The Leader Eats Last

Simon Sinek wrote a New York Times bestseller titled ‘Leaders Eat Last’, which outlines principles and the art of leadership. During a company or organisation’s struggle, the leader is the first to face danger, setting aside personal interests to protect the team. A leader readily sacrifices their own possessions to save the team’s, and will never sacrifice the team to save themselves. When the company or organisation achieves success, the leader is the last to enjoy it. They ensure the team experiences well-being first, before partaking themselves. In other words, the leader eats last.

I do not know if Simon Sinek ever read the Sirah Nabawiyah (Prophetic Biography). Probably not. However, what Simon wrote in his book was taught and exemplified by the Prophet Muhammad fourteen centuries ago. It is we who are short-sighted in reading the Sirah Nabawiyah. We merely read without contemplating and taking lessons. We do not understand the framework for reading history. The Qur’an explains this in Surah Yusuf verse 111: we read history to extract lessons (ibrah). The word chosen by the Qur’an is ibrah, whose derivative in the form of a noun of place is ma’bar, meaning a bridge. We understand the function of a bridge is to connect a starting point to an end point. Similarly, history is like a bridge connecting the present to the past. The past, present, and future are not separate units of time; they are like a connected time tunnel building the trajectory of life. We can look into the past through history to take lessons, understand patterns of life, and use them as tools to read the present and engineer the future. This is the framework for reading and learning from history.

Returning to Simon Sinek’s book, ‘Leaders Eat Last’, if you are an intelligent reader of the Sirah Nabawiyah, you will find that the leadership principle written by Simon was already taught and exemplified by the Prophet. Here is the story: In the fifth year of the Hijrah, the state of Medina faced a serious threat with the coalition of the Quraysh infidels and other tribes around Medina. They conspired to besiege and destroy Medina. Facing this serious threat, the Prophet, as the head of state, gathered his companions to deliberate on a strategy to face the siege of the allied forces (Ahzab). The proposal from Salman al-Farisi was agreed upon: the Muslims would dig a trench around the southern part of Medina. This would prevent the allied forces from the south from moving north into Medina’s territory.

Digging a trench in Medina’s sandy and rocky terrain was not easy. Analysis determined the trench needed to be 5.5 kilometres long, 4.6 metres wide, and 3.3 metres deep. At this width, the enemy’s horses could not jump across, and if they tried, they would fall into the trench. The depth would prevent them from climbing out, leaving them vulnerable to Muslim archers. The Prophet organised shifts for the diggers so that work continued non-stop to meet the deadline before the allied forces approached Medina’s territory. As the supreme leader, did the Prophet merely give directions and instructions without going into the field? No. The Prophet went down and dug the trench alongside his companions. In fact, whenever the digging was obstructed by hard rocks that the companions could not break, it was the Prophet who struck them repeatedly with his pickaxe until they shattered.

One of the challenges during the digging process was the winter season and limited food logistics, as it was not harvest season. The Prophet and his companions were very frugal to maintain sufficient supplies, and the companions often endured hunger. One day, some hungry companions intended to complain to the Prophet to ask for food. However, upon seeing the Prophet’s belt padded with three stones, they refrained. They realised the Prophet had been enduring hunger for even longer; they only padded their belts with one stone, while the Prophet used three.

In this situation, Jabir bin Abdullah felt pity for the Prophet. He asked permission to go home briefly. Upon arriving, Jabir asked his wife if there was any leftover food that could be cooked for the Prophet. ‘We still have a young female goat and one sha’ of wheat,’ his wife explained. ‘Cook it. I want to invite the Prophet and a few companions to eat,’ Jabir said firmly. Jabir then invited the Prophet to his home for a meal, suggesting he could bring a few companions. What happened next? The Prophet brought all the companions working on the trench, numbering three hundred (another narration says eight hundred), to Jabir’s house. Jabir was naturally panicked; how could the food possibly be enough? The Prophet understood Jabir’s expression, approached him, and calmed him down, as if providing a guarantee for Jabir’s worries.

The Prophet entered first, followed by Jabir. The Prophet instructed that only he would open the cooking pot. The companions sat in circles of seven or eight people. The Prophet himself distributed the bread and goat meat to each group of companions, and then gave Jabir and his family their share. Only after all the companions and Jabir’s family had received their food did the Prophet eat. He was the last person to enjoy the meal.