Assalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
Bismillahir- Rahmanir-Rahim
1. Opening
Friends who are blessed by Allah,On the stage of the modern world and amid the clamor of social media, we very easily encounter people who are skilled at delivering eloquent speeches, astonishing ideas, and profoundly deep analyses. Yet, why do all those luxuries of words sometimes feel bland? Why does magnificent rhetoric not linger long in our chests?The scholars give an extraordinary analogy: Knowledge and speech from a speaker devoid of spiritual connection to Allah SWT is like a bouquet of plastic roses or artificial flowers. Even though the color is blazingly red and the size is large and eye-catching, people will quickly get bored and toss it into the trash because it has no life and no true fragrance. By contrast, knowledge that appears simple yet is wrapped in inner sincerity is like a real rose; it has a natural scent, it has a soul, and it leaves an eternal impact of goodness.
Psychologically and scientifically, the human inner self cannot be fooled by mere outward performance [surface acting]. When knowledge is delivered without the spirit of taqwā and sincerity from its owner, it loses its spiritual weight. In Islam, knowledge is not merely a transfer of cognitive data, but light [nūr] that Allah entrusts into the chest of His servant. The correct regulation of knowledge is when that knowledge grows fear and submission to Allah SWT, thereby radiating the fragrance of sincere character.
Allah SWT affirms the reality of knowledge that bears true taqwā in the Qur’an:
إِنَّمَا يَخْشَى اللَّهَ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ الْعُلَمَاءُ
“Only those fear Allah, from among His servants, who have knowledge.”[QS. Fāṭir: 28]
Knowledge that is blessed and alive in the chest is knowledge that benefits both oneself and others. Rasulullah ﷺ reminded us to always ask for the essence of this living knowledge through his saying:
سَلُوا اللَّهَ عِلْمًا نَافِعًا، وَتَعَوَّذُوا بِاللَّهِ مِنْ عِلْمٍ لَا يَنْفَعُ
“Ask Allah for beneficial knowledge, and seek refuge in Allah from knowledge that does not benefit.”[HR. Ibn Mājah]
2. Lessons and Mesage
Let us reflect on a true, heart-rending story about the soul’s longing for the fragrance of sincere knowledge. There was a knowledge gathering attended by hundreds of people in a parched village. The speaker that night delivered material with highly poetic words, tidy rhymes, and extremely intricate legal analysis. Yet in the back row sat an old mother weeping in sadness.Not because she was moved by the lecture, but because she felt her soul growing emptier and more alienated. She whispered softly to the person next to her, “Child, why does my heart feel cold hearing it? The words are lofty and beautiful, but why is there no warmth to heal the wound in my chest?”The speaker may have succeeded in dazzling the audience’s minds with his “plastic roses” of theory, but failed to give even a drop of the “soul” of tranquility to thirsty souls. How saddening to see vast knowledge wasted into a pile of formality on the pulpit, without the fragrance that enlivens the ummah’s inner life.
So we can laugh at the way we’ve been judging knowledge all this time with an intelligent smile, let us use an analogy about “Mukidi’s Luxurious Gift.” Imagine a man named Mukidi. Mukidi wants to propose to his beloved. To make an astonishing and luxurious impression, Mukidi goes to a decoration store. He buys a giant bouquet of factory-made plastic roses with blazing red color—it’s expensive, and even the leaves are sprayed with polish to gleam under the lights. Full of confidence, Mukidi comes to his beloved’s house, then hands over the flowers while delivering a two-hour poetic speech mimicking the style of ancient poets .His beloved smiles at first. But the moment that plastic flower is brought close to her nose… cough! cough! She immediately sneezes and coughs, because what she smells isn’t the scent of a flower, but the stinging odor of factory plastic and polishing chemicals! She instantly throws the flower into the trash while shouting, “Mukidi, take your fake flowers away! This is clogging my nose!
”Funny and convicting to our inner selves, isn’t it? Many of us on social media act amusingly like Mukidi carrying those plastic flowers. We are busy editing religious quotes to look shiny on our gadget screens, skilled at complex analyses in comment sections to look cool, but our own inner selves are dry of dhikr and sincerity. We forget that the people around us have a sensitive “spiritual nose”! They can smell which knowledge is a “real rose” born of inner contemplation on the prayer mat, and which knowledge is a “plastic rose” merely copy-pasted to chase human praise. Let us not busy ourselves showing off plastic flowers that reek of the chemicals of heedlessness before Allah SWT!
3. Conclusion & Closing
Friends, the profound moral message from this regulation of knowledge is an invitation to shift our orientation in learning and sharing: stop at the level of mere outward beauty of performance. Humanity does not need more stiff, boring plastic roses; the ummah longs for the radiance of living spiritual energy from within our chests.Let us wrap every bit of knowledge we have—even if it is simple—with pure inner sincerity. Bring that knowledge to life first in the last third of your night through honest prostration, then spread it to others with gentle character and real compassion. When our knowledge already has the “soul” of obedience and the “fragrance” of sincerity, then without excessive wordplay, every fragment of our words and real behavior will automatically become a beautiful real rose—cooling parched souls and leaving an eternal impact of goodness in this world until the Hereafter.
May Allah SWT heal our inner selves from the falseness of knowledge, bring our souls to life with sincerity, and make us roses of faith whose fragrance guides the ummah toward His Paradise.
. والله أعلم بالصواب
الحمد لله رب العالمين
Wassalamu’alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
Abu Sultan Al-Qadrie
