What Shepherds, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Larry Page and Sam Altman Can Teach Us About Innovation in the Age of AI

There is a remarkably simple Islamic idea that could sit above an entire business school.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is reported to have said:

“The best people are those most beneficial to people.”

The report from Jābir ibn ʿAbdullāh was graded ḥasan by al-Albānī. A longer narration from Ibn ʿUmar, which al-Albānī graded ṣaḥīḥ, goes further: “The most beloved people to Allah are the most beneficial to people,” before giving concrete examples—relieving distress, helping with debt, feeding hunger and helping somebody fulfil a need. 

There are even stronger canonical formulations of the same principle.

In Sahih Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ says:

“Whoever among you can benefit his brother, let him do so.”

— Sahih Muslim 2199. 

And in another authentic narration:

“Allah is in the aid of the servant so long as the servant is in the aid of his brother.”

— Sahih Muslim 2699. 

Put these together and we get a remarkably demanding definition of excellence:

knowledge should become benefit.

Not merely information.

Not technology for the sake of technology.

The Qur’an gives us an extraordinary parallel:

“As for that which benefits the people, it remains on the earth.”

The verse is a parable about truth and falsehood, not a business prediction. The foam disappears while what genuinely benefits people remains. But as an intellectual principle, it is powerful:

noise rises quickly; usefulness has substance.

That may be exactly the lesson entrepreneurs need in the age of AI.

Why were the Prophets shepherds?

There is another extraordinary hadith.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said:

“Allah did not send any prophet but shepherded sheep.”

When his Companions asked whether he had done so himself, he replied that he had shepherded the sheep of the people of Makkah for payment. — Sahih al-Bukhari 2262. 

We cannot claim to know every wisdom Allah intended. But as an education in responsibility, it is remarkable.

A shepherd has a flock.

The flock has needs: water, pasture, safety and rest.

Those needs exist within a landscape containing opportunities and constraints.

There may be good pasture in one direction.

Water somewhere else.

One sheep that cannot keep up.

Another that wanders away.

And the shepherd’s responsibility is not simply to make the animals move.

It is to understand the whole system well enough to get the flock safely to what it needs.

That is a profoundly useful model of leadership.

I discovered this with actual sheep

My first job after university was as a financial analyst at BG Group.

During graduate training week, our group was given an unusual exercise: herd a flock of sheep into a pen with the help of trained shepherds and a Border Collie.

Almost the entire flock could be going in the correct direction while one or two sheep did something completely different.

Another refused to enter the pen.

Move aggressively towards one stray and you could disturb the whole group.

Focus exclusively on the majority and you could lose the outlier.

Try to control every sheep individually and nothing moved. 

Researchers at the Royal Veterinary College later described sheepdog behaviour in strikingly simple terms. The dog switches between two modes: collecting, when animals are too dispersed, and driving, once the........

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