Shield of Honor

with. When you spend most of your time on a computer, you start taking on some of the qualities of the stuff you're reading and the stuff you're watching. It starts invading your thoughts.

The kinds of people you spend time with: if they're studying Islam all the time, you'll want to study Islam too. If they're playing basketball all the time, you'll develop a habit for playing basketball also. If they're going to watch movies all the time, you're going to want to go to the movies too. Your environment has an effect on you. The people you surround yourself with has an effect on you.

The Muslim community, starting with the Muslim family and then evolving to the Muslim community, needs to actually have a campaign to ensure our young children are in the company of good role model older kids - like a big brother, big sister type thing.

When our girls are 12, 13, 14, when they're coming up in their ages, some of the more leading Muslim girls in our community that are 17, 18, 19, they're going to college, they're holding on to their religion, they're learning their deen - these girls are role models. They don't even know it. And our younger girls need to be spending time with these older girls. It's really important that they have someone to look up to that is strong in their deen and they aspire to want to be like them.

The same goes for the guys at a younger age. There needs to be a kind of mentorship happening at the community level so that our younger boys are spending time with some of the older boys, especially the ones that are mature in their religion. And we have, Mashallah, even though we don't have a lot of those, we have enough of those. We have enough young people that are mature in their religion. They really want to learn more about it and they're good role models.

It does two things: one, it gives young people someone to look up to, and two, it gives older kids a sense of responsibility. It makes them realize that others have eyes on them, that they have to answer to a higher standard because they set the tone for others. It gives them a sense of responsibility too.

Second Solution: Safe Spaces for Questions

Another really important suggestion, and this is a long-term thing, is that we have to be able to have forums where our young people can talk about the real questions they have without being afraid of reactions from their parents or their imam or their scholar or the speaker. And the speaker should not be in a position to say "you are so wrong, you are - what you said is so bad, you should make istighfar, go slaughter a goat and then come back."

We shouldn't put our youth in a position of them feeling intimidated to even want to be able to ask a question. We need to create a space. We need to create an environment where they feel comfortable enough to be able to ask certain kinds of questions.

Muslim community generally, we're very conservative people. We have certain expectations of ourselves and we have expectations of our children. We have expectations of other Muslims. So when our Muslim

boys and girls, even within our own family, have certain thoughts, have certain questions - like if your boy for the first time got asked out on a date or said some girl came up and said "you want to go to the prom with me or something" and he's thinking about it, but he'll never tell his mother he's thinking about it, he'll never tell his dad because you know what's going to happen if he tells his dad.

So he can't talk to his parents about this stuff even though it's on his mind. And even though some stuff is on her mind, she can't talk to her parents. She can't talk to even the imam because what's the imam gonna do? The imam will give a khutbah next week: "You know what the sister came and told me..." They're afraid of being called out.

There needs to be a space where they can ask their questions. There needs to be a space where they can feel comfortable asking those questions. And there needs to be a training even among our du'at, our da'is, training in how to answer those questions in a sensitive way, realizing these are not questions on a piece of paper that you give a black-and-white answer to. There's a person who's really having problems. It's a human being who's really going through some serious struggles.

The Need for Counselors

For those of you that are activists that want to serve Islam in some capacity, think a little outside the box. Yes, we need scholars. Yes, we need du'at. Yes, we need khatibs. Yes, we need speakers. But man, we need counselors really badly. We need people trained, properly trained in psychology, both in the Western sense and the Islamic sense. We need these people. We need teen counselors, mentors. We need marriage counselors, but that's another story. I just want to talk about the youth for now. We need leadership trainers, people that instill a sense of confidence and love.

This stuff is important. It's really important. And to me, these things come first. And when these things are in place, then Islamic education on top of that makes sense. It makes sense because the people that are trying to learn now are already convinced of what they should be learning.

The Problem with Current Educational Methods

Our assumption for a long time has been: if we give people knowledge, automatically they'll be convinced. It hasn't worked. It hasn't worked. Our kids will tell you about the life of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). Kids that attend really good - and I've seen this happen - really intelligent children that are really good readers, not Islamically but just they're good readers, they get good grades in social studies, they get good grades in history, they get good grades in all these other reading subjects. You give them an Islamic studies textbook, they're gonna read it, they're gonna be really smart at understanding it, they'll get a hundred on the test, but it still won't mean they've internalized any of those principles. That just means they're good readers and they're good at taking tests.

