Amidst the intensification of solidarity and generosity during the holy month of Ramadan, I would like to make a call to well-off Muslims. O wealthy Muslims, first expand your horizons, then open your wallets. Identify promising and potential young Muslims around you, categorize them according to their talents, and if necessary, seek professional support for this task. And be sure to do these three things:
• Provide travel scholarships
Purchase plane tickets for young people, put money in their pockets, and send them to explore the Islamic geography. Let them experience Bukhara, Samarkand, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cairo, Sarajevo, Skopje, Granada, Cordoba, and Marrakesh. Assist Muslim youth in discovering our geography and the world, on the condition that they return with reports and travelogues. The world is changing rapidly. The era of forcing children to attend weekly gatherings in conference halls in the basements of foundations and associations, under the guise of insignificant scholarships, is over. This method is outdated, ineffective, and obsolete.
• Provide book scholarships
In addition to the scholarships you provide, add generous book scholarships. Today, a student cannot afford to allocate a separate budget for books from the scholarship they receive. Therefore, there is a need for meticulously crafted book scholarships. Allocate substantial funds to young people for books, on the condition that they only buy books. Send those who are talented and interested to international book fairs, major libraries, and research centers.
Fethi Gemuhluoğlu (1923-1977), one of the distinguished figures of our recent history, is a striking example in this regard. While serving as the general secretary of the Turkish Petroleum Foundation, Gemuhluoğlu used to provide additional book scholarships to young people he saw potential in, in addition to regular scholarships. Many bureaucrats, academics, politicians, and cultural figures who are currently in high positions laid the foundation of their personal libraries through Gemuhluoğlu's initiative.
• Provide language scholarships
Support promising Muslim youth in both domestic and foreign language education. Finance, promote, and facilitate language learning for various reasons, including translating works produced in foreign languages into our own language, representing Muslims in various "battle" arenas abroad, producing more qualified works domestically, and many more. It is time to look beyond building additional minarets for mosques, renewing carpets, or modernizing fountains, and start thinking more qualitatively and precisely.
Travel, knowledge, and language... Knowing the geography, shaping minds, and marketing what is produced... In these three areas, we urgently need the support of wealthy and open-minded Muslims who are focused on raising soldiers for the ummah rather than gathering followers for their own community or congregation. Time is of the essence. No time to waste.
"Some of you might say, 'But what about Gaza...' " I can almost hear sentences starting like this. I am not saying anything unrelated to Gaza. The details I have listed above are fully included in the Gaza file:
Behind all the crises we experience, there is a shortage of trained individuals. Every problem we complain about and want to change ultimately boils down to weakness in human fabric. Look around you, and you will see that the root of decay is once again the deterioration in the human element. Whatever is going wrong, it is all stemming from the poor quality of human material.
The thing we call human doesn't just come into being overnight. Raising humans requires long-term effort, strategic planning, concrete and sustainable projects that will achieve results, and competent oversight at every stage of the process.
There seems to be no way out of the dark tunnel we are stuck in.
