Assalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim
1. Introduction
Friends beloved by Allah, one of the external tests that most drains a seeker of knowledge emotionally is being in a social and cultural environment that is unsupportive. Sociologically and in terms of developmental psychology, humans are imitative beings who greatly need affirmation from their closest circle—such as family, peers, or society. When a person begins to allocate time to deepen religious knowledge, yet is met with coldness, neglect, or even rejection from his original environment, he experiences severe psychological turmoil. Yet know, in a scientific-spiritual sense, that this alienation is part of the divine way (sunnatullāh) in the process of purifying the soul (tazkiyatun nafs). Often, Allah deliberately cuts a servant’s dependence on human support so that he learns to rely absolutely on the strength of Allah SWT alone. Allah SWT consoles the heart of His servant who struggles in the solitude of his environment through His words:
وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ بَالِغُ أَمْرِهِ ۚ قَدْ جَعَلَ اللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدْرًا
“And whoever puts his trust in Allah, He is sufficient for him. Indeed, Allah will accomplish His purpose. Allah has already set a measure for everything.” (QS. Aṭ-Ṭalāq: 3) The Messenger of Allah ﷺ also gave profoundly scientific mental reinforcement to anyone who holds firmly to the commitment of studying religion amid an indifferent or cynical environment through his words:
النَّاسِ زَمَانٌ الصَّابِرُ فِيهِمْ عَلَى دِينِهِ كَالْقَابِضِ عَلَى الْجَمْرِ يَأْتِي عَلَى
“There will come upon people a time when the one who is patient in holding onto his religion—including pursuing religious knowledge—among them will be like one who grasps a burning ember.” (HR. Tirmidhī)
2. Lessons and Message
Let us look at the portrait of a young man whose heart has just been touched by Allah’s guidance. He deeply longs to improve his Qur’an recitation, to understand the knowledge of Sharī‘ah, and to attend gatherings of learning. Yet when he asks permission or seeks support from his family, he is met with cynical stares. His parents say curtly, “What are you going to become, studying religion all the time? You want to end up poor? Just take care of your worldly life first!” When he tries to invite his old friends to simply discuss goodness, he is immediately ostracized from the circle and labeled as “weird” and “self-righteous.” The young man returns to his silent room, sits in the corner of his bed staring at the Mushaf of the Qur’an he just bought. His tears fall slowly, wetting the sacred pages. There is an excruciating pain when the people he loves most in this world become the greatest stumbling blocks, mocking his noble intention to return to Allah’s path. He is alienated in his own home, bearing a longing for knowledge in solitude. Someone striving to seek knowledge amid an unsupportive environment is like “A Submarine Diving in the Depths of the Ocean.” The submarine is surrounded by tremendous water pressure from every direction—above, below, right, and left—like social pressure, sneers, and the lack of support from the outside environment. Why is the submarine not crushed or sunk by the overwhelming pressure of the ocean? The answer: because the submarine has internal pressure that is equal to or even greater than the external pressure. So it is with the seeker of knowledge; when your external environment presses and does not support you, seek “internal pressure” in the form of deeply rooted conviction, sincere intention, and supplications in the last third of the night. As long as the wall of faith in your chest is firm, no matter how heavy the social pressure outside, it will never be able to crush your soul. This phenomenon of lacking environmental support sometimes triggers amusing situations due to misunderstanding. There is a child who has been studying fiqh and character in a ḥalaqah for just a few weeks. Out of eagerness to apply new knowledge at home, his appearance changes drastically and his speech is filled with high-level Arabic terms his family does not understand. One morning at the breakfast table, when his mother serves food, the child looks at the table and says with a serious face, “O Ummī, this dish is subhat if the origin of its spices is unclear.” His mother, holding a ladle, immediately glares and replies, “Subhat what?! That’s stir-fried vegetables with the shallots you asked me to buy at the market yesterday! Ever since you joined that study circle, you’ve become a sharia culinary critic, huh? Here, don’t eat at all then!” This is a humorous yet wise jab for us: sometimes the environment is unsupportive not because they hate religion, but because the way we bring knowledge into that environment is inflexible and unwise. Studying religion should make us more devoted and skilled at winning over our family’s hearts, not make us look like a “new judge” ready to prosecute the contents of our own parents’ kitchen.
3. Conclusion and Closing
Brothers and sisters, the external barrier of an unsupportive social and cultural environment is not a reason to extinguish the flame of the pursuit of knowledge. Its highest moral message is this: this environmental test comes to measure how sincere we are in loving religious knowledge. If we seek knowledge merely for human praise, we will stop immediately when mocked. But if we seek knowledge for Allah’s pleasure, then the silence of human support will never make our steps falter. Let us face that unsupportive environment with the best weapon taught by Islam: the beauty of noble character (al-akhlāq al-karīmah). Prove to our family and friends that the religious knowledge we study does not make us rigid and distant people, but rather makes us far more loving, dutiful, and beneficial to others.
والله أعلم بالصواب
الحمد لله رب العالمين
Wassalamu’alaikum Warahmaullahi Wabarakatuh.
ِAbu Sultan Al-Qadrie
