What if there were a treasure that could never be diminished, depleted, or lost—one that only grew the more it was spent?
This is precisely the treasure Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib describes:
A person's craft is their treasure.
Across the Ashara Mubaraka sermons in London this year, His Holiness Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin unfolded the meaning of this statement. He selected a craft or profession as the subject of each sermon, returning throughout to one idea: that what makes a skill a craft is that it is grown—renewed, reflected on, and relearned time and again.
One's craft is their treasure
In just three words, Imam Ali articulates an entire economic philosophy.
A craft is likened to a treasure because it offers resilience in a changing world. Material wealth can be lost or stolen, but a craft resides entirely within one's mind and muscles, and so cannot be taken away. Nor does it behave like ordinary wealth, which diminishes as it is spent, because a craft grows more valuable the more it is practised. Naming a craft a "treasure” also provides an alternative perspective to the prevailing socioeconomic hierarchy: a person who possesses a practical skill holds true security, while a wealthy person without any skills risks remaining vulnerable.
A treasure that must be renewed
Yet even a treasure that cannot be stolen still asks something of its keeper—even a valuable craft is not immune to time. What counted as valuable skill a generation ago is not always what counts today, and the gap between the two is quickly narrowing. Some of what a trade rests on holds for a lifetime, while other parts barely last a few years.
"The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways" - Robert Greene
Researchers describe this using the idea of a skill's "half-life"—the time it takes for that skill to lose half of its value or relevance. A term borrowed from physics, a “half-life” describes how a radioactive substance doesn't vanish all at once but steadily loses potency over time. Applied to skills, the image fits well: a technique or a piece of knowledge rarely stops working the moment something newer appears; it simply loses relevance a little at a time, until one day it is out of date. Forty years ago, the average half-life of a professional skill—how long it held its value before needing renewal—was estimated at close to a decade. Today, by some estimates, it has shrunk to around four years, and closer to two in fast-moving digital fields.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, drawing on more than 1,000 global employers, found that nearly 40% of core workplace skills are expected to change by 2030, with most of the global workforce needing some form of reskilling to stay relevant. A 2023 IBM study found much the same, with executives estimating that 40% of their workforce would need to reskill within three years because of AI and automation.
The contrast this creates invites contemplation. A skill left alone tends to fade, while a true craft grows the more it is spent. The “treasure” it is likened to still holds its worth—what has changed is the craft itself. It once meant a skill learned and kept for life; now it means something more: the willingness to keep learning and honing it, again and again, and to keep learning from it. Only held that way does a craft remain a treasure that grows.
Two skills in one
To strive for mastery in one's craft, and to reflect on what that craft teaches, is a dual discipline that Syedna’s sermons guided toward.
The first is mastering a craft while remaining willing to adapt it, utilising new tools and methods as a trade evolves rather than treating one's training as complete. The second, more durable skill is valuing a craft not only for what it produces, but for the habits of mind it cultivates—discernment, adaptability, sound judgment, and the desire to keep learning.
Neither half of this dual discipline is sufficient alone. Mastery without adaptability may fade into obsolescence, while adaptability without mastery may not develop enough depth for sound judgment.
Three of the crafts Syedna addressed drew this into especially sharp focus.
Chefs and tailors: measuring value
In his first sermon, Syedna spoke of chefs and tailors, artisans who prepare food and those who design and make clothing. Both crafts, he noted, hinge on discernment and estimation: a tailor measures cloth but also evaluates its size and quality, and a cook assesses ingredients before measuring them, asking whether they are nutritious and beneficial.
The same discernment, Syedna emphasised, underlies how people navigate relationships throughout their lives. They must weigh the rapport and closeness appropriate to a friendship, a family tie, or a professional acquaintance, and gauge character and temperament accordingly.
Research shows that among the capabilities most consistently identified as resistant to automation are cognitive and interpersonal skills such as emotional intelligence, relationship-building, and contextual judgment. All of these depend on lived experience. As routine and technical work is increasingly delegated to machines, the relational discernment a tailor or a cook practises daily becomes one of the most durable assets any person can hold.
This is not only felt in a relationship—it shows up tangibly in the product itself. Research on what economists call the "handmade effect" has found that conscious consumers will pay a premium for goods made by hand, even when a machine-made alternative offers superior technical specifications. More than nostalgia, this is a recognition that something made by a discerning human hand, from culinary items to tailored clothing, carries a value a machine cannot replicate, however precisely it cuts or measures.
IT professionals: the human edge
Another sermon turned to IT professionals, whose work illustrates the value of practical problem-solving. The speed and ease with which technology can deliver solutions, Syedna emphasised, is a reminder to be quick to help and serve others. Equally necessary is the ability to sift true, beneficial knowledge from a vast sea of information.
This example carries a meaningful lesson for today’s professional environment. IT skills themselves have some of the shortest half-lives of any profession, with some becoming obsolete in under two years. The very speed that makes technology valuable is also what makes technical fluency alone a fragile foundation. What does not lose its value as quickly, as Syedna pointed toward, is the discernment to use that speed well, filtering a flood of instantly available information for what is actually reliable and useful.
Researchers studying this shift describe judgment in ambiguous, high-stakes situations as one of the areas where people still hold a clear advantage over AI, which can process vast amounts of data but struggles to weigh it the way an experienced person does. The craft here is not simply learning the tools and producing the answers, but knowing which answer fits the moment—a form of active learning no update cycle has fully automated.
Business: courage and integrity as a modus operandi
A subsequent sermon addressed business people and the quality of business-mindedness. Syedna praised the enterprising nature of the Dawoodi Bohras, reminding them that hard work, courage, honesty, and trust in the Almighty are vital to the success of any venture.
Read against today's economic climate, this counsel resonates strongly. Analysis of the current labour market suggests that ventures built around human judgment, leadership, and adaptability are seeing stronger growth than those reducible to automatable tasks—a pattern that holds for entrepreneurs and employees alike. Courage, here, is the willingness to diversify and reinvent one's venture and role as conditions shift rather than defending a model that no longer fits. Meanwhile, integrity and trust sustain the relationships with customers, partners, and communities that no system can replicate.
Each of these three crafts, examined closely, echoes a similar paradigm. The WEF's Future of Jobs Report 2025 names analytical thinking as the top skill employers seek today, followed by resilience, flexibility, and agility, with leadership and social influence third. Creative thinking was next, and motivation and self-awareness rounded out the top five. Each craft featured in the sermons, in its own way, taught lessons that drew on many of these registers—cognitive, self-efficacy, and interpersonal. The research suggests the same: it is the combination of these human skills that enables a craft to endure.
A treasure that endures
Much of what a craft runs on, its tools, methods, and information, can go out of date, some faster than others. But beneath whatever changes, quickly or slowly, lies something else: the discernment of the tailor and the chef, the judgment of the technologist who knows which answer to trust, and the integrity and courage of the merchant. These do not expire; they grow richer with use.
Mastering a craft is only half of it. The other half is learning to keep learning—from one's own craft, and from the wisdom of every other hand at every other craft. With the wisdom built through practising it, and the willingness to keep expanding what one knows, each craft remains a treasure that continues to grow.
