When Scholars Stop Activism and Activists Stop Seeking: The Ummah Loses Its Pulse
Facing the disconnect between those who know and those who move
In every golden chapter of Islamic history, the Ummah flourished when knowledge breathed action, and action was anchored in knowledge. The scholar was not merely a transmitter of facts but a beacon of foresight. The activist was not just a voice of emotion, but a force grounded in revelation. Together, they gave life to a civilisation that moved the world.
Today, we face a different reality. The scholar often retreats into lectures and classrooms, delivering knowledge that is sound, but rarely ignites mission or revival in the hearts of the Ummah. Rather than being the strategist in the room, many are content repeating what previous lectures have said, safe, scripted, and disconnected from the urgent realities facing the Ummah today.
Meanwhile, many activists charge forward without direction, driven by passion but lacking the compass of sacred knowledge. The pulse of the Ummah slows, not from a lack of energy, but from a lack of synchrony, a disconnect between those who know and those who move.
The Prophet ﷺ was a master educator and a dynamic reformer. He taught hearts and confronted systems. He led souls and liberated societies. His example was never passive scholarship or reckless resistance, but principled, courageous, revelation driven leadership.
The Scholar Must Be a Visionary
A scholar who remains confined to text without reflecting on context risks becoming a relic, not a reformer. Memorisation without mobilisation reduces sacred knowledge to information without impact. Today’s scholar must not only preserve texts but also diagnose the ailments of the Ummah and offer divinely rooted prescriptions. He must speak when it’s uncomfortable, lead when others retreat, and envision change that transcends mere rhetoric.
Silence in the face of oppression, neutrality in times of injustice, and detachment from the concerns of the people, these are not signs of humility, but of disconnection.
The scholar must be where the pain is. In the frontlines, in the struggle, in the strategic debates, not as a politician, but as a moral compass. His presence must remind the Ummah that Islām does not only belong in the books, but in the streets, in the systems, and in the struggle itself.
The Activist Must Be a Student of Sacred Knowledge
Zeal without depth is dangerous. Passion without principles can betray the very cause it seeks to serve. Many activists today are full of energy but lack the foundational anchors of the Qur’ān and Sunnah. They form alliances for the sake of expediency, forgetting that strategy without sincerity to revelation leads not to reform, but to confusion.
An activist who does not seek Islamic knowledge is prone to repeating the mistakes of others, borrowing foreign frameworks and calling it revival. But Islām has its own blueprint, one that cannot be discovered through trending hashtags or ideological alliances, but only by sincere study and submission to divine guidance.
The most powerful movements in Islamic history were led by those who combined vision with verification, fire with foundation, standing for justice with purpose.
The Way Forward: Merging the Mind With Revelation
It is not either/or. It is both. The scholar and the activist. The one who knows and the one who is willing to act. The one who guards the Book and the one who brings it to life.
We need to focus on:
1. Convene Strategic Conferences With Scholars to Address Contemporary Challenges
Objective: Shift the role of scholars from passive transmitters of knowledge to visionary leaders addressing the crises of our time.
Action: Organise conferences that gather scholars, thinkers, and educators to tackle pressing issues, political oppression, Islamic resistance, social justice, media narratives, youth disconnection, etc.
Outcome: Scholarly voices that speak to the present moment, offering revelation-rooted strategies and revival-oriented guidance, not just academic insights.
2. Develop Integrated Workshops for Activists on Islamic Knowledge and Purposeful Engagement
Objective: Ground activists in the fundamentals of Islām and equip them with ethical, effective models of activism.
Action: Launch training programs or weekend workshops where activists learn both the spiritual foundations (Tawḥīd, Sunnah, Adab) and practical tools (organising, messaging, alliances, ethics in activism).
Outcome: A generation of revivalists who are not just loud, but principled, activists who act with clarity, sincerity, and sacred direction.
3. Establish a Unified Platform for Scholar-Activist Collaboration
Objective: Create a space where scholars and activists actively work together to lead change, not parallel, but united.
Action: Form a council, institute, or initiative that brings together trusted scholars and committed activists to consult, plan, and mobilise around major causes affecting the Ummah locally and globally.
Outcome: Consistent, unified, and principled responses to crises, rooted in revelation, amplified by action.
Until this fusion takes place, we will continue to witness a fractured Ummah, one side rich in knowledge but stagnant in change, and the other full of movement but bankrupt in meaning.
Let us raise a generation where the scholar steps out of the lecture halls and into the trenches, and the activist sits in humility at the feet of sacred knowledge.
Only then will the Ummah regain its pulse, steady, strong, and unshaken.
Ibrāhīm Hussain
Al-Harakah Research Team