DETROIT—Among the many workshops highlighting self-awareness, collective economics, and righteous principles, during the 2026 Saviours’ Day convention, the “Jihad/Self-Improvement” workshop stood out as one of the most well-attended sessions, offering profound insights into the internal struggle for personal transformation.
The two-hour workshop featured interactive discussion, allowing attendees to engage directly with panelists and share their own experiences with self-improvement and spiritual struggle.
Student Minister Daniel Muhammad from the Nation of Islam’s national headquarters, Mosque Maryam, moderated a distinguished four-member panel: Student Southern Regional M.G.T. Captain Nusaybah Muhammad, from Atlanta;
Student Western Regional Minister Abdul Malik Sayyid Muhammad, and Student Minister Abdul Arif Muhammad of the Nation of Islam’s Shura Executive Council. Each shared powerful perspectives on jihad as self-correction and the internal battle to overcome life’s challenges.
Student Min. Arif emphasized the 21 Study Guides in the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s “Self-Improvement: The Basis for Community Development” series, explaining how each guide answers fundamental questions about life’s struggles.
“‘Building The Will,’ ‘The Struggle for Balance,’ ‘Building Human Potential,’ and ‘The Price of Redemption,’ to name a few,” he said, noting that these study guides provide comprehensive frameworks for personal transformation.
“If you want to delve into self-improvement on one level, you have a visible enemy, Shaitan, the devil, and on another level, you struggle with yourself,” Student Min. Arif explained. “Everyone has an ego, a sense of self, and you have to be humble and patient with yourself and others.”
Sister Nusaybah spoke powerfully about the role of women in the struggle for self-improvement, emphasizing that jihad is not gender-specific but a universal human responsibility.
People must recognize that the struggle to purify ourselves and overcome our lower nature is the same for men and women, she stated. “Our strength comes from our willingness to confront our own weaknesses with honesty and courage,” she said.
Student Min. Abdul Malik Sayyid addressed the duality within human nature. “There’s a duality of God and Satan, and if you hate yourself, you can’t fight jihad, the devil, and win,” he stated, emphasizing that self-love is foundational to spiritual warfare.
Workshop participants expressed how the session transformed their understanding. Onunze Ubaka, 72, shared, “This workshop really helped me understand the self-accusing spirit and the devil within that I must conquer.”
The panel also confronted widespread misconceptions about jihad. A perpetual propaganda campaign against Islam has spread false narratives portraying jihad as radical Islamic fundamentalism or terrorism.
In reality, jihad has nothing to do with terrorism. The greater jihad is the spiritual struggle or striving within oneself against sin, a battle for righteousness waged in the human heart, panelists explained.
The workshop reinforced that true jihad is internal transformation, the daily commitment to overcome ego, selfishness, and destructive patterns. It is the struggle to live better, to align one’s actions with divine principles, and to build communities rooted in self-improvement and collective uplift.
As thousands departed Detroit carrying these lessons, the message was clear: the greatest battlefield is within, and the most important victory is over oneself.
—J.A. Salaam, Contributing Writer