Cultivating Community: The Juice Is Worth the Squeeze
What we long for is real—connection, safety, meaning—but the fruit only grows where hearts show up and hands keep tending the tree.
I always preferred learning from others. Their perspectives and experiences highlight my own biases and ignorance. Since my early days in Makkah, I would speak with muʿtamirīn (pilgrims) about everything from the impact of geopolitics (e.g., the Egyptian Revolution, the war in Yemen, etc.) to sociocultural norms and values. So, when one of my teachers started describing his family’s internal dynamics and how it affects outsiders, my ears immediately perked up. Not only was I intrigued to learn about his family for my own personal reasons, but it also provided insight into a family dynamic I deeply respect.
This family has been in the country for three generations, and, MashaAllah TabarikAllah, everyone remains strongly connected to their culture and Islam. While this is undoubtedly a blessing, it seems to beat the odds.
At the eldest grandchild’s wedding, the family patriarch said, “When I came to America, I was worried about my children retaining their Islam, so I married a practicing Muslim woman and did my best with my children. When my daughter, the groom’s mother, wanted to get married, I made sure her husband was a good, practicing Muslim man. Now, it is such a blessing to be in the Masjid at my grandson’s wedding—he’s marrying a good Muslim woman.”
Today, we often think of family in individualistic terms—a group of people (i.e., individuals) whose purpose is to fulfill the needs of its members. The problem with this is that it weakens the family’s long-term viability; as soon as the family ceases to serve the individuals’ needs, it becomes burdensome and eventually dissipates. The same can be said about community; both are at their healthiest when viewed collectivistically—when we prioritize interdependence, cohesion, and mutual duty.
What struck me most about this family was not simply their religious consistency, but the quiet intentionality that made that consistency possible. Their choices across generations were not random—they were relational. Each generation made sacrifices not only for their own stability, but for the spiritual health of those who would come after them. That is what true legacy looks like: not just individual piety, but intergenerational coherence. And in many ways, this is what a community must also strive for. Strong communities, like strong families, are built not merely through shared space or shared goals, but through sustained investment in each other’s futures. They prioritize continuity over comfort and trust that planting faithfully today will yield fruit for those who come next.
Hence, when my teacher described his family, my mind immediately went to thinking about community, and by the time we finished our conversation, I had formed a mental image, much like the image of an orange.
Type of Orange
Metaphors are powerful literary tools. Allah even uses them in the Qur’an; my favorite is in Surah Ibrahim, where Allah compares a good word to a good tree—“Its root is firm and its branches reach the sky, ˹always˺ yielding its fruit in every season by the Will of its Lord.”1 Metaphors provide context and depth to subjects that may have previously felt inaccessible. Furthermore, once thoroughly grasped, they tend to remain in the mind and facilitate lasting recall. So, if you want to think of all the necessary parts of a community, just think of an orange.
I love oranges. They’re probably my favorite fruit (after dates). However, due to the modern methods of food acquisition, it’s easy to forget that they don’t come clean and perfectly selected in plastic net bags, and that their juice doesn’t come pre-squeezed and depulped in pretty bottles. Oranges are found on trees in specific climates and must be picked at a particular time of year. Before we can properly utilize this metaphor—dissecting the parts of an orange to understand its whole—we must first recognize that oranges aren’t all the same. Within the genus of oranges, there are many different species, each with its own qualities. The type we select should depend on how we plan to use it. For example, navel oranges are very different than clementines, but both serve a purpose—I prefer the size and taste of navel oranges for juicing and the seedlessness and peeling ease of clementines for eating. Community is no different.
We must spend some time in muhasaba (introspection) to assess who we are and what we need from a community. Different dispositions and life experiences, as well as various seasons of life, will all require something different. Starting with the most generic qualities of ourselves, we must slowly—over years, if not decades—interrogate: Who are we? What do we need from a community? And how can we best serve it? Because no two communities are the same.
