Problems in the Hearts of Teens - Islamic Lecture
By Bilal Philips | 2026-01-15T18:54:05.691091+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Problems in the Hearts of Teens - Islamic Lecture
Speaker: Dr. Bilal Philips
Opening
Indeed all praise is due to Allah and as such we should praise Him, seek His help, seek refuge in Allah from the evil which is within ourselves and the evil which results from our deeds. For whomsoever Allah has guided, none can misguide, and whomsoever Allah has allowed to go astray, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah, and that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is the last messenger of Allah.
Introduction
The topic as was introduced to you, recurring problems in a Muslim teenager's heart. I've changed the topic a little bit. Though probably many of the problems that are in the Muslim teenager's heart is no different from that in the non-Muslim teenager's heart.
Because of the times and because of the fact that teenagers, wherever they are, in whatever culture they may be, do have some common characteristics. And the idea here of looking at these problems is to try to find some kind of Islamic solution since we're talking about the Muslim teenager's heart. To try to find some solutions to deal with these problems.
So what I would like to do, I have made up a list of problems that I think you guys have in your hearts. Now how many of you are actually teenagers? Stick your hands up. I see a lot of pre-teens here, or you guys are just short.
Oh okay, you're just short. Alright, as I said, I have a list of problems that I figure you think you have in your hearts. But rather than me tell you what you have in your hearts, I'd like you to tell me what's in your hearts.
List of Problems in Teen Hearts
So we're going to need a mic. Is there some mic that I can hand? Is there a wireless mic that I can hand to them if I go amongst them and ask them? Or they have to come up here? They have to come up here? Aha, alright.
Well, who is first to share one problem in your heart as a Muslim teenager? Okay, come and share one problem with us.
Music. Music! Yeah, that was on my list. Can we put music up on the screen there? Music.
Alright. Another problem. Somebody else.
Girls. Girls. Okay.
That was on my list too. Who else? Okay. Maybe you don't have to go.
You can just tell me and then I will just say it. Huh? TV. Okay, that's the media.
Okay, can we add that to the list please? TV. TV. Now remember, these are problems that you feel inside your heart, you know.
Which you as a Muslim means in some way it's affecting your Islam. Okay, so we have TV there. I mean TV is a source of a problem.
Because TV by itself is not necessarily so, you know, it depends on what you're watching, right? Isn't it, really? So, what do you have? Games. Meaning what? Video games. Alright.
Video games. Okay. Okay, let's add that.
We can add that, video games. Is somebody making a list? Do we have a list happening somewhere? Okay, what do you have? Drugs. Okay, in general I hope you don't really have it.
Okay. Yeah, I have drugs down here. Drugs, yeah.
Video games. That's not writing so well. Okay.
How old are you? Huh? Do you have an older brother or what? Huh? Well, you think you have a problem that's going to happen? Huh? Smoke. What's that? Smoking what? Cigarettes or drugs? Cigarettes. Okay.
Smoking cigarettes, I'm sure that could be a problem too. Is it a better pen? Thank you. Smoking, huh? Alright, thank you.
Smoking, video games. Alright. You're past teens, man.
You've got a beard on you. Finding good friends. Okay, so the problem is really bad friends.
We're talking about the problems, right? Bad friends. Good. Clothing, yeah.
Fashion, I had that one down, yeah. Fashion. Parties.
Well, is it really parties or is it girls? I think it's girls, right? That's the same problem. Okay. Huh? Peer pressure.
Well, again, is it peer pressure? The problem which is within your heart is not so much the peer pressure. We're talking about really what's coming out, what's the product of it first. Let me go back and look.
Peer pressure is one of the main causes. What do you have? Huh? Fighting. Okay, I have that down as gangs and bullying.
Gangs, you know? You have gangs. Some of the schools, you have gangs. And these gangs beat up on other gangs and other people, right? Is that a problem? Is that a problem that exists or not? It's real? Okay, gangs.
Okay, looks good. Okay. Another problem that I found, okay, nightclubs.
