By Abdul Kiwanuka, Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth President Uganda
Speech Delivered by Sadr Majlis Khuddamul Ahmadiyya Uganda, Abdul Kiwanuka at the 20th National Ijtimah held at Rabwah Farm, Kyantamba – Kiboga on 4th – 6th September 2026
اِنۡفِرُوۡا خِفَافًا وَّثِقَالًا وَّجَاهِدُوۡا بِاَمۡوَالِکُمۡ وَاَنۡفُسِکُمۡ فِیۡ سَبِیۡلِ اللّٰہِ ؕ ذٰلِکُمۡ خَیۡرٌ لَّکُمۡ اِنۡ کُنۡتُمۡ تَعۡلَمُوۡنَ
“Go forth, light and heavy, and strive with your property and your persons in the cause of Allah. That is better for you, if only you knew.” (Surat Taubah 9; Verse 41)
Discipline is the practice of training oneself to follow a set of rules, standards, or goals. Usually it can be achieved through four elements, self-control, obedience, consistency, and perseverance.
From the life of the Holy Prophet ﷺ, we come to learn that none amongst the generations of men has shown utmost discipline like our Master of All Prophets, Muhammad ﷺ, and his companions.
When the Holy Prophet ﷺ was subjected to torture by the Meccans for about 14 years and later attained his ground, he did not think of having revenge on the same Meccans. It is his utmost discipline that he instead forgave them, so that in future there would emerge a generation of believers that includes me and you.
Who amongst you would not be happy if you found out that one of your enemies was missing? Would you even mind? But the Holy Prophet ﷺ would mind and this happened when a woman who used to throw thorns, garbage, and animal excreta in the path of the Holy Prophet ﷺ missed a day without doing so. The Holy Prophet ﷺ asked after her whereabouts and found out that she was ill. The Holy Prophet ﷺ went on to visit her with a present, and that alone led to her change in faith.
The development of a nation starts within ourselves by changing our lives through self-control of worldly desires, good treatment of our neighbors and relatives, consistently repeating positive actions no matter how small they are, and by perseverance in the face of what is inflicted upon us.
Allow me, brothers, to give this topic justice by extracting some examples from early Islam.
Hazrat Sa’ad ibn Abi Waqqas (r.a) relates: “I am the first Arab who shot an arrow in the cause of Allah. We fought along with the Holy Prophet ﷺ when our only food was the leaves of wild trees. The stools of some of us were like the droppings of goats.” (Bukhari and Muslim)
The Sahaba at Tabuk faced a lot of hardship, but none had the will to denounce Islam even to the extent of eating leaves of trees. It was their discipline through devotion that kept them mounted to the Holy Prophet ﷺ and to Islam.
In another instance that shows the kind of discipline one has to portray through the elements of consistency and perseverance, we read from hadith:
Hazrat Abu Hurairah (r.a) relates that the Holy Prophet ﷺ said: “A servant’s prayer continues to be accepted so long as he does not supplicate for something sinful or something that would cut off the ties of kinship, and is not in a hurry.” Someone asked, “Messenger of Allah, what would be hurry?” He answered: “A supplicant saying: I have prayed and prayed but have not found my prayer responded to; and getting tired and giving up praying.”
So do not stop praying just because your prayers are not answered. Be disciplined enough to keep on praying for yourself, your neighbors, relatives, and the nation at large.
Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad (r.a), Khalifatul Masih II explains how discipline and its principles are used to develop ourselves, the Jamaat, and a nation, in the simplest and most beautiful way, in his Friday Sermon of August 3rd, 1923. He says:
“Everything in the world has specific requirements at each stage. Every single thing that exists in the world carries with it certain specific characteristics. And unless those characteristics are kept in mind and attended to, that thing perishes. And everything possesses different characteristics at different times. If those characteristics are not attended to, it is destroyed at that very point. Take the example of the human being. He passes through various states. At one time he is in one condition and at that time his characteristics are particular. At another time he is in a different condition and at that time his characteristics become different as well.”