Our gauges of giving Islam and instilling Islam into our youth, our measures for that, are very shallow. It's not the same as measuring whether your kid is doing well in math. It's not the same. They're two different things.

And our children are very smart. Kids are very adaptive, especially teens are like cunning. They'll tell you exactly what you want to hear. "What's the best story of all?" "Yusuf Alayhis Salaam." Got him again! They'll tell you because they know that's what you want to hear.

The Intellectual Crisis of Faith

The next level of crisis I want to talk to you about is more intellectual in nature. Our kids, we're living in a time now where obviously Islam is constantly under attack. Actually, when you think of Islam, you think of criticism before you think of anything else. And there are certain ideas that are associated with the word Islam, with the word Quran, with the word Sharia.

So if you ask an average person, you say the word "Sharia," what are the things that come in their head immediately without you adding any adjectives yourself? What are some ideas that immediately pop in their head? Beheading, cutting hands, barbarism, stoning. This kind of stuff. This is what comes in people's head. This is popular society.

And you cannot assume that Muslims that live in a society where Islam is constantly being badmouthed will not have some residual effects on them also. It will. It has an effect on us. It impacts us. So our youth have already some contamination in their views of Islam because they're mixed in with what others say about Islam and what they've come to learn themselves from the deen.

And a lot of times the real foundation isn't there to begin with. Then they go to college, and when they go to college, they already felt bad about looking Muslim, being weird, being different, being the guy that's being criticized all the time. And then they end up in Philosophy 101 and they end up in Anthropology 101 and they end up in Middle Eastern Studies 101.

You know what happens in those courses? Basically now, this youth - let me tell you what's going on this youth who felt bad about Islam this whole time, they didn't feel confident in the faith to begin with, and it was something they were almost embarrassed about. Now they have some philosophical arguments in their hands that justify: "Well, yeah, I'm not that anymore because, you know, how do we really know if God exists? I took a course about whether God exists or not and I did all these arguments."

But the real problem isn't that they have new philosophical arguments. The real problem is they never had a real love and conviction and loyalty to Islam to begin with. These courses only made it easy for them to make an excuse, hide behind the facade of an intellectual excuse. That's all it is.

The Problem with Islamic Studies Programs

People want to study Islam in the West and they want to study Islam at the University of Chicago or they want to do a master's in Islamic studies from George Mason or whoever else. All over the country there's Islamic studies programs now. These are anti-Islamic studies programs. These are un-Islamic studies programs. The entire idea behind them is to criticize the religion you've learned to appreciate and love and admire your entire life.

Now you're going to do a master's degree. The entire time your teachers will constantly be doing one thing with Islam. What will that be? Criticism, criticism, criticism, criticism, criticism. You don't think that will have an effect on you? You don't think that will start messing with your head eventually?

I met a friend who is doing a master's degree in Islamic studies at Harvard and he told me he used to learn Islam in high school, he got really interested, he went to Syria and did some Arabic studies. When he came back he said, "I should learn more about Islam, so I decided to join the master's program at Harvard."

One semester into the program, the first semester was "Introduction to Hadith." Sounds awesome. You know what the premise of the textbook was? The premise of the textbook was: the more sahih a hadith is, if it's agreed upon by both Muslim and Bukhari, that just means the authors went out of their way to tell people that it's authentic. So the more authentic the Muslims say it is, actually that's the more fabricated it is. That was the premise of the course. That was the premise of the course: "Introduction to Hadith."

You take that for a semester, see what happens to you. Are we even equipped to handle that stuff? No. No, we're not.

The Need for Intellectual Preparation

I am arguing that that's already happening. A good number of youth are in Islamic studies programs and they're developing some very strange understandings of Islam. Very strange understandings of Islam. And these are going to be movers and shakers in the world. You think that these people that are on CNN, the Irshad Manjis of the world, are weirdos? There's a whole army of them on the way. There's a whole slew of them on the way. You think that's wacky? You haven't seen anything yet. The real show is about to begin.