But nightclubs, again, that's music and girls. You know, it's everything together there, right? How about this one? Nobody said this one yet. But I don't see anybody with the problem.
But, you know, this body piercing. People sticking rings in their nose and their studs in their tongues and stuff like that. I don't see anybody.
Anybody got a ring in his nose here? Huh? Alhamdulillah, you haven't gone that far yet. Inshallah. No? Okay.
Laziness. Everybody's got a laziness problem, really. Huh? Robbing.
Well, criminality. Okay. Sports.
Well, sports sometimes is a good thing. Really. I wouldn't say sports necessarily bad.
I mean, it's just how we deal with sports, isn't it? Really. Huh? Curfews. Ah.
Well, you know what I think curfews come under? How about this one? Disobedience to parents. Huh? I think that's what curfews comes under, right? People want to be free. No curfews.
Do your own thing, right? Ah, coarse language. Bad language. All right.
Bad language. Okay. What about this one? Dissatisfaction with ourselves.
You know the Michael Jackson syndrome? You never heard of that? The Michael Jackson syndrome, that's known as dissatisfaction with oneself. You don't like the way you look. You want to look like somebody else.
Huh? Is that a problem? Huh? Huh? For the girls. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think this is dissatisfaction, you know, what people call your body image, how you look.
You know, how you want people to be able to see you and to like you and, you know. Right? But the other one was crime. Did we have crime up there? Huh? We said robbing.
We said it's really crime like shoplifting. You know, people going to stores and because they like to have what everybody else has. Hmm? Other friends of yours have some nice things and you don't have them so the
shortcut is to go to the store and take it when the shopkeeper is not looking.
Right? Huh? We have some problems with shoplifting. Right? That's a crime. Crime, okay.
Shoplifting, crime. Alright. If we add all of these points that we've looked at.
Right? These problems which occur and recur inside of your hearts. These are symptoms or products of another problem. Actually somebody here pointed out that problem.
Who said peer pressure? Yeah. This is the big problem which creates these other problems. Peer pressure.
Understanding Peer Pressure
What does peer pressure mean? Can you explain what peer pressure means? What does peer pressure mean? Huh? A group of friends pressure someone to what? To do something they don't want to. Hmm. A group of friends pressure someone to do something they don't want to.
Well, it may not be something you don't want to. It could be something you don't think you should do. You might want to do it.
Because usually when you get pressured you end up doing something you have a desire to do it. Because if you had absolutely no desire to do it. Then it's much more difficult for peer pressure to affect you.
But when you have a desire, you have some desire to want to do this. Oh. Oh.
From the girl's side. Did they have anything they would like to add? Before we look further at the peer pressure problem. We have a microphone over in the girl's section.
If they would like to add anything to the list of recurring problems. No? Okay. Anyway, so we said it is the peer pressure.
Where the group of friends, the people that you are with. They are all doing something or they all want to do something. Huh? They all want to do something.
And you may not want to do it because you think it's not really right. But you still would like to do it. And because everybody else is doing it you end up doing it.
This is the peer pressure. And what does Islam say about peer pressure? Anybody have an idea? What does Islam say about peer pressure? It's haram. Those who feel that peer pressure is haram, put your hands up.
Those who feel that peer pressure is halal, put your hands up. Sometimes. Those who just don't know, stick your hands up.
That's the majority of people here, right? Just don't know. Well, peer pressure.
The Islamic Ruling on Peer Pressure - The Concept of Imma'ah
Hadith Reference:
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) had said that the Muslim should not be imma'ah.
Imma'ah. You know imma'ah? Actually there is no word in English for imma'ah. But he went on to say, he explained what is imma'ah.
Imma'ah is when people are good, you're good. When people are bad, you're bad. You know? You're with the people, wherever they go.
You're the sheep, yes. The sheep in the flock. The flock goes that way, you're going that way.
It goes this way, jumping off a cliff, you're jumping off the cliff with them. That's imma'ah. Also, it's like we say, it's a twig in the stream.