Khalifatul Masih II (r.a) goes on to explain:
“When an offspring is in the father’s body, its nourishment is of a certain kind, and its care requires certain things. Then when the child passes into the mother’s womb, its earlier condition changes entirely. There are some people in whom, due to certain foods or certain unhealthy habits, the germs from which offspring are produced die. But when the child enters the mother’s womb, those same foods and habits cannot harm the child in the womb, rather, at that point, other precautions and restraints become necessary. If those are not observed, the child is lost.
No matter how much the father jumps about the reproductive material in his body will not be lost due to jumping. But when the child enters the mother’s womb, such caution is required for the mother that she must not take a single misstep. Now, since the child’s condition has changed, the precautions have also changed. The foods have changed. The medicines that men take to gain strength, if the woman takes them, the child will be lost.
Then when the child is born, the condition changes yet again. Just a few minutes earlier, if by some means a gust of air had reached the child’s nose, it would have died. But after birth, if air does not immediately enter its lungs, it dies. Before, it lived in a dark chamber, if it had been removed from there, it would have died. But now, if it is kept in a dark place, it dies.
Before, if the place where it lived had been dried out, it would have died. But now, if it is kept soaked, it develops pneumonia and dies.
So the conditions have changed entirely. When the child is in the mother’s womb, if food were somehow introduced into its stomach, it would die. But once it is born, if food is not given, it will die. It takes the child only a few seconds to emerge from the mother’s womb but in those very moments, the conditions change completely.
Then there is the state of infancy. In the milk-drinking stage, if someone feeds the child bread or pieces of meat, it will die. The child itself does not have the strength to chew, but if some foolish mother or relative chews food and puts it in the child’s mouth, the child will become ill and die. Yet when it grows up, if it is kept only on milk, it will die, because when it was a baby, its food was milk, but when its teeth have come in, its food has changed. At that point it cannot sustain itself on milk alone, whereas in infancy it could not sustain itself on other foods.
After this, another change occurs, and that is: if the child is not given freedom, it cannot develop mentally. At that time, it is necessary that the child be left free to play and run about. But some time later, another period arrives at that time, if the child’s mind is not directed toward some particular pursuit, it becomes completely dull and slow-witted. That very same child whose mind would have been damaged had it been put to mental work five or six years earlier if that same child is not put to mental work at the age of eight or ten, its mind becomes damaged. What a complete reversal!
Then the human being becomes old. In this state, another change comes , whereas before there was need for restraint, now nature itself creates such conditions that even if a person wishes to be unrestrained, he cannot be. Teeth fall out, delicate faculties and working powers are lost. And not only physically, but in terms of mental and spiritual condition too, a person reaches a point where only through the support and help of God Almighty can he be sustained.”
This explanation by Khalifatul Masih II shows how life itself follows a specific rule, with standards to achieve a particular goal of development through consistency, obedience, and perseverance in nature and if, by any means, it deviates from its natural trend, it is ruined and diminishes.
However, Khalifatul Masih II (r.a) explains further: it should be noted that there is a difference between physical and spiritual human beings.
“The more physical people age, the more their powers weaken and their abilities diminish. But spiritual human beings their powers continue to grow. Physical people forget even their knowledge in old age and are no longer scholars. They cannot benefit others. But spiritual human beings the older they grow, the more their knowledge increases, and thus they become even more beneficial to the world.
We have seen scientists grow old; they no longer command the same respect they had in their youth, and it is said of them: ‘These are people of the old school.’ But the older prophets grow, the more they bestow spiritual blessings upon the world.”
Khalifatul Masih II (r.a) goes on to say:
“The Promised Messiah (as) passed away at the age of 74. Though his earliest books are also unparalleled, the relationship between his first and last books appears to be that which stars bear to the sun. I have read opinions about the books of the greatest authors and from the beginning I have had a keen interest in reading about the lives of authors. I have observed that the greatest and most famous books of the greatest authors were written during their youth. But the condition of prophets is such that each successive book is more magnificent than the one before it.”
