Future of Youth Activism (Youth Conference)
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-09T12:26:09.863346+00:00 | Topic: Youth
Future of Youth Activism - ADAMS Youth Conference 2013
Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan
Opening and Greetings
You guys can hear me alright? You can be okay? Okay. Well, I just want to tell you how awkward this is first. What I do on campus with my students, if a student walks in late, I give them a standing ovation and make the entire student body give them a standing ovation for a good five minutes.
So I just got paid back for what I put my students through for several years. But anyway, I'm going to be sharing some thoughts with you (inshallah ta'ala) in these brief moments we have together about the future of youth activism. I've talked about this subject many times but there are some thoughts that I think everybody here, I see some elders here and I see some young people here that I think it's important for us to think about and (inshallah ta'ala) I hope I have some clarity and some organization of thought in what I have to share with you.
The Current State of Muslim Youth Activism
I want to begin with the idea that (alhamdulillah) we're blessed with a country and we're blessed with Muslim communities across this country that have some really talented young people that have been serving their communities and they've been trying to do things on college campuses and in high schools and at the masajid and volunteering whether inside the masjid for educational organizations like Sunday schools and Islamic schools or Hiv schools or at youth programs and youth halaqat and those sorts of things or even outside of that in political groups or action committees or humanitarian efforts.
So we have (mashallah) a really good contingent of young people that are doing some pretty amazing things. More and more conferences are being put together and a lot of the people, probably most of the people that have that are the backbone of putting those programs together are young people and this is a new phenomenon for the ummah. It's actually a pretty difficult, pretty different trend for the Muslims and it didn't look like this 50, 60 years ago anywhere in the Muslim ummah. You did not find the Muslim youth carrying the load or doing most of the work, it was actually the elders that were more so involved in religious activism so (alhamdulillah) we are actually at the forefront of something pretty awesome but we need to take some serious steps.
The Challenge: Disconnected Muslim Youth
The reality of it is, as many people as are here (mashallah) sitting inside this very warm hall as many people as are here, there are so many more Muslims in this community and many other communities across the country that are basically not interested in Islam and it's not just Islam, they just don't see the point in religion altogether. They just don't care. They're not evil people, they're not bad people. I mean some people call them liberals, some people call them progressives some people call them ignorant or not knowledgeable indeed, etc, etc. I don't use any of those terms. I just say those people were raised in a society where they saw that religious people, people that were religious are very harsh people that are religious are very judgmental people that are religious are very to themselves they have their own cliques and their own clergy and they stick to that and they just keep everybody else out they look down upon others that aren't as righteous as they themselves are or people that are religious are just plain backwards. I'll say that last one again so it hurts a little more - religious people are just backwards, they're unsophisticated they're not very thought provoking they don't care about career or advanced education and things like that.
Changing Perceptions of Religious People
So for example, some of this is in America most of this is across in the rest of the ummah for example, where I come from originally, from Pakistan a guy with a beard is probably a guy who doesn't care about his education much. A guy that you see at the masjid for fajr must not be a guy that's gonna do something big ever in life, he's probably just gonna the most he's ever gonna do is leave his home for a few weeks to do dawah or something. This guy is not gonna accomplish things in life. That perception of religion has to be shattered. That perception of Islam has to be shattered.
Islam is a means by which people are empowered. They're empowered to do amazing things for their deen but through that deen they're also empowered to do amazing things for their dunya. Their dunya becomes full of blessings because it's guided by their deen. They're the people that are able to launch the most successful and powerful and ethical institutions organizations.
Example of Ethical Standards in Corporate World
And I wanna just kind of bring this down to earth a little bit before I share my actual ideas with you. How many people here work in corporate America? In corporate America, ok now in large corporations, for example, you're a consultant or your company has a contract with the government - after all, we are in Virginia right? Your company has a contract with the government and when you have a contract with the government maybe you, your services are contracted for 6 months to finish a project. You can finish the project in 3 months, 2 months even. You're done so you go to your manager and say, I'm done we should let our client know that we're done we got 4 months of nothing more to do and your manager says to you, relax the contract is for how long? 6 months they're gonna pay us another 4 months and we're gonna bill them $1000 an hour or whatever. Why would we tell them we're done? Why would we take 6 months of money and reduce it to 2 months of money? Just relax, just stay on your computer memorize
some Quran if you want to take extra long breaks for Jumu'ah you know, just sit there and watch Islamic YouTube videos I don't care just sit there, relax, you don't have to worry about it.