It would be nonsensical for someone seeking didactic instruction and structured guidance to join a community that prioritizes service and experiential learning, and vice versa. But even as we reflect on fit, we must be wary of slipping into a consumer mentality. While it is wise to look for communities that align with our values and spiritual needs, no community will be a perfect match. At some point, growth requires sacrifice. Just as no orange is purely sweet without some pulp, bitterness, or seeds, no community will deliver sweetness without some effort, discomfort, or disappointment. Sometimes what we need is not a better fit, but the humility to commit to a place, the patience to serve when it is hard, and the faith to stay long enough to contribute to its growth. The goal is not to find a flawless community, but to be part of building a faithful one. Fit matters—but so does sacrifice.
“Disregard of adab leads to disregard of respect (ḥurma), and disregard of respect leads to neglect of reverence (taʿẓīm), and neglect of reverence leads to neglect of gratitude (shukr). And when gratitude is neglected, loss of faith (īmān) is to be feared. That is because the faith of the godservant (ʿabd) does not prove true except through adab, and bad conduct (sū’ al-adab) shows a lack of knowing (maʿrifa).”
–Sahl b Abdullah Al-Tustari (d. 283/818)2
The Peel
Orange peels are interesting. We take them for granted because of their omnipresence; they’re a mere inconvenience that impedes our ability to achieve our goal. Still, we shouldn’t dismiss a thing’s utility simply because we view its function as expired. Despite their tough texture and bitter taste, orange peels are the exterior barrier protecting the internal fruit—the goal we seek.
Simply put, we cannot enjoy an orange without first confronting and enduring its peel. Furthermore, how we handle the peel will determine how intact the fruit will be after peeling. In community life, the metaphorical equivalent of an orange peel is adab (good manners).
Adab is more than etiquette—it is spiritual character and presence. As I reflected in From the Etiquettes of Mentorship, true adab often looks like humility and deference: “Head down, mouth shut, just serve.” That posture is not weakness—it’s strength rooted in sincerity. In communal life, this translates into how we carry ourselves in masjid spaces, how we speak to elders and youth alike, and how we honor the people around us—even when no one is watching. I’ve personally experienced this in masjid spaces growing up, where elders—many of whom did not share my background—welcomed me as a Blackamerican child not because of similarity, but because of their own grounding in adab. That kind of conduct is more than a social nicety; it becomes the emotional skin of the community. Adab is what softens us enough to reach for the sweetness, and it’s also what protects the fruit from being spoiled before it’s even tasted.
Today, however, adab is often mistaken for outdated formality or dismissed altogether as irrelevant—especially in a cultural moment that prizes bluntness, instant expression, and speed over restraint, patience, and presence. But adab is not just about social codes; it is about spiritual posture. It is how we show up with humility in spaces shared with others and in the unseen presence of Allah. In a world shaped by individualism and emotional reactivity, adab is countercultural. It slows us down. It protects us from arrogance. And, perhaps most importantly, it reminds us that every interaction is an opportunity to either nourish or damage the soul of the community.
We’re also wired now to think of community in individualistic—or worse, capitalistic—terms. “Roughly half of customers say they would switch to a competitor after just one bad experience. In the case of more than one bad experience, that number snowballs to 80%.”3 The loss of a customer for a business translates to a matter of dollars and cents—it’s a material loss, and there are ways we can adjust to account for that. But the loss of someone’s heart deprives the community of them and deprives them of a community.
That is why forgiveness and repair must be part of the ecosystem we build. Disappointment, friction, and even harm are inevitable in real community life—not because the community is broken, but because it is alive. The sweetness of community is not found in the absence of difficulty, but in our willingness to return to one another after difficulty. To forgive, to be held accountable, to apologize, and to begin again—these are not threats to community, they are the work of it. Without the courage to repair what has been damaged, we risk reducing community to a disposable experience. But when we face conflict with sincerity and faith, we become not just consumers of community, but caretakers of it.
