The Culture

Visiting the Ideas of the Cultural Figure Datuk Seri Al Azhar (1961–2021)

Seeking the Beloved Amidst Shifting Times

There was a time when the human soul searched for its ma‘syuq—the Beloved Divine—through footsteps that trembled along a lonely path lined with the dust of longing. It was never a swift journey; often one had to retreat, only to walk again through traces of light not yet faded. In that pilgrimage, the seeker moved between two worlds—emerging from the silence of inner searching, then returning to the rhythm of daily life: brewing coffee, speaking with neighbors, feeling the grain of the earth beneath the feet. Yet beneath these simple gestures, a quiet light seeped in—shaping new habits, purifying without noise.

Once, the world was not wrapped in screens. Wandering was a voyage of the body, not a leap of signal. People mapped the road to the ma‘syuq the way one weaves a tapestry of love with threads of hope: to Makkah and Madinah, to Yemen and Egypt, to Aceh and Bonjol, to the slopes of Bukit Mertajam and the valleys of Koto Kampar. And if they could not reach the holy lands, they set foot on the soil of the saints. In limitation, there was perseverance—and in perseverance, the soul learned how to be worthy of love.

For to love the ma‘syuq is not to arrive as one pleases. The Beloved has His own language, His own signs and silence. Thus, the seeker must be willing to change—peeling away ego, abandoning the noise of the world, entering a metamorphosis of spirit until he is worthy to be called beloved in return. On that solitary road, the body becomes a shrine, and the mind becomes a prayer.

But time shifted. Modernity arrived, replacing the cloak of spirituality with the suit of intellect. Schools were built, syllabi designed, and knowledge was trimmed into logic and numbers. In the Malay world, colonial education spread the logic of Europe: learning became an act of knowing, not an act of surrender. Western education forgot prostration—it held the mind, but left the soul behind.

Then came the imbalance. Spirit and intellect met at the table of history, yet their dialogue was rarely gentle. Politics favored what dazzled the eye, and the subtle reasoning of the soul faded into the margins. Education drifted far from ‘aql in its deepest meaning— not the clever mind, but the luminous intellect tied to the heart. We were fed information, but starved of wisdom.

See how myths and folk tales were turned into instruments of stigma. Malin Kundang—once a simple tale of sorrow—was reduced to a portrait of betrayal. Tuaka of Indragiri, Sampuraga of Mandailing—each stamped as accursed. But who truly failed to understand? The son who journeyed or the mother who could not forgive? Those tales were never about sin, but about distance misunderstood as disobedience. Yet formal education, through the cold ink of colonial presses, carved them into rigid judgment.

Then came the story of Siti Nurbaya, burdening tradition with accusation. Marriage was painted as tyranny, not the meeting of two families. Tradition was said to suffocate. Love, they claimed, belonged to the individual alone. But once, happiness grew not from a pot called individualism—but from the shared soil of community.

And so, we were trapped in false choices: arranged marriage or free love? Freedom or tradition? Yet in the villages, rituals like upah-upah still embraced every heart—where one person’s wounds and joys belonged to all. Humanity there was not separate beings—but waves in the same sea.

Today, the individual has been pulled away from the well of togetherness. He becomes the main character of his own tale—but also fragile. He becomes a new Malin Kundang: strong before the world, weak at the roots. He no longer recognizes the arms of his village— drowned instead in the embrace of social media and the anxieties of existence.

So now the question is no longer, “Where is the ma‘syuq?” but “Do we still remember how to love?” Between the roar of intellect and the hush of spirit, we are not asked to choose—but to unite. For the path of true seeking never abandons one for the other. It makes the heart intelligent—and the mind devout. The road to the Beloved has always been a journey home—not only to the land of origin, but to the deepest self that waits in silence.

There is, in truth, no territory that is entirely private within a living cultural sphere. Precisely when new propositions arrive—touching the personal realm and slipping into spaces once considered collectively owned—they become a fresh tremor that both seduces and unsettles. At one moment, such offers resemble the seasonal wind that urges old leaves to fall from their branches, compelling us to make room for the new. Yet at the same time, they also shake the roots of communality, causing the values that once provided shade and shelter to fall away.

This disturbance of communality has never truly been woven back together since the Reformasi era. We often feel that we have achieved freedom, yet forget to redefine what freedom means within the framework of culture. Our literature once, without being asked, became a kind of voice that reverberated through collective spaces. It served as a tool of reflection, but at times it also became a form of terror, shaking the certainty of values held by society. This imbalance in the dialectic was further aggravated by the introduction of Western education that placed excessive emphasis on intellectuality while neglecting spirituality.

Today we witness highly educated individuals falling into the dark pits of pragmatism. They hold titles—bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, doctorates—yet at the same time they become perpetrators of corruption, destroyers of the environment, severers of ethics. They are the offspring of an imbalanced education: intellectually sharp, yet spiritually starving. They exploit intellect without the spiritual guidance that should accompany it, allowing reason to become a tool of greed rather than wisdom.

Ask the experts—the engineers and scientists who are aware that their work contributes to destruction, yet continue doing it for salaries more than sufficient. They know, but they surrender. At their most courageous, they merely apologize while continuing their work as machines within the system. This is the great tragedy that began with colonialism: we were taught to be disrespectful toward the inheritance of tradition, as though success were measured by how far one could distance oneself from one’s roots.