You know what? That is at the heart of the corruption that happens that the government won't come after you for. It's not illegal it's just plain unethical. It's unethical and Muslims that are actually educated in their religion wouldn't stand for it. They'd have a problem with that. So if they can't change that in their company they're gonna start a company that doesn't do those things. They're gonna become employers that have ethical standards. They're gonna hold themselves to a higher standard.
Creating Ethical Leaders
What am I trying to tell you? Even the world around us where we see sophistication and development and the allure, young college students feel like man, I can't wait to get a high paying job you can't wait to get that you can't wait to get the car, the apartment to be able to say, you know, I'm starting out at this company or that company. You know even though that allure is there, corruption is still there. The corruption in the Muslim world looks like dirt on the streets it looks like, you know, cops that are pulling you over and they're basically charging you the fine right then and there in cash and then they let you go. That's what the corruption looks like in the Muslim world but the corruption in the sophisticated world is a lot more subtle but it's still there. Muslims with the right education will stand up against corruption. They'll create institutions that do not allow for any form of corruption.
So this is the kind of thing we have. This is the kind of generation we have to create in these 10 or 15 minutes that I want to talk to you. I just want to talk to you about how are we going to build that generation and this talk of mine is based on a couple of things. It's my studies in deen but it's also my observation of our own community just what I've seen across the country and what I think - Allah ta'ala a'lam - what I think is the way forward for our youth for the young people.
The Importance of Role Models in Islamic Tradition
And some of you that are sitting in this audience I'm talking directly to you and some of the elders, I'm talking about your children. The fact of the matter is we as a people revolve ourselves around role models. Muslims are obsessed with role models. This is not our fault. It's the beginnings of our ummah. Our first role model is Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلمafter him it's the Khulafa Ar-Rashideen Al- Mahdiyeen. They became our role models. After them the great stellar scholars of Islam became our role models. We learn their lives we study their heroism we study their character because we want to emulate that character. We have always been a people that gravitate towards role models.
Obviously in the modern world the thing to aspire towards the thing that people gravitate towards are institutions and brands right, so people want to go to Harvard they don't know any single professor at Harvard they don't have a role model at Harvard they just like the Harvard brand they want to go to Harvard. Somebody wants to go buy a Mercedes they don't know the name of the engineer who made it
they just like the brand Mercedes. So it's institutions and brands that people come towards not individuals.
But the Muslim community, us even in 2013 we still gravitate towards who? Role models. We still gravitate towards role models whether we have role models as scholars, da'is, khateebs. People find a person and they say that person is amazing, that's a role model to me I want to listen to them I want to learn more from them. That's what we do and I say that that's not necessarily a bad thing. It can become a bad thing but it's not inherently a bad thing.
Producing Young Role Models
What we have to learn to do to save our youth is we have to produce young role models. We have to produce young role models. The idea of what does it mean to produce a role model is not to produce a khateeb. Is not to produce a guy or a young man or a young woman who's going to speak at Islamic conferences. That's just one kind of service. There are many other services that need to be provided but in all of them there needs to be some common elements of education. Those are the ones that I hope in the next maybe 7-8 minutes I can present to you in my opinion.
Woah, that is huge wow, (mashallah) yup, and it's going to the sister's side which is even better yup, yup, that's going to happen that's what happens. The most exciting thing that will happen in today's program ladies and gentlemen. Okay, what was I talking about? Something about the story of Adam a.s. or something? What was I talking about? Role models? Okay, okay, okay. I have to tell you a funny story since it came in my head so I just got to share it with you.
You know, I just met with some family and a lot of my family is from Pakistan and they barely know English. They barely, barely know English and my uncle once told me when I visited him he goes, hey Noman, you came from New York you didn't bring any role models? I was like, you want me to bring you a role model from New York? He goes, you know they sell the role model at the airport? Oh, you mean souvenirs he called it a role model so cool.