The stakes are high for everyone. We must remember Allah described the believers in the Quran as “compassionate with one another.”4 For those already belonging to a community, our adab is: a representation of the entire community (not just ourselves), the foundation on which we build camaraderie with others, and the first thing others from outside the community encounter. For those who don’t belong to a community, our adab works in the opposite way—making it easier for others to receive us. Just as people can be repelled by a community member’s poor adab, community members can be less receptive and welcoming to us if our adab is poor. We all have to work together.
Just like the peel of every orange differs in thickness and peelability, every community has specific adab and there’s no circumventing that. Albeit a steep learning curve, especially if the community is very different from the one we grew up in, it behooves us to put in the effort for the sake of Allah. The underlying reason why we want to be in community is to aid us on our path to Allah’s pleasure; therefore, we must center and prioritize Allah from the onset. Ibn Ata’illah Al-Askandari (d. 709/1310) said, “Among the signs of success at the end is the turning to God at the beginning.”5
The Juice
How do you describe the taste of orange juice to someone who’s never had it before? The best we can do is describe its pleasurable attributes and benefits. The same goes for the community. Whenever my teachers spoke about community and community building it always seemed like something theoretical and esoteric, not because I hadn’t been in community before, but because how they described it wasn’t my experience. Serving in the community space for a decade now, I’ve come to realize that my experience is shared by many—either we speak about it as a pre-modern conceptualization (i.e., the ummah) or as a post-modern entity (i.e., organizations)—yet it still feels inaccessible and, worse, dissatisfying.
A healthy community is not an independently autonomous entity, whose purpose is to provide a physical space or engaging programming. When the perspective is focused on either the space or programming, the relationship is fundamentally capitalistic—its success and failure are determined by aesthetics or attendance, rather than function or impact—producing a parasitic relationship where community workers compete for economic viability via aggregating atomized community participants (not genuine members because they go wherever the aesthetic or attendance they desire is found without establishing any loyal membership anywhere) with no incentive to engage more than physical attendance or monetary donation. Legal entities, physical spaces, and engaging programming are important parts of community, but they aren’t the sweetness that we seek from community—they aren’t the juice we want to drink—and they definitely shouldn’t be the goal. Those are means to accomplish the overarching goal. A healthy community is an altruistic and sustainable ecosystem that cultivates a sense of belonging among its members and generates a cohesive confidence rooted in the shared desire to engage, contribute, and serve.
Creating a sense of “belonging” is a relatively easy task, but it differs for individuals and groups. In general, it only takes connecting with people with shared interests and a modicum of cordiality. For individuals, once that connection is created, the onus of sustaining it is entirely on them. If, for whatever reason, they fall out of connection—life happens—then their sense of belonging also goes, and they must recreate an entirely new bond. There’s a lot at stake, especially as we age and have more responsibilities (and less “free time”), and vulnerability typically comes less easily. God forbid thatith repeated disappointment, and we may lose hope of finding belonging al it is coupled wtogether. For groups, the dynamic changes; the onus of sustaining the point of connection is democratized amongst group members. Still, groups aren’t necessarily communities or sustainable ecosystems
The concept of sustainable ecosystems is not new nor one I created, but taken from biology, and is defined as, “One that, over the normal cycle of disturbance events, maintains its characteristic diversity of major functional groups, productivity, soil fertility, and rates of biogeochemical cycling.”6 A sustainable community is one that does not merely survive adversity, but adapts and continues to nurture the well-being of its members through it. Like a healthy ecosystem, it holds fast to its core identity—its values, roles, and relationships—even when shaken by hardship, conflict, or change. Its strength lies not in uniformity, but in the diversity of contributions from elders, youth, caregivers, teachers, and others, each offering something essential to the whole. Among the most essential roles in this ecosystem are those of elders and spiritual guides—individuals who carry wisdom not only from books, but from life experience, restraint, and tested faith. They function like keystone species or internal regulators: quietly maintaining balance, preventing the overgrowth of harmful dynamics, and stabilizing the system in times of stress. Without them, a community may look vibrant on the surface but remain inwardly fragile—vulnerable to ideological swings, burnout, or moral confusion. A sustainable community honors its elders not just symbolically, but structurally—by listening to them, seeking their counsel, and building pathways for intergenerational transmission. As much as we need innovation and energy, we also need rootedness—those who remind us who we are, and Who we are ultimately serving.