The journey thus shifted—from spirituality toward individuality. Wanderers who once returned home bearing wisdom now return carrying material arrogance. They come no longer in the spirit of a spiritual pilgrimage, but with the will to dominate. Traditional institutions such as marriage have likewise been absorbed and stripped of their meaning, transformed into arenas of capitalization rather than sacred union.

Yet the digital age offers a glimmer of hope. The world is now without boundaries; anyone can access anything, anyone. Spiritual and intellectual knowledge are equally open to those who seek them. Within this digital landscape, Malay culture has the opportunity to reshape itself into something more dynamic, entering spaces that were once unreachable. But it must not become a fossil—it must engage in dialogue and evolve.

Dialectics becomes the key. Knowledge is no longer monopolized by a single patron. Authority no longer flows solely from the elder. Today, every individual can become a processor of meaning, a creator of interpretation. The “we” in Malay culture becomes a gentle middle path: a space that allows others to dwell within ourselves. That is why we say “our Minangkabau people,” “our Chinese people”—because fundamentally, we are opening a shared home.

True Malay culture does not separate human beings from nature. It does not regard nature merely as a resource, but as an elder sibling, even a teacher. Nature is part of the family—a guardian of rhythm, a determinant of ethics. Thus openness, honesty, and equality become Malay values that do not fade with time. Amid global issues, these values stand firmly as pillars of humanity.

And finally, in the midst of the explosion of information technology, the Malay world must not be left behind. Cultural heritage must be converted into new forms—digital, visual, and interactive narratives. Malay children today can no longer inherit merely blood; they must inherit practice. Our task is therefore not simply to preserve heritage, but to make it alive and accessible. In this way, the Malay spirit will not disappear from the earth—it will continue to give light and direction.

RIDING THE WAVES, PRESERVING THE ESSENCE WITHIN THE FORM

Preserving tradition and culture is not merely a matter of maintaining form; it is a matter of safeguarding the essence within an appropriate vessel. The greatest challenge today is not only how to package cultural values, but how to inject spirit into that package. When we err in packaging, we create resistance; when we package without understanding, we create emptiness. Thus, the teaching of Malay culture in Riau must be unified—between form and meaning, between surface and substance—because form is never born without content, and content seeks its path through form.

Consider the pantun, an oral heritage that appears simple yet is rich with value. It cannot be judged merely by its stanza and rhyme. Four lines in a stanza, rhyming in an ab ab pattern—that is only the framework. Its value lies in the politeness conveyed, the subtle satire wrapped in elegance, the meaning that settles gently within rhythm. Pantun is therefore not merely a skill but an embodiment of cultural intelligence. Even though its form may now be generated through applications, the values within it cannot be automated. This is the true struggle: preserving values so they are not uprooted from their form.

For a true creator, value is not the result of tinkering with form but of deep contemplation. Like the awan larat carvings—not merely beautiful ornaments but the product of meditation upon the movement of clouds that drift freely. It is an effort to learn from nature, turning phenomena into lessons. These motifs then draw us closer to the universe, inviting us not only to adorn spaces but also to beautify the soul. Culture, therefore, is neither merely a product nor an object of consumption. It is a meeting place of spirituality and intellectuality.

Globalization is not a storm that we must resist, but a vast ocean that we can navigate. We need not become victims of the current; instead, we must learn to ride the waves. Like surfers on the Bono waves of the Kampar River, we can choose to stand upon the swell and dance with it. More than that, we can even become creators of new waves. This is the spirit of go-localism—becoming global human beings who do not forget their local roots. When our locality is strong, we do not merely follow the currents of the world; we color them and help compose their narratives.

Once, great hopes were embedded in the vision of Riau 2020—a dream that Riau would become the main node of Malay culture in Southeast Asia. Yet that hope was stranded upon the reefs of half-hearted planning. When a master plan does not unite with its vision, it becomes a hanging myth. But even as a myth, it planted belief. That belief generated movement: that we can, that Riau can become a major player in the cultural landscape of the Malay world. And now that myth is turning into reality, because qualification speaks louder than quantification.

Yet we must also be honest. Too often we lose momentum. Too often we craft taglines but forget to turn them into promises. Our cultural problem, therefore, is not merely about ideas—it is about commitment. Here, I place greater trust in the strength of communities. When political power stumbles over temporary interests, communities continue to move. When governments remain silent waiting for events, artists continue to create. Like roots that remain silent beneath the soil yet continuously supply life, communities are the spirit of culture that lives and grows.

Now, hope no longer hangs solely in the sky of power, but also resides in the hearts of the people. When forest fires occur, whom do we trust? NGOs or entrepreneurs? Is it not the voice of the community that now speaks louder than the bureaucracy? The same is true of the arts—they live more vibrantly in the spirit of communities than within government protocols. And this is precisely what governments should learn: to remain steadfast like artists, faithful like civil society that never tires of safeguarding the pulse of culture. For in the end, culture will continue to move forward, with or without an official stage.*** MOHAMMAD HASBI