The Mimar Sinan Principle: Why Your Greatest Work Might Still Be Ahead of You
At 50 years old, Mimar Sinan hadn't built a single building.
He'd spent his entire life as a soldier, fighting in wars, serving sultans, surviving battle after battle.
Nothing about his first five decades suggested he would become history's greatest Islamic architect.
Yet in the next 48 years of his life, he would design and build over 300 structures that would define an empire.
The Süleymaniye Mosque.
The Selimiye Mosque.
Bridges that would stand for centuries.
While modern society pushes the lie that purpose must be discovered early doors, Sinan's life tells a different truth.
Your previous chapters were never wasted - they were preparation.
Every battle Sinan fought taught him structure.
Every campaign showed him logistics.
Every military challenge revealed engineering principles that would later transform architecture forever.
What looks like "lost time" might actually be divine training.
I've seen this same pattern in dozens and dozens of purpose transformations:
- The software engineer with a passion for history and dawah whose analytical, creative mind later revolutionised children's education
- The super successful dentist with multiple practices whose journey through depression prepared them for a life of nurturing and mentoring young people
- Even myself, the confused generalist lawyer/corporate buyer with 18 months of random data analysis experience finally saw it all come together with my unique blend of writing (honed from law), business acumen and relationship building (from buying) and pattern recognition and connecting dots (from data analysis).
What if you're not behind schedule at all?
What if, like Sinan, your masterpiece is still ahead of you, and everything until now has just been gathering the exact skills you'll need for your mission?
Your divine purpose isn't running away from you.
Maybe it's been waiting for you to connect the dots, all along.
Sinan's greatest works are still standing 500 years later.
Imagine what you might build with the unique experiences only you have lived.
Many of my biggest success stories have been those who are over 40. A lot of life lived and a lot of raw data to play with. Just no idea how it all comes together.
Your past isn't wasted. It's weighted with huge potential.
Are you feeling the weight of "wasted years" or are you beginning to see how your past might actually be the perfectly precise preparation you needed?
As always, if you're ready to discover what your unique journey has been preparing you for, I'm here at your service.
If you’re interested in figuring out your God-given purpose and finally achieving your immense potential, there’s a few things you can do.
1) Check out our free quiz and see how aligned you are with your life purpose:
2) If you’d like to improve your score or learn more you can book in a free discovery call with me or my team.
3) Please check out the free training at www.go.muslimpurpose.com/training
4) If you’d like to join a community of fellow lifelong learners and those in pursuit of their purpose, you can do so here: https://www.skool.com/kn-ow/about
5) Finally, if you’d like to learn more about the Know Your Purpose Program, you can check out the details here: https://www.kn-ow.com/kyp-program/
Humility is key.
If anything was Meant to be achieved within your desired or perceived time-frame then it'll happen. Otherwise just accept that it wasn't Meant for that time.
It can be very hard and a Test.
Allah perhaps Meant much Wisdom behind His Delays that might only slowly manifest to you. You will plan but Allah is The Best of Planners.
You may never know what your Final Calling might become but be grateful for what you do achieve and gain on the way.
It is said that among the signs that a person is forgetting Allah and is getting too attached to the world, is that when anything doesn't happen within desired time-frames despite best efforts, so depression and frustration happens. Beware of this... our enemies have corrupted time perception so that we lose our imaan and humanity that way.
We perceive time to go faster because we forget Allah and lose spiritual connection via Qur'an, Zikr etc. and are heedless of the Islamic lunar calendar. The remedy for us is to hold onto the rope of Allah with the firm grip, upon the thasawwuf, so that Allah Causes even time to bend our way and so we perceive time as it ought. Other spiritual benefits and protections come from thasawwuf.
Everything that Shaykh INH says about it makes sense.
May Allah Guide us, aameen.