Assalamu Alaikum my dear friend

It has been a while since I last wrote to you.

I didn’t disappear because I had nothing to say. In fact, many thoughts came and went. But I was deeply involved in a very different project, and I wanted to take a little longer pause before writing again. Sometimes, I feel that writing from the heart needs space. It needs silence. It needs life to teach you something before you try to put it into words.

And recently, one old memory came back to me.

I think I was around 18 or 19. I can’t remember the exact age, but I know I was still in my late teenage years. I had a small room in our house. Tiny, but beautiful to me. Uncluttered. Systematic. Peaceful.

And in that room, I had a bookshelf.

That bookshelf was probably one of the clearest pictures of my inner world at the time. It had books on poetry, psychology, English literature, German, Tamil poems, art, how the body works, chemistry, biology, personal development… almost everything that caught my curiosity.

One day, a visitor came to our house. He looked into my room, noticed the bookshelf, and said something I have never forgotten.

“I have never seen a teenager with so many different interests.”

It was a small sentence. Maybe he forgot it the next day.

But I didn’t.

Nearly 30 years later, I still remember it. I still remember how it made me feel. Seen. Encouraged. Almost given permission to remain curious.

Looking back now, I realise that this wide curiosity shaped so much of my life. Alhamdulillah, it helped me explore many different fields, professions, ideas, and entrepreneurial paths. I must have tried at least 30 different things in my life, perhaps more. Some worked. Many didn’t. But every field taught me something. Every book opened a door. Every interest added another colour to the way I see the world.

And today, I feel this matters more than ever.

Because we live in a world that is quietly making our minds smaller.

Not because information is unavailable. No, we have more information than any generation before us. But the problem is, most of us are not truly exploring anymore. We are being fed.

The algorithms learn what we like, what makes us angry, what keeps us watching, what confirms our opinions. Slowly, without even realising it, we begin to live inside a narrow corridor. We hear the same ideas, the same arguments, the same fears, the same outrage.

If we lean right, we are fed more right. If we lean left, we are fed more left. If we watch one type of content, the world starts to look like that one type of content. Our minds begin to lose range.

And when our minds lose range, our hearts often become tighter too.

We become quicker to judge. Slower to understand. More reactive. Less reflective.

And that is dangerous—not only intellectually, but spiritually too.

Because Islam does not call us to become narrow-minded people. Allah subuhanawut’ala repeatedly invites us to look, think, travel, reflect, observe, and ponder. The Qur’an opens our eyes to the skies, the earth, history, nations, ourselves, our souls, and the signs around us.

A believer is not meant to be mentally asleep.

A believer is meant to be awake.

Awake enough to notice truth.
Awake enough to learn from people.
Awake enough to see patterns.
Awake enough to question his own assumptions.
Awake enough to realise, “Maybe I don’t see the full picture yet.”

This does not mean we become people without principles. Far from it. Our anchor is the truth Allah subuhanawut’ala revealed. But being anchored does not mean being closed. A tree with deep roots can still spread its branches wide.

That is what I want for myself.

And that is what I want for you.

To be rooted, but not narrow.

To be principled, but not arrogant.

To be curious, but not lost.

To be open to learning, without letting every wind carry you away.

I sometimes worry about what constant exposure to shallow, repetitive, emotionally charged content is doing to us. Not just to our productivity, but to our souls. To our ability to sit with complexity. To our ability to listen. To our ability to have mercy on people who don’t see the world exactly as we do.

And maybe this is why I keep returning to books.

Books slow us down.

A good book does not scream at you like a social media post. It does not flash, shout, or demand an instant reaction. It invites you to sit. To think. To wrestle. To reflect. To connect one idea with another.

And when you read widely, something beautiful happens.

You begin to see life from more than one angle. You connect ideas from different fields. You become less easily manipulated. You start forming your own thoughts, instead of merely borrowing the thoughts your feed gives you.

Perhaps that is one of the greatest needs of our time: to reclaim our ability to think deeply.

Not just to consume information.

Not just to react.

But to think.

To reflect.

To ask: What is true? What is beneficial? What brings me closer to Allah? What makes me a better human being? What helps me serve others?

So maybe today’s reflection is simple.

Look at your own “bookshelf”.

Not necessarily the physical one in your room, but the bookshelf of your mind.

What are you filling it with?

Only noise?

Only outrage?

Only one perspective?

Only things that make you comfortable?

Or are you allowing yourself to grow through different kinds of beneficial knowledge—Qur’an, seerah, history, psychology, health, family, business, language, nature, biographies, and the lived experiences of people very different from you?

That old visitor’s sentence stayed with me for almost 30 years.

And maybe today, I want to pass a version of it to you:

Don’t let the world shrink your mind.

Stay curious.

Stay rooted.

Stay reflective.

Seek beneficial knowledge from many doors, but let the light of revelation guide what you accept, reject, and live by.

May Allah subuhanawut’ala protect our hearts from confusion, our minds from narrowness, and our souls from distraction. May He make us people who think deeply, see clearly, and live wisely.

With love and gratitude,
Rushdhi

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