Just as fertile soil allows plants to grow, a community rich in compassion, justice, and shared purpose creates space for individuals to flourish internally and externally. And like the unseen cycles that sustain nature, the constant exchange of trust, care, wisdom, and resources quietly sustains communal life. When these elements remain in balance, the community becomes a place of refuge and growth—a source of strength in uncertain times.
This is precisely the type of cohesion that Allah calls us toward: “Let there arise from among you a group inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong. It is they who will be successful.”7 While this verse speaks to the Ummah as a whole—a global body of moral witness and spiritual responsibility—it begins with the emergence of smaller, committed collectives who embody these values in their immediate context. Our communities are microcosms of that broader vision, and they become truly meaningful when they reflect its light in tangible, lived ways.
This is what the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ built in Madinah: not just a city, but a sanctuary of shared purpose. His community was not held together by mere proximity or rituals, but by trust, mutual care, spiritual striving, and moral clarity. Every person—young or old, new or native—had a place and a purpose. He ﷺ cultivated a society where people felt seen, where goodness was organized, where harm was addressed, and where no one’s contribution was too small to matter. That Prophetic model is not a distant ideal; it is the blueprint we are called to emulate.
A healthy community, then, generates a cohesive confidence—a shared spiritual assurance—that we are not alone in our striving. It moves people to serve not because of programming or pressure, but because they feel spiritually anchored and morally needed. Their service becomes a reflection of their belonging. When this local ecosystem functions as it should, each person knows that their presence matters, that goodness is both invited and protected, and that success is measured not by visibility, but by sincerity. This is the unseen sweetness we long to taste—the juice we all hope to drink.
The question that remains is not whether such communities are possible, but whether we are willing to commit to the slow, sacred work of building them.
Conclusion
We live in a time that tempts us toward speed, ease, and disposability. But communities—like oranges—do not grow overnight, and they are not manufactured. They are cultivated. The sweetness we seek cannot be bottled or outsourced. It must be grown from the inside out: by choosing our soil, honoring the peel, and trusting that the fruit will come in its season.
A healthy community is not one where everything fits neatly, where there is no disagreement or discomfort. It is one where people stay long enough to be known, where trust is earned slowly, where elders are honored, where conflict can be repaired, and where belonging is built through a shared desire to please Allah. It is, above all, a place where people are not merely served—but formed.
The Prophet ﷺ did not offer a utopia. He cultivated a garden—with roots in revelation, shade in compassion, and fruit in service. If we are serious about wanting to taste the juice of community, then we must also be serious about tending its tree: with presence, with patience, and with prayer.
The fruit is real. The sweetness is possible. But only if we are willing to do the slow, sacred work of planting.
Quran 14:25.
Al-Sulami, Abu Abd al-Rahman. A Collection of Sufi Rules of Conduct. Cambridge, UK: Islamic Society Texts, 2010. 4.
“Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2020.” Zendesk, 2020. https://d1eipm3vz40hy0.cloudfront.net/images/blog/PR-016008_Zendesk_CX%20Trends%20Report%202020_Final.pdf
Quran 48:29.
Ibn Ata’illah al-Sakandari. The Hikam: A Collection of Wisdom. Translated by The Matheson Trust. The Matheson Trust, 2009. 5.
Chapin, F. Stuart, Margaret S. Torn, and Masaki Tateno. “Principles of Ecosystem Sustainability.” The American Naturalist 148, no. 6 (1996): 1016–37. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2463560.
Quran 3:104.