Assalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim
1. Introduction
Friends beloved by Allah, one of the heaviest external barriers to building a civilization of knowledge is a social environment afflicted by a culture of laziness in reading and low learning habits. In social psychology and neuroscience, the human brain is shaped by its environmental conditioning. When a person lives within a cultural ecosystem that prefers instant entertainment, gossip, or unguided spectacles, the internal drive to read books and delve into knowledge slowly dims, crushed by the tide of collective laziness. Islam is a religion born by breaking through the darkness of civilization with a command to read. The first revelation that descended in the Cave of Ḥirā’ was not a command to pray, fast, or wage war, but a literacy revolution: Iqra’ (Read!). Reading is a scientific instrument that cools the soul, broadens horizons, and is an absolute requirement for knowing the Creator and His laws in the universe. Allah SWT affirmed the command to read and write as the foundation of knowledge in the very first revelation:
اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ . خَلَقَ الْإِنسَانَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ . اقْرَأْ وَرَبُّكَ الْأَكْرَمُ . الَّذِي عَلَّمَ بِالْقَلَمِ
“Read in the name of your Lord who created. He created man from a clinging clot. Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous. Who taught by the pen.” (QS. Al-‘Alaq: 1–4)
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also always taught the companions to be active in learning and to seek refuge from laziness—including laziness in reading and seeking knowledge—because laziness is a chain that shackles the progress of the ummah:
اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْعَجْزِ وَالْكَسَلِ
“O Allah, I seek refuge in You from weakness and laziness.” (HR. Bukhārī)
2. Lessons and Message
Let us reflect on a real portrait we often encounter in the corners of our environment. In a quiet village library or a school reading nook, hundreds of high-quality books stand neatly on wooden shelves. Those books hold the history of civilization, profound Qur’anic exegeses, and awe-inspiring science. Yet their pages look dull, dusty, and some have begun to yellow, eaten by termites without ever being touched by a single finger. Outside that room, our young people gather at the night-watch post or street corners until late at night. Their eyes stare blankly at gadget screens, their fingers deftly scroll through short, distracting videos, while their inner selves are empty of knowledge. How tragic to see a nation physically independent, yet its soul colonized by the fog of laziness in reading. They lose interest in the intellectual legacy of past scholars, let their minds grow dull, and slowly lose their future direction because they are reluctant to read. This culture of laziness in reading amid society is like “An Army Marching Toward a Vast Battlefield, but Choosing to Lock All Their Sophisticated Weapons and Ammunition in an Iron Chest, Then Throwing the Key into the Sea.” That iron chest is full of swords, shields, and strategic maps—like stacks of books, classical texts, and libraries.
Moral Message: Without opening that chest—without reading—that army will enter the battlefield of life blind, weak, and easily crushed by the enemy in a single strike. Reading is the key that opens the weapons chest called “the intellect.” Do not let yourself step into the battlefield of life without carrying the sharp weapon of knowledge. Ironically, in this digital era our society’s reading interest is actually not that low—just misdirected! If told to read a book on Islamic history, a fiqh text, or a three-page scientific article, the eyes automatically feel heavy, yawns come in unison, and we’re suddenly hit with terminal-stage drowsiness. But try putting a scrolling text on social media in the form of celebrity gossip captions or scandalous news about the neighbor—oh… let alone three pages, text as long as a railway track will be read to completion from top to bottom, and the comment section will even be analyzed deeply like a meticulous professor! This is a bitter yet humorous jab at us. It’s not that we can’t read; we just choose the wrong nutrition for our brains. We busy ourselves feeding our minds “visual junk,” while our souls starve from lack of nourishment from beneficial books.
3. Conclusion and Closing
Brothers and sisters, the external barrier of a culture of laziness in reading and the lack of learning habits in society is a cultural challenge we must fight together with a massive movement. The highest moral message is this: Islamic civilization once led the world because its scholars were voracious readers and writers of knowledge. If we want to restore that glory, we must start with ourselves and our smallest environment. Let us revive the tradition of Iqra’ in our homes. Turn off gadget screens for a while, open the pages of a book, discuss its contents at the dining table with family, and make learning a proud lifestyle. The death of a nation begins when its people stop reading
والله أعلم بالصواب
الحمد لله رب العالمين
Wassalamu’alaikum Warahmaullahi Wabarakatuh.
ِAbu Sultan Al-Qadrie