But anyway, we need role models not the kind at the Hudson News but we need role models in the community.
Academic Investment in Young Leaders
How do we produce them? In my mind on the academic side, on the academic side Muslim youth that are already charismatic they're already kind of people gravitate towards them on campus. They're running programs at the Adams Center or other places in the area they're already giving a khutbah here and there the sister's already running some halaqat people know her as someone who's aspiring to learn more and is making others become more active around them. We have to identify those young people and we have to invest in them. We have to identify those people that are charismatic enthusiastic about learning
religion and they're already people that others are gravitating towards. They're on their way to becoming role models for the Muslim youth anyway. The Muslim community has to identify those people and we have to put our support behind them.
Now what does that mean, put your support behind them? I've been thinking about this for a long time for myself how would we do that? How do you take a young person and you say the community is going to support that person and when I say community please understand I don't mean the board of directors at a masjid I don't mean that don't confuse the word community with an abstract group of people that meet once a week. That is not the community. Those are some elders and seniors of our community that are trying to run the organization. They are not the community they are simply organizational members of that community that are helping administer some things.
The Real Community
The community is families. The community is not some bureaucracy it's families, it's you people you're the community. So when I say you find young people and the community supports them until you get a don't wait for an official letterhead from the masjid. You guys have to start that conversation in your living rooms. You have to take the initiative from your homes because you are the community. You don't think that when you come into the masjid or into the center or into this gym that is getting extremely hot until you come here that's when you experience community. It's not true that's not true. This community extends to every neighborhood in the area it extends to every halal restaurant that's where our community is that's where the conversations are.
So you identify this guy named Abdullah or this guy named Zubair and you say hey that brother or this girl named Fatima she's pretty smart and she's doing a lot of good for our girls a lot of girls like to listen to her and she's starting youth programs. We should support Fatima. We should support Zainab. How do you support them? You open up a pathway for them for education.
Challenges with Traditional Islamic Education Abroad
For the longest time Islamic education meant we send our children abroad. So if we want our children to get a real serious in-depth Islamic education we better send them to Pakistan Bangladesh Indonesia Malaysia Turkey Saudi Azhar you know Jama'at Medina Jama'at Ummul Quran Mecca you send them to India you send them somewhere Syria. So many of our youth have gone abroad and studied but it doesn't take me to tell you that the political situation in the Muslim world is pretty bad and to send our young people over there in that turbulent environment isn't always the best idea. I know they really want to go they really want to go but it's not necessarily the best idea all the time for some people it may be the right thing but I'm telling you for most kids it's not the right solution because they end up going there and one of several things happen.
One, they end up not learning as much as they should have. Two, they end up learning things that they cannot possibly bring back to the youth here so they learn this text this classical text which is an awesome text but when they come back to Virginia and they come back to Texas and North Carolina nobody cares. The youth don't want to hear about some classical text that you learned back then and you want to sit and start a halaqah and two people show up and then one of them left and the other one's your brother and you force him to come with you or whatever. You know we can't teach people Islam that we want we have to give people Islam that they need that they're in need of that they're experiencing.
Hello that thing is that a jinn or something? I don't know I don't mean that I didn't mean that I totally stop it so anyhow somebody catch that thing this thing is awesome really you're going to catch it? Oh my god oh my god master shifu in the house he's watched Karate Kid before I know so what I was talking to you about something about role models or something there's a role model right there but anyway anyway getting back to the subject.
Need for Islamic Education in America
What we really need is Islamic education for our young people here in America and we need solid intense not just halaqah not just seminars once in a while we need legitimate hardcore intense Arabic studies Quran studies Hadith studies Fiqh studies Sharia studies psychology studies from the Islamic perspective sociology studies political science studies Islamic history studies seerah studies philosophy studies from the Islamic perspective. We need those things here here because we know what our youth face when they go into college oh for that matter what they face in high school. We know those things so we have to create a custom catered education that we will offer to our role model youth to our star youth from every community.