In the stream, you know the water running down the stream. When the twig falls in the water, where does it go? Does it go upstream? It just goes with the stream, right? Or like a leaf in the wind. When the wind blows that way, the leaf goes that way.
When the wind shifts this way, the leaf goes this way. That's imma'ah. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, the believer, the Muslim, should not be imma'ah.
So if that's what peer pressure does, when the group wants to go this way, you go that way. When the group wants to go this way, you're going that way. And that's no good.
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, you shouldn't be like that. What does that mean? It means what? Huh? Yeah, you're following, but not just following, you're a blind follower. You're a blind follower.
You can't make up your own mind. Really, it's a sign of weakness. It's weakness of iman, but it's also weakness of personality.
You know? You don't have a mind of your own. You can't think for yourself. Is that good? No, it's not good at all.
It's dangerous. Yeah. Because if the group that you're with happens to be, you know, doing things that are really bad, then you can get yourself in serious trouble.
Insha'Allah, day after tomorrow, you'll hear some stories about young people your age who were imma'ah and ended up in jail. Ended up with many years to serve because they were imma'ah. So the believer, the Muslim, is not imma'ah.
Hadith on Imitation
Hadith with Arabic:
Also, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) had said about imitating people, this is the blind following, where people are this way, you wanna be that way. People are that way, you wanna be that way. He said: Whoever imitates a people is like them, is just like them, is one of them.
So this is not a good state to be in. Muslim must have his or her own personality. Each person has to know who they are.
Because each person has to answer to Allah. Your friends can't answer. When you have to stand before Allah on the Day of Judgment, can you call on your friend from your peer group and say, Hey, can you answer Allah here for me please? Allah is asking some tough questions, I can't answer these.
Can you please help me out now? No. It doesn't work. You can't do that.
You have to answer for yourself. Each person has to answer for himself or herself. That's why being imma'a or imitating people is no good.
Unless the people that you're imitating are good people. If they're good people, then it's good. Most of the time, people are not imitating good people.
Most of the time, we're imitating our peer group. We want to be like them. So, if we look at this situation, we have to say that the root of this, where does this come from? These ideas about fashion.
The Root Issue - Music and Halal vs Haram
Can we get our list up here again please? All the things. Go back to the top. Where's the top of the list? We have music on the top.
Where do you think that the music comes from? The music which is haram. Because we know in Islam, there's music which is halal, isn't there? Huh? You didn't know there's halal music? Yeah, there's halal music. Do you have any idea what halal music is? Use of Islam? Yeah, he makes some halal music, yeah.
Huh? Huh? Anasheed? Yeah, some anasheed, inshallah. Okay, music which doesn't have bad language. That's true.
Because if you have music, and the people are singing, and what they're singing or saying has dirty language, then of course it's haram. Okay, what else? If it has in it what? Huh? Having it what? Arabic music. Stand up.
If it has in it what? Huh? Arabic? If it has in it Arabic, it's haram? It's good. Well, no, no, no. If it has Arabic, it could have Arabic swear words.
You know, they have swear words in Arabic too. So, it's not just having Arabic. Huh? Instruments.
Is it all instruments? Huh? Okay, except for the daf. Right, the daf which is like a hand drum, tambourine. All the other instruments, all of the other instruments, are haram.
Why? Why? Okay, now if we're going to try to go through all the why's here for all this list here, we might not be able to finish this session on time. But, since music is a particular problem, it is important for us to look at a little bit of why. Why are these musical instruments haram? Is it because of their shape? Like a guitar has a shape, maybe it looks something like a woman's shape.
Is that why it's haram? No? Okay. So, what about a piano? Huh? Why are musical instruments haram? They hurt your ears? Well, I don't know about that. What do you think? They make terrible music? They make terrible music? Well, maybe.
Some people don't think it's terrible. They give false hope. They give false hope.
In what sense? Ah, sugar coats bad things. But some people say maybe sugar coats good things. What if I'm saying some good things and I add this music along, it makes it nicer.
