The Quiet Ones - 30 June 2025

                                                                     Spiritual Politics

 The Quiet Ones

30 June 2025

This morning began with a call I wasn’t ready for. My close friend Mohd. Rafi—known to many as Pok Pi—rang me from Penang General Hospital. His younger brother, Sham, had just passed away.

Both of them came to visit me at the old apartment not long ago. That memory is still fresh—three friends catching up, the warmth between us quiet but deep. Sham was never loud. He wasn’t the kind of man who needed to fill a room. But he filled a space in my heart—closer than many I call brothers.

He was married to an Indonesian woman and had a young son. He carried himself gently. I remember how, years ago, when I was preparing for a journey across Indonesia, Sham linked me with his friends who ended up driving me across northern and central Sumatra for ten days. No big gestures, no fanfare—just quiet kindness that opened an entire journey for me.

I had hoped to be at the cemetery today. But I’m stuck waiting for my daughter to return—she doesn’t have the key to the apartment. It seems, for now, I must sit with this grief from afar. Perhaps it’s just not meant to be. Still, my heart is already there. And sometimes, that’s what matters most.

This morning, while scrolling to distract my restlessness, I kept seeing videos exposing “fake gurus.” One after another—calling out figures like Sadhguru, Eckhart Tolle, Manly P. Hall, Napoleon Hill. It’s a strange trend. Maybe the algorithm is simply reflecting the moment, or maybe something deeper is at play.

We live in an age of spiritual marketing. Teachers with robes, stages, microphones, and monetized wisdom. But now, the tide seems to be turning. People are growing weary—tired of being sold awakening in packages, tired of polished truths and branded enlightenment. And in that tiredness, a collective questioning begins.

Even I feel it. Not just toward global names, but more locally—toward the fake Zen teachers, the hollow ustaz, and the imams who play more for politics than prayer. But perhaps the problem isn't just them. It’s the pedestal we place them on. The longing for someone else to carry what only we can cultivate in ourselves.

And then I remember Sham. And Captain Zakaria, the UN veteran who taught me more through composting and silence than any sermon ever did. They weren’t trying to be teachers. They weren’t trying to be anything at all. And that’s precisely what made them real.

There are no documentaries about men like these. No viral clips. No ten-step plans to awakening.
But they lived well. They left a mark. Not in headlines or hashtags—but in hearts.

Let the world argue over gurus and frauds. Let the comment sections roar.
I’m thinking today of the quiet ones.

Those who showed up, gave without asking, and left behind grace in their absence.
People like Sham.

May Allah bless his soul, protect his family, and bring peace to those who loved him.
And may we all learn to recognize the real teachers, even when they don’t claim the title. ...

Let the world argue over gurus and frauds. Let the comment sections roar.
I’m thinking today of the quiet ones.

Those who showed up, gave without asking, and left behind grace in their absence.
People like Sham.

May Allah bless his soul, protect his family, and bring peace to those who loved him.
And may we all learn to recognize the real teachers, even when they don’t claim the title.

After my nap this evening, I awoke up at 1 am. with a heaviness in my chest. I sat quietly and entered into a deep state of remembrance. I recited Al-Fatiha, followed by Al-Falaq, An-Nas, and Al-Kafirun. I repeated Surah Al-Ikhlas seven times and Ayat al-Kursi. Then I whispered Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah, and Allahu Akbar—each thirty-three times. I ended with Astaghfirullah and the Beautiful Names of Allah.

And I offered all of it to my brother Sham—imagining myself seated at his grave, facing him, wrapped in white.
In that space, I bade him farewell.

And in that silence, I know he heard me.

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