Sometimes you see young people who have the ability and the potential to gain knowledge but lack the means,…

Assalamu alaykum!

Sometimes you see young people who have the ability and the potential to gain knowledge but lack the means, and you want to help them.

You want to help, but your means go only so far.

Then a greedy thought circles in your mind: what on earth do the rich of this country do with their money?

Perhaps they are giving charity ceaselessly, hidden from everyone, and we are simply unaware.

Perhaps in their calculating minds there is not even the seed of the thought of helping others or contributing to the enlightenment of the people.

Perhaps, far from reading books, they do not even know their letters.

Perhaps they are very backward, utterly impoverished in spirit, utterly cowardly, utterly arrogant, ignorant people driven wild by money.

Perhaps no advice has any effect on them.

Perhaps there is not a speck of concern for the Hereafter in their hearts.

Perhaps they are hypocritical, boastful, with their feet off the ground, selfish people who look down on everyone, hurtful and base…

O God!

Am I mistaken?!

At any rate, no rich man in our country has set up an organization that gives even a single grant to educate young people; at any rate, I have never heard a rich man speak with any depth — or perhaps it is the ones whose thinking is lowest who make it to the podium.

May God protect us from those who fawn on the moneyed! For more disgusting than an ignorant moneybag are his fawning dogs and his bootlicking curs.

What I mean by saying this is: may God never, ever make us hopeful of or greedy for anything, in seeking knowledge or education, from ill-mannered, ignorant and stone-deaf moneybags who hold knowledge in no regard!

May my Lord Himself help the lovers of knowledge, ameen!

Akrom MALIK