Good Money Was Never the Problem

I want you to meet a brother from the UK.

His name is Jihad.

He's 24 years old, Palestinian, and a fully qualified gas engineer who ran his own company.

And before you assume this is another broke-to-blessed story, let me stop you.

Jihad was already making good money before IMA.

50k profit a year, easily. Some years he could hit 70, 80k.

By most people's standards, he'd made it.

So why did he join?

The Cage Nobody Talks About

Here's what that income actually cost him.

Monday to Saturday. 8am to 6pm. Six days a week.

Installing and repairing heating systems. Heavy boilers. Heavy pipes. Water leaks and drainage problems.

In his own words, by the time he got home, his body was just gone.

But the physical toll wasn't even the real problem.

The real problem was that his money was tied directly to his own hands.

If Jihad showed up to the job, he got paid. If he didn't, he made nothing.

He couldn't travel, because travelling meant spending money while earning none.

And there was one more thing sitting on his heart.

He wanted to make hijrah.

But you don't install heating systems in hot countries. His entire trade was locked to the one country he wanted to leave.

That's the trap most people never see coming.

You can be earning well and still be completely stuck.

Jihad said it plainly: "Before IMA, I had good money, good life, all of that. But I didn't have the freedom. That's why I joined IMA."

He didn't join for the money.

He joined for what the money couldn't buy him.

He Started From Zero Anyway

Don't think his background gave him a head start, either.

When Jihad joined IMA in January 2025, he didn't own a laptop. Or a computer.

He had never written an email in his life. Not one.

He didn't have a clue about marketing.

When he started, a single outreach email took him 40 to 60 minutes to write. He'll tell you himself he's not exaggerating.

And for his first six months, working around that brutal 6-day schedule, he closed nothing.

Zero deals.

But he was watching brothers in the community posting win after win. So he knew the model worked.

Which left one honest conclusion. His own words: "I knew I'm the reason behind it."

So he reset. He locked in with discipline and implemented the training step by step.

Then he took three weeks of holiday from his job and locked in from Fajr to Dhuhr. Six hours a day.

Two weeks into that push, his first deal landed.

Matching a Year of Boiler Work in Two Months

Once Jihad understood the game, he played it patiently.

His first seven deals, he was profiting $1,000 or less on each one. On purpose.

His words: "Do not be greedy on the first deals with brands. Load the bazooka for the upsell later."

Then came the run.

In the space of two months: $120k in offers sent out. $85.1k in closed deals. $40k in pure profit.

Allahouma barik.

Sit with that number for a second.

$40k profit in two months. Most of a full year of six-day weeks, heavy boilers, and a wrecked body matched in eight weeks, from a laptop.

Inside that run was a $40,000 deal that made him $20,000 on its own. The influencer kept refusing because he didn't like the brand. Jihad followed up every two days until he came around.

There was also a $22,000 deal he closed in 15 minutes.

He likes to remind people it broke my record.

I'm still not over it.

Then He Tested the Freedom

This is the part of Jihad's story I really want you to see.

Because plenty of brothers make money. The question is what the money lets you do.

This year, Jihad got married.

His wife was living abroad, so he left the UK and went back home for months. Embassy applications, home office paperwork, two weddings across two countries, a house to rent and furnish.

And here's the thing.

His business came with him.

The campaigns he had live and the contracts he'd closed, he managed them from his laptop, from another country, in the middle of wedding season.

Think about what that would have looked like oneyears earlier.

The old Jihad couldn't take one week off without his income stopping dead. Every day away from the boilers was a day of nothing coming in.

This Jihad left the country for months to build a family, and the work he'd already done kept paying him.

That's not a bigger salary.

That's a different life.

And it doesn't stop there. He won an Umrah in one of our community contests flights, hotels, transport, visa, all covered, which he's planning after the summer, in shaa Allah. He won a water well in another, built under the names of his family.

The trade that once chained him to the UK now fits in a backpack. The hijrah he thought was impossible is now just a decision.

Back On the Track

Now he's married, settled, and back at it and he's paused the gas work entirely to go all in.

Within days of returning, three brands had replied, and he's negotiating deals worth around $30k between them.

His totals so far: around $90k in revenue and $40k in pure profit.

Same earning power he always had.

Just with his time, his travel, and his future handed back to him.

What I Want You to Take From This

There are brothers reading this right now who are where Jihad was.

The money comes in. The bills get paid. Everyone around you says you're doing well.

But your income stops the second your hands do. You can't travel without bleeding money. And the life you actually want… more time, hijrah, being present for your family, sits out of reach, because the job that pays you is the same job that traps you.

Jihad's story is proof that you don't have to choose between the income and the freedom.

He kept the money.

He got his life back with it.

His own advice to the brothers in our community was four lines: balance your life, hit the masjid with consistent tawakkul and dua, volume volume volume, and get married.

May Allah bless his home, his work, and his hijrah when it comes.

Barakallahufik,

Abu Lahya