These are the individuals who do not stall at obstacles, who do not return with excuses, but instead return with solutions. They embody the spirit of what we call a problem solver, whose very presence reduces complexity and creates movement.
Organizations, communities and leaders gravitate toward such people. Not because they are flawless, but because they are reliable in action. When something breaks, they fix it. When something is unclear, they clarify it. When something seems impossible, they find a way forward. In essence, they become verbs: living expressions of doing, solving, and advancing.
This concept resonates deeply with Quranic guidance. The Quran consistently calls believers toward action, not passivity. Faith is rarely described as a static condition; it is paired with Amal Sāliḥ (righteous action). The believers are those “who believe and do good works,” a pairing repeated throughout the Holy Quran to remind us that belief without function is incomplete.
Even the prophets exemplify this “verb-like” existence. They were not merely carriers of messages, they were active agents of change. Hazrat Musa (as) confronted tyranny, organized a people, and navigated immense challenges. The Prophet (sa) did not simply preach. The Prophet (sa) built a community, resolved disputes, established systems, and transformed society.
Their lives were not nouns, they were verbs in motion. Prior to Islam, they were a people without any sense of human achievement or performance, but once they were exposed to the message of the Qur’an, they became energized and utterly transformed, they shook off their complacency and lethargy, and became peak performers and achievers. Whatever they touched was changed into something new through their dynamic faith.
The Qur’an speaks about their faith in these words:
Al-An’am, Ruku 15, Verse 123
اَوَ مَنۡ کَانَ مَیۡتًا فَاَحۡیَیۡنٰہُ وَجَعَلۡنَا لَہٗ نُوۡرًا یَّمۡشِیۡ بِہٖ فِی النَّاسِ کَمَنۡ مَّثَلُہٗ فِی الظُّلُمٰتِ لَیۡسَ بِخَارِجٍ مِّنۡہَا ؕ کَذٰلِکَ زُیِّنَ لِلۡکٰفِرِیۡنَ مَا کَانُوۡا یَعۡمَلُوۡنَ
“Is he who was once dead and then We revived him (through the message of Islam) and thus We appointed for him a light whereby he walks among people comparable to one who is steeped in darkness, never able to come out of it?” (Al-An’am: 6:123)
The Quran also teaches resourcefulness which is the essence of action. Consider the story of Dhul-Qarnain, Surah Al-Kahf (18:84–102), who, when faced with a people threatened by corruption, did not dismiss their plea. Instead, he assessed available materials, mobilized effort, and constructed a barrier using iron and molten copper. This was not abstract faith (it was not Sami’ina wa Atwa’ana, without words), it was applied problem solving, and this is what we need in our society.
Becoming a “verb” in life carries much benefits. It builds trust. People begin to associate your name with reliability. It creates opportunity, because those who solve problems are always needed. It strengthens character, as each challenge becomes a chance to grow rather than running away. And perhaps most importantly, it aligns a person with a divine principle, that humans are meant to act, to build, to repair, and to contribute.
On a spiritual level, this mindset transforms how we view trials and tribulations. Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” the question becomes, “What is required of me here?” That shift, from complaint to contribution, is the very essence of becoming a verb and a true believer.
Today, we live in a world full of hesitation and betrayal. But let it be clear, my brothers, in such a world, the person who steps forward with courage is the one who stands out. The one who says, “Let me handle it,” becomes remembered. Over time, their identity fuses with their function. Their name begins to carry meaning beyond itself.
The verse I read before you commands Muslims to march forth in the way of God, allowing no worldly consideration or impediment to prevent them from doing so. The words خفافا و ثقالا (light and heavy) have several meanings, i.e. whether you are young or old; alone or in parties; on foot or on horseback; with sufficient arms and provisions, or with insufficient equipment and scanty provisions, use all you have to develop a nation.
Hazrat Khalifatul Masih V (aba) encourages us to be the best at what we do, and to give our full effort, uphold high standards, and trust Allah for the results. And that is ultimately the call: not merely to exist, but to function. Not merely to identify, but to act. To become the kind of person whose presence answers problems before they are fully spoken, and to transform our community and our nation at large.