When it does that, it kind of makes a person... Okay, rather than saying that it's hypnotic and addictive. What do you think about addictive? Huh? I think we'd agree on that one, right? Definitely addictive. You get used to it, you don't want to let it go.
If you don't have it, then you start shaking, right? Where's my music? Music. Well, musical instruments, they have a way into the heart. They have a way of sneaking into the heart and getting a hold of the heart.
In such a way that ten years from now, your favorite song that you have today, ten years from now, you've forgotten the song. But if you hear two or three notes from that song, you'll remember the whole song again. It has a way of captivating the heart.
Those musical instruments gives it a stronger ability or power to go in and captivate the heart. And this is where the addiction comes from. So because of that, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), he told us that we are not supposed to use these instruments.
And he said that in the time to come, people will make halal these wind instruments. He called ma'azif. They will make them halal.
Meaning that they're not halal. They're not halal. So, we have some points from the girl's side.
Additional Problem - Gossip
One of the problems facing the girls, young girls, is gossip. Alright. Gossip.
But we said, and the gossip is a product also of peer pressure. Where you sit with people and they start talking about other people. Maybe you don't feel that you should really be talking about these people.
It's not really right because gossip really is haram.
Hadith with Arabic:
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) had said: Nammam is a person who spreads gossip.
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) says they won't enter paradise. So it means gossip is not a good thing, right? Right? Okay. So what happens? We said that this peer pressure, which is made stronger by the media.
What you watch on television. We talked about the TV. The movies.
All of these things. It makes these problems which we have in our hearts bigger. Now where does all this come from? Who is behind this? Satan.
Shaytan. Yes. Satan is behind it.
And Allah warned us to beware of Satan because he is a clear enemy to us. He is an avowed enemy. He has swore he is going to misguide each and every one of us.
He is our enemy. Satan. So what does he do? He puts temptation before us.
Satan's Strategy - The Lesson from Adam and Eve
See all of these things you want to do. Put our list back up there again please. Can we see the list? Where is our list? Back to the top.
To the top of the list. Music. Girls.
We are going to look at girls and that later on. Sunday we have a whole session on girlfriends and boyfriends. So we leave that till later.
TV. Drugs. Smoking cigarettes.
Parties. Gangs. Body piercing.
Disobeying parents. In all of these things if we look there are good things to replace these. There are good things that can replace these.
Every one of them. Music. It is the haram form of music which is not allowed.
But there is halal music. There is plenty of halal music. But you know what Satan does? The same thing that he did to Adam and Eve.
What did Satan do to Adam and Eve? Huh? What did he do? You don't know. You know who Adam was right? Who was he? The one who what? The one who created us. Oh boy you got a problem here man.
You got a serious problem. Adam didn't create us. Huh? Who was Adam? Adam was the first human being.
He didn't create us. Okay. We came from him that's true but he didn't create us.
He didn't have a test tube and a chemistry set and he made the rest of us. No, no. He is our great great great grandfather.
Okay. That's Adam. But what did Satan do to Adam? Okay.
Satan tempted Adam and Eve to take from the forbidden tree the apple. Was it an apple? Where did you get apple from? Huh? Huh? You don't know. Okay.
Don't say apple then if you don't know. Right? We don't know what tree it was. We don't know what tree it was.
What was on that tree? But the big question. What's the big question here? Big question is was that the only tree in paradise? Huh? Was that the only tree in paradise? Huh? No. There were many other trees.
Right? In fact, paradise was full of trees. But there was just one tree in the middle. All of the other trees all around it.
Because of course in a forest every tree becomes like the middle, isn't it? All the other trees around it were halal. But that one tree Allah said don't eat from it. Why did Allah say don't eat from it? Was it a good tree? Or was it a bad tree? Huh? It was a bad tree.
Yeah. It was a tree which was not really a good tree. Because Allah is not going to say don't do this if it's good for you.
No. If He says don't do it, it's because it's not good for you. So there was one bad tree.