We have to pick those youth out and we have to pull them out of that their original college track for at least 2 years. My theory is 2 years 2 years and then after 2 years they're they've built something and then they come back and they continue their college education no problem. They continue to go and they do whatever they were going to do originally if they were going to do accounting if they were going to do architecture if they were going to do medicine please don't do medicine there's enough medicine we got enough medicine but if they were going to do whatever other major they'll go ahead and do it.
And the community will pay for their education some people will come together and say we need you to stay here and invest yourself into this community. We're going to sponsor your Islamic education and on top of that we're going to sponsor your western education your secular education also because we want you to stay here and we want you to be an asset for our community.
The Need for Youth Directors
You know what the biggest need right now is across the country for masajid? It's not even imams. Our imams we have alhamdulillah quite a few imams may Allah reward them but you know what the bigger
need is even? Youth directors. Female youth directors male youth directors. But what are the qualifications of a youth director? What are the qualifications? Just a guy who's cool and kids like him and he plays ball with them and he knows a couple of ayat or have we set some sort of educational standard for this job description which is so badly needed?
And if we can create that job description and if we can create that educational standard then inshallah ta'ala it's my conviction personally it's my conviction that this country will look like a different place if every year we're graduating a couple of people that are versed enough in Islam that they're not scholars they're not scholars but they are effective activists. They are good solid activists who are connected to scholars then you've got yourself inshallah a growing army of very powerful young role models that can turn the tide that can be people of influence that can call the youth back that are so far away from deen. They can call them back because the young people are they gravitate towards other young people.
Age and Leadership
Honest to God I'm not saying this because it's not true it is true. I don't consider myself among the youth. I'm an uncle at this point. I was playing basketball with a bunch of kids at the ISB yesterday and they said hey uncle, pass me the ball and I said okay that's it I'm not playing anymore. But the fact of the matter is I am a uncle I am a chacha I am an uncle. You guys are the youth you guys are the youth. I used to teach Sunday school recently I went back to my the city I used to teach Sunday school and the kids I taught Sunday school were getting married and I'm like oh I'm old wow. You were sitting there in the third grade picking your nose and now you're getting married okay I won't tell your wife you were picking your nose but you know but you guys are in fact the future. You guys are the future and we have limited Muslim resources in this country.
There are limited resources so we have to have a serious conversation about how to make the most of those limited resources.
Educational Opportunities
I don't want to shamelessly sell to you a program or a service that I'm trying to offer that's not what I'm here for but there are a handful there are a handful of educational outlets in the country that are now up and coming. Zaytuna college is up and coming if you have the opportunity to go and especially for the hufadh people that have memorized Quran if you and your parents are okay with it I'd recommend you go. I think you'll get a good education there if you're serious about your Arabic studies and I mean really serious about your Arabic studies if you're ready to cry and sweat yeah, thank you sir thank you okay, good like sweat like this, yes which is not in a hall like this but sweat because you work so hard if you're ready to do that come to me I'll beat Arabic into you in 9 months but you can't even come this year because our applications are closed we're closed for the year.
But anyway what we're trying to do in Texas at least this is what I'm excited about what we're trying to do in Dallas, Texas is create Arabic studies for a year and then create Islamic studies with Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda with Shaykh Omar Suleiman and so many other Imams that are there in the area. Shaykh Yasir Birjas is there, Imam Yusuf Zia Kavachi is there, Imam Zia Sheikh is there all these Shaykhs are there so we're trying to create a one year of Arabic and one year of Islamic studies and community issues so that we produce people that can go back into their own communities.
Investing in Local Leadership
Nobody will come and save your community. Nobody from the outside. Don't look for some guy on YouTube hey we should get that guy he should be our Imam he should be our youth director. If he's already high profile and she's already a big deal when they come to you they'll come to you for a year or two and then they'll be offered something somewhere else and they'll go somewhere else. That's what's gonna happen. You want something from your community for your community. What do you have to produce? Your own people. You have to invest in your own people. You have to invest in the people that have their family here they have their roots here they have their extended family here they don't want to move out of here they want to stay here and from those youth will come the leaders for this community.
