrepreneurs, moving from a Financial Times podcast on the Prophet ﷺ as trader to the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Argues that commerce under Tawhid keeps profit lawful but answerable to Allah, 

## Visual Summaries

- [The People Allah Sends — Slides](https://uvesnotes.com/visuals/the-people-allah-sends-slides): A fourteen-slide visual version of The People Allah Sends. Argues that adversity reveals not only who left but who arrived, that such people are rizq, His unexpected provisions rather than the Source, and that asking ‘Wh
- [The People Allah Sends: The Discovery Hidden in Adversity — Infographic](https://uvesnotes.com/visuals/the-people-allah-sends-infographic): An illustrated one-page summary of The People Allah Sends. It contrasts resentment over those who leave after a fall from height with gratitude for the supporters Allah sends, and presents people as rizq, supporters as a