He created a garden full of good trees. And one bad tree in there. Okay? So now Adam and Eve they could eat from all of these other trees.
And they ate from the other trees. Wonderful things in the other trees. Now what did Satan do? Satan came to him.
Came to Adam and Eve. No, he wasn't a snake. This is what Christians say, right? He was a snake.
Anyway, Satan came to Adam and Eve. Right? And he told them, listen. You know that one bad tree, really it's a good tree.
In fact, it's the best tree. It's the best tree in the whole of paradise. See, this was a trick, isn't it? It was the one bad tree.
And he told them that it was the best tree. If you eat from this tree, you're going to become kings. And you're going to live forever.
Sounds good, right? And wouldn't you like to be a king? Why not? Of course, everybody would like to be a king. You wouldn't like to be a king? Sure, all of us would like to be a king. Would you like to live forever? Not die? Sure.
So, this was the trick of Satan. He fooled Adam and Eve into thinking that the one bad tree was the best tree. And that's what he's doing now with all of this whole list that we have there.
All of these things. Where it involves haram. Right? These are all bad things.
Where it involves haram. I'm not saying everything, because we say girls. Are girls haram? No, no.
Girls are not haram, but where you have relations with girls that you're not supposed to have, that's haram. So we're talking about all of these haram things that are there on our list. There are good things to say, if we think about it.
The Comparison - Bad Words vs Good Words
Bad language. How many swear words are there? Huh? You know how many swear words? How many swear words are there? Thirteen. Oh, you've done some real research here.
Came up with thirteen swear words. Thirteen is, of course, supposedly a bad luck number for these people, right? Well, anyway, you came up with thirteen. Well, probably there's a lot more than thirteen, but... Twenty, or fifty, even a hundred.
If we say there's a hundred, and I'm sure if I asked you to make a list of all the swear words you know, you probably wouldn't get past twenty. You probably wouldn't get past twenty. How many words are there in the dictionary? No.
I'm giving you a comparison, something to compare it to. If you can only think of, no matter how hard you try, you could only find twenty or twenty-five swear words, if that, and the dictionary contains thousands. Huh? Well, it depends on the size of your dictionary.
But say thousands of words, right? If you have twenty-five bad words, and you have thousands of good words, why are you going to focus on those twenty-five bad words? Satan. Satan makes you think that those twenty-five bad words, these are the good words. Isn't it? These are the words we should be saying, because our friends, our buddies, they're all saying it.
So, we should be saying that, these are the words we need to say. But really they're not. That is the same trick of Satan.
And if you go through all the things, the drugs, all the drugs that people take, there are so many other things which are pleasurable. The amount of drugs are limited. The number of plants which produce these drugs, which are harmful to us, there are millions of other plants which produce things which are good for us.
Why do we want to leave the good plants and go to the harmful plants? Who's behind that? Satan. He's the one behind it. So, this is part and parcel of Satan's plan.
To make the haram things seem pleasing to us. We like it. We feel that these are the things we have to do.
But really, there are so many other good things we could do instead.
Four Solutions to Protect Our Hearts
Okay. So, what is the solution? What is our solution? Well, I've figured out four basic solutions.
Solution 1: Spiritual Protection Through Dua
The first solution is to protect ourselves with dua. Before we go to sleep every night, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said we should recite three surahs. What are they? Nas, Falak and Ikhlas.
Yes. Surah Ikhlas, Qul Huwa Allahu Ahad. And Surah Al Falak, Qul A'udhu Bi Rabbil Falak.
And Surah Al Nas, Qul A'udhu Bi Rabbil Nas. To say these before we go to bed each night. Also he said, Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had said, that we should recite it after every what? After every meal? You read the wrong dua book.
After every Salah. Recite it after every Fard Salah. Every time you make Fard, after Salatul Fajr, Salatul Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha, you read these three Quls.
This is protection. This is spiritual protection, which the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) told us to use. What is said in that spiritual protection? Qul A'udhu Bi Rabbil Nas.