This community especially Maryland, Virginia, DC this area particularly in my opinion - I travel across the country I can tell you - this area is particularly blessed with a huge number of active youth huge number. I mean the amount of youth activism and volunteer force that's here for so many different programs in so many different directions is very very impressive it really is. With all of the problems in your community which every community has problems who doesn't have problems you are sitting on treasures. You're sitting on gems and they're sitting in the audience right next to you. You just have to identify them have a talk with their parents and push them in a particular direction.
Career Counseling and Professional Development
We need career counseling for these young people. What are they gonna be doing in six years and I don't want you to make your living or earn your living doing da'wah that's not what I want you to do. I want you to be a professional in your fields but I still want you to have a sound education in Islam. The young guys here the young sisters here I want you to get a sound serious education in Islam and I'm telling you it is now possible it is now possible.
Success Stories: Female Teachers
I am so proud as I wrap this up I am so incredibly proud of this year in our program in Dallas this year. For the first time you know as some of you know I've been teaching Arabic for a long time and one of my aspirations was man, I think I have a good way of teaching Arabic I wish I could train other people so they could do it they could teach in their communities, right? For the first time this year two of my students,
both sisters one who lives in Ohio one is actually from Texas but she's visiting her sister in lowa both of them taught the Arabic program that I'm supposed to teach in their communities to sisters. We have started producing female teachers young sisters that are teachers for their communities. It was just a theoretical idea like where do sisters go to get an education that they can give to other sisters. It's already starting to happen I just got a picture of the classroom on my phone texted to me and I was almost in tears subhanallah, this is happening it's taking place.
Building People, Not Just Buildings
You guys have to now think alhamdulillah, our elders have built the masajid. They've even built us a gym which is awesome. They've built these institutions. The Islamic schools have been built. That's been done. Now we have to build the people. It's time to build the people now and we have to invest in those people.
Every one of you knows some young person in the community that is worth investing in. I know it I know it for a fact but we haven't come to them and say look, I got your back whatever you need to do, I got you I'll take care of you. There are people that come out of the woodworks I was just teaching an Arabic class in Baltimore I'm in the middle of the Arabic class in Baltimore an uncle came up to me and said hey, listen, I'm this person that lives in this state I want to buy you a campus why don't you just move there I'll buy it for you. I was like, no thanks it's okay no, no, no, it's ready for you no strings attached just do whatever you want here's the campus hand you the keys, hand you the deed to the place.
There are people like that waiting to support but you know why he wants me to move out in the middle of nowhere? Guess why? Because he lives there because his kids were raised there his friends, his family are there. He wants something for his kids and his community's kids. I respect the loyalty he has to his community. I told him, why don't you just move to Texas, bro? He's like, no, that's my home and I respect that I respect that.
The Unique Nature of Leadership
I can't be everywhere. Imam Siraj Wahaj can't be everywhere you know Sheikh Omar Suleiman can't be everywhere Sheikh Hamza Yusuf can't be everywhere Imam Sahib can't be everywhere. They have to be in one community but you know what? You're going to have to produce your own. I keep coming back to the same point and until our community learns that lesson we will continue to suffer. Every passing day that we haven't invested into our youth there's a number of youth that we are losing and we are losing them fast. We are losing them quickly.
Modern Islamic Education Challenges
Even the, and I told you I know I said this the last point but I'll take exactly 5 more minutes I promise you. Islamic education as we thought about it is a completely different concept now just please pay attention.
It's a hard one. Islamic education as we thought about it was all about the text. You should know some ayat you should know some hadith you should know some duas you should know some fiqh you should know some facts about the seerah you should know some facts about aqeedah etc, etc, etc. It was all text. It was all information.
The problem with that information is when our kids end up on online forums or they end up on campus they start hearing questions like why do you even need religion? How do you even know there's a god? How are you so sure the Quran wasn't put together so much later? Here's a PhD thesis on how the Quran was put together and on the Uthmani Mus'haf or whatever and our kids are exposed to this stuff and they're like I don't know how to answer any of that.
And then they go to the shaykh hopefully not in this masjid because you have qualified scholars here but they go to the shaykh and they say I'm having doubts and he says just make more dua just go make wudu with us shaytan will leave you alone. Okay, yes, there's waswasah shaytan but there's also serious intellectual challenges serious challenges.
