Broke at the Ka'bah

Ramadan 2025. A young man stands in front of the Ka'bah.

Back home in Toronto, his car is dead, the engine blew weeks earlier and took the last of his money with it. The savings he spent a year killing himself for are gone. Behind him sits a course deposit he has no idea how he'll finish paying.

By every worldly measure, he is standing in the worst financial position of his life.

And he's making one dua, over and over:

"Ya Allah, please make this work."

His name is Saleh. He is 19years old. And I want to show you what Allah did with that dua.

Seven Days a Week

Some of you already know pieces of Saleh's story. Here's the full picture.

Saleh is originally from Yemen, raised in Toronto. He graduated high school and went straight into a plumbing apprenticeship. Full time construction, Monday to Friday.

Then he stacked a second job on top: supervisor at a trampoline park, responsible for the whole building.

His days looked like this. Wake up at 5:15. Pray Fajr. Forty-minute commute. Work the site from 6:45 to 2:45. Drive home, sit with his mum, drink a coffee with her. Start the second shift at 4. Manage the building until 9:30. Sleep. Repeat.

Seven days a week. For months. All of it adding up to somewhere between $2,500 and $3,500 a month.

His mum used to look at him and say: "You are killing yourself."

What she didn't know was why. He wrote it later himself. He was doing it for her, for himself, and for his little sister.

Not Lazy. Just No Vehicle.

Understand something about Saleh before we go further. This was never a brother lacking effort.

While working those seven day weeks, he spent over $8,000 on online courses. Iman Gadzhi's course. Adrian's course. He tried dropshipping, in his words, "it wasn't actually a business, it was just reselling stuff in the market." He tried crypto. He read, searched, invested.

Nothing landed. Not because he was bad at business but because nobody had handed him a complete vehicle. framework, yes. Blueprints with every step in them, no.

But listen to how he read his own failures: "Allah has seen the effort."

He kept working, kept making dua, and kept trusting that the help would come.

"Who Tells You to Make Dua?"

One night in his room, a video came up on his feed. Some Muslim guy with a whiteboard, explaining a business model.

Saleh had been burned by course sellers before. So what made this different? He answered that twice, and both answers are worth hearing.

The first: "You weren't trying to sell anything. You were just teaching information and being honest."

The second one is my favourite. He noticed that in the videos, between the business talk, I kept telling people to make dua. And it stopped him cold. In his words…"who does that? What business guy trying to sell you a model tells you to make dua? Nobody."

The Test

By February, the seven day weeks had built him around $10,000 in savings.

Now watch what this 18 year old at the time did with his first real money.

He didn't buy a car upgrade. He didn't touch designer anything.

He booked Umrah for Ramadan. for himself, his mother, and his little sister.

And almost immediately after booking it, his car engine blew up and swallowed what remained. He was left, in his own words, "with literally no funds. Right at the exact moment he'd decided he wanted to join IMA."

Most people read a moment like that as a sign to stop.

Saleh read it as a test. He put down a deposit, all he could manage and made himself a promise: when he came back from Umrah, this business model would pay for itself, "or there's no way."

Then he flew to the House of Allah, technically broke, and begged the Owner of the House to open the door.

He Quit Over a Hadith

Saleh came back on April 17th, ready to work.

At that point, the plumbing job wasn't available to him all he had left was the trampoline park. And the trampoline park had become a problem money couldn't fix. He described it plainly as a place of fitna, an environment he could not grow in.

So this teenager, with no funds and one remaining job, pulled up the hadith of Al-Nu'man ibn Bashir. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said the lawful is clear and the unlawful is clear, and whoever avoids the doubtful matters protects his religion and his honour.

And he quit.

No jobs. No income. Just IMA, and his words "the ability to do a lot of ibadah. I knew if ibadah was part of this business, then Allah gave me a blessing. So I got to work."

Twenty-Eight Days

From April to June, Saleh put in four to five focused hours every single day.

Around three months in, his first deal closed: $2,500.

He described what happened in his head at that moment: "I broke a barrier in my mind. I closed my first deal. I know this works."

And once that barrier broke, the dam went with it. In a single 28 day stretch, Saleh closed $24,000 worth of deals with $6,500 in profit.

Three months into the program. 19 years old. Never ran a business before in his life.

Allahouma barik.

Where He Is Now

Today, IMA is Saleh's only source of income.

He makes more than $6,000 a month in profit. It's consistent, he lives off it comfortably, and in his words, "the sky's the limit."

The plumbing apprenticeship is gone. The trampoline park is gone. The seven day weeks are gone.

He prays his salah in the masjid. He sits with his mum over coffee with no 4pm shift waiting on the other side of it.

And when he was asked what it's like running his own business now, he gave the line that sums up his whole journey:

"It's a business and I don't have a manager. Who's my manager? Allah."

What Saleh Wants You to Do

Saleh has earned the right to advise you, so I'll hand him the floor.

On taking the leap: "To have something you never had, you have to do something you never did."

On commitment: "If you want IMA to change your life, you have to change your life to IMA."

On excuses and this is for every brother with a 9 to 5 reading this: he points to brothers in our community who wake after Fajr, put in three hours before work, and four hours after. His question: "What's the excuse?" And then they make it, quit the job, and pray every salah in the masjid.

And on the foundation underneath all of it, his own blueprint: make a lot of istighfar. Try fasting Mondays and Thursdays. Allah is Ash-Shakur, He sees your effort. Keep your salah on time. Prove to Allah why you're worth Him giving you success.

And memorise one dua…. the dua of Musa, alayhis-salam:

"My Lord, I am indeed in need of whatever good You send down to me."

Remember who made that dua, and when. A man standing by a well with nothing, no money, no home, no plan. And Allah rebuilt his entire life from that sentence.

Saleh stood at the Ka'bah with nothing and asked. Allah answered.

Make your dua. Then go to work.

May Allah preserve Saleh's mother, bless his little sister, and keep increasing him in rizq and nearness to Him.

Barakallahufik,

Abu Lahya