Take the last one. What does that mean? Qul A'udhu Bi Rabbil Nas. Say, I seek refuge in the Lord of humankind.
Or mankind. What about womankind? Okay, humankind. We seek refuge in the Lord of humankind.
Surah An-Nas (114:1-6):
Qul A'udhu Bi Rabbil Nas. Malikil Nas. What's Malikil Nas mean? The king of humankind.
The king of humankind. Ilahil Nas. The God, the one who should be worshipped by humankind.
Ming Sharril Waswasil Khannas. Ming Sharri from the evil of? Who is the Waswasil Khannas? Satan. But what is Waswasil Khannas mean? Jinn, we haven't reached Jinn yet.
Who is the Waswasil? What is Waswasa mean? Wiswas. You waswisu. Whispering.
Khannas. What's Khannas mean? Most merciful. You're in the wrong surah.
Khannas. What is Khannas mean? Khannas is a sneaky guy. He whispers in your heart.
Buzz, buzz, buzz. He runs away. He leaves you.
That's the Khannas. Alladhiyu waswisu fee suduril nas. Who whispers into the hearts of humankind.
From who? Mina al jinn, nati wal nas. From humankind and the jinn. So this Waswasil Khannas could be a person, your friends, the peer group.
Or it could be from the jinn. So we seek refuge. This is spiritual protection for us.
Seek refuge from Shaytan. The second thing that we have to do. Okay, that's number one.
Seeking spiritual refuge. That is a shield for us. We do that regularly.
Are you ready to do that? Are you ready to try that? Before you go to bed at night, you recite the three khuls in your hands. You sit and put your hands in front of you, recite them. What do you do after you finish reciting?
You what? Huh? No, no, no, no.
What do you do after you finish reciting these three into your hands? What do you do? Huh? No, no, no, no. Ah, okay, almost. He said you spit.
No, don't spit. Don't spit in your hand and rub it all over your face. No, no, no.
It's not what it says. You blow into your hands, right? But you blow with using your tongue. So you do like this.
Without spit coming. Huh? You blow this way. Into your hands.
Then you rub it over your whole body. Okay? Ah. Time's up.
Give me one more second, okay? Ah, you blow and you wipe it over your body. Okay, that's your protection.
Solution 2: Dhikrullah - Remembering Allah
The next thing is dhikrullah. To remember Allah. When you get the desire, you want to say some bad word, Say, subhanallah. Alhamdulillah.
Whatever intent those, you can hear the word coming out of your mouth, you stop yourself and put something else in its place, where you remember Allah. Huh? Can we try to do that?
Solution 3: Choose Good Friends
The third, is we have to get some good friends. If we want to change, we want to fix the problems that are inside of our hearts, then we have to get some good friends.
Because Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, that you will be raised on Yawmul Qiyamah with your friends. Raised up. Resurrected.
You come out of the grave, and next to you, is gonna be your buddy. The guy who is your best friend here. Now if he was a nasty, you know, low down, evil character, then that's who you're raised up with.
You're gonna have to stand before Allah with that guy beside you. Will you want him? No. So therefore, you have to choose the right people now.
Solution 4: Seek Knowledge to Cure Ignorance
The last point, is ignorance. Why are you caught up in some of these things? It's because of ignorance. You don't know Allah.
You don't know what Allah's commands are. You don't know why you're here. Why are you created? To believe in Allah? Why are you created? You need to find the answer for this.
And, what you're trying to do to be happy, to enjoy, you need to know what is the consequence, what happens when you do this. So, you have ignorance. And the solution, the cure for ignorance is what? What's the cure for ignorance? Knowledge.
That's right. We need to get some knowledge. So by getting knowledge, you can cure the ignorance. InshaAllah, you can cure those sick points, that are recurring in the hearts, of the Muslim teenager. InshaAllah. BarakAllahu feekum.
Closing
I would like to give you a chance to ask some questions. However, time's up. It was real.
Nice meeting you.