Contemporary Questions Facing Muslim Youth
Why are you even Muslim? Hey, do you Muslims believe in evolution? Hey, what do you guys think about gay marriage? Do you think gay people are evil? Is that what you think? And this kid is sitting in college like I don't know they didn't cover that in Sunday school I don't know. Do you guys believe in evolution or not? I don't know I never thought about it. Well, you guys believe in Adam and Eve, right? That doesn't make any sense how does all this data compete with Adam and Eve? Well, I guess not what do you guys believe in? And these kids don't even know.
Why am I bringing this up? Because these are the fundamental intellectual challenges to the foundations of our faith that you cannot escape. They are in our face. They are on the news. They are on campus. There are now campuses in America where they're building constructing neutral bathrooms. You know what that means? Neutral bathrooms gender neutral bathrooms. This is how powerful this movement's become. If we don't understand how Muslims are gonna respond to this if we don't have a thorough education of this ourselves how are we gonna face the modern world? We're not.
Preparing Youth for Modern Challenges
These discussions have to happen inside the masjid so that our kids know how to deal with them when they go outside the masjid. They should not be faced with challenges of agnosticism and atheism and pluralism you know, they should not be challenged with those things when they go outside. They should already be equipped on how to respond for themselves and for others inside our four walls. We gotta build that kind of Islamic education.
A Heartbreaking Example
It breaks my heart to tell you I was at the Ikna convention not too long ago which was in the east coast, it was in Connecticut. I met a bunch of Muslim youth who came to me afterwards and said yeah, first semester of college I decided I'm not even a Muslim. I'm only at the convention because my parents forced me to come. I asked the girl, why are you wearing a hijab? She goes, they forced me to wear it, I'm not interested in wearing it I don't even think Islam is a you know, first of all I don't believe in religion and Islam, totally not.
And this is a girl from first grade to high school Islamic school only. First grade to high school Islamic school only. I was her first grade teacher. I knew this kid when she was in first grade when she first came up to me and said her name I was like, hey, I remember you you always stuck the pencil in your nose and she said, yeah maybe it went too far because it messed with her head I don't know. But on a serious note why did that happen? It's not like she went to a bad Islamic school that's not what happened. She learned her surah, she memorized 6 or 7 juz she knew pretty decent Arabic she knew a lot about the surah. The problem was, our education was about the text not about the challenges our children will face. They weren't about the challenges that our children will face. That has to happen if that doesn't happen, we are in major, major trouble major trouble. That is what I'm proposing we have to invest in.
Seminary Programs and Solutions
And I'm really proud of our my dear colleague, Sheikh Abdul Nasir who's actually started the 10 month seminary, he's only accepting students that are serious about their Arabic already. They can read Arabic texts already and they're good at that. That's his testing mechanism and then he takes them and they go through the traditional uloom and they go through philosophical issues and they go through social and contemporary issues and they go through community issues with experts over the course of 10 intense months. We do these kinds of things in Texas and why are we doing them there? Because we live there. But you know who we're doing it for? Most of the people that are coming to us aren't from Texas they're from everywhere else.
My job is to prepare students with the Arabic, his job is to prepare the students for activism because you're going to need both. That's the two year plan. That's what we're putting together there and if you can't come there start working on something here. Create something that does it here if it's not, if it's already, I think there's the Qurtuba Institute here, isn't it? Support it, strengthen it join it, give them
suggestions tell them we need this kind of program and this kind of program and if they're doing a program, take part in it make it better.
Call to Action
Stop complaining about your institutions build them and strengthen them because they're a part of your home. That's how we're going to go forward. These efforts that some people make and they start something, they cannot go further until you become a part of them and you take them further not just with your money, but with your time your time, your talents. That has to be the case.
So my five minutes are up these are the few thoughts that I thought it was important for me to share with all of you, I honestly and sincerely pray that every masjid in America thinks about the families are there that invest in their own youth. See that this two years or three years of sacrifice, whatever it may be is worth the lives of their young and also the life of that entire community and the extended families.
Thank you so very much for listening I think they have a QA session now inshallah ta'ala I'll stick around another 10 minutes for that.