We haven't equipped our own youth intellectually. Our Islamic schools should not be there to protect children from the world of kufr. Our Islamic schools are supposed to be: "This is what you're going to find them saying about Allah's deen, and this is how we respond." So when you go out there, you're not there to answer their questions. You become the people that follow the nation of Ibrahim. He's not asked questions. He's the one asking the questions. He's not shaken about his faith. He makes other people shaken about their false beliefs. It's the other way around.

Our entire approach to Islamic education has become entirely defensive. "There's too much fitna out there, we need to shield our children and hide them from what's going on outside. I fear for them when they go to college." No! Everybody else should fear when the Muslim goes to college. Should be the other way around. We should be the carriers of confidence. That's what it should be. It needs an entire rethinking on our part on how Islamic education is conducted. We're constantly on the defense.

Moving from Defense to Offense

This is my last point about building this kind of character, this mindset. We're continuously on the defensive. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it personally. We don't have to constantly explain ourselves. That's a really easy strategy that was employed even at the time of the Prophet (عليه الصلاة والسلام - alaihis salatu wa sallam): keep asking him all kinds of questions. Just keep him busy answering those questions. If he's constantly answering your questions, he'll never get around to asking you any questions.

Some members of Banu Israel in Medina, some Jews of Medina, "Who brings you revelation?" "Okay, that's interesting. Who are these people of the cave?" "Okay. You know what's the rule about..." And if he answers that, what are they gonna do? Ask another, and then ask another, and then ask another. And you'll be explaining yourself.

So Allah answered a few and then they moved on to another question. They said, "If we're going to be reduced to decayed bones and nothing, we're gonna be created again, really?" This time Allah did not explain. Usually He does, right? He answers the question. They asked about the people of the cave, Allah explained in detail. When they asked about Jibreel (عليه السلام - alayhis salam), Allah explained in detail.

This time Allah drew a line. "Even if you forget bones and decay, turn into rock, turn into metal, Allah will bring you back anyway," which basically means, "Shut up and get lost. I'm done answering your questions. Go ahead, turn into whatever you want. Allah will bring you back. Whatever your imagination can come up with that is even harder to mold, go ahead." Then He said, "Who's gonna bring us back? Who got you back the first time? Now get lost."

Straight answer. Now we have to see the fluff for fluff. We have to see through that, not just for the sake of others but for our own youth. We need to build a confidence into our youth as part of our education of them.

Conclusion: The Urgent Need for Action

If we don't do that, we will be paying the price for that in the next 10 years, and I say that very fearfully as I say this to you. We are not, as the leaders of Muslim community, we're not doing an adequate enough job thinking about how to instill the confidence of faith, how to fight the crisis of faith among our Muslim youth.

Muslim youth when they have philosophical problems, we tell them, "Go make wudu and make two rakah over there, and if that doesn't work, okay, come back and I'll give you a special dua. Recite that and your problem will go away." Listen, if they have a philosophical problem and if they have doubts already, the spiritual solution is there, but you cannot ignore the intellectual solution. You can't.

We can't afford - our deen is intellectual. Our deen is not blind faith. Our deen is powerful. We have to believe that and we have to instill that belief into our kids, especially at a time where everybody thinks they've got something on Islam. They've got a reason why Islam is wrong. Everybody's got one.

Christians are attacking Islam. Do you understand how absurd that is? I live in the South, and my hobby is listening to Christian talk radio. Most Christian talk radio is about Islam because they have nothing much to talk about. "All these Muslims, their Quran, things that we're doing, shirk, as believers are doing shirk, and we've got a Quran expert here who's going to explain everything to us."

And then they'll have their whole show and I'm listening to this stuff and I'm laughing my head off. It's such good comedy. It's quality comedy. Except when they talk about the contradictions in the Quran and its grammatical mistakes. When they talk about that stuff, I'm sitting there laughing and I'm at the same time I start crying. Somewhere there's a Muslim listening to this who has no foundation in faith and he's listening to this and saying what to himself or herself? "Oh my God, that makes sense. They're on to something. They got us."

We haven't been able, we haven't yet done our job planting the right seeds. That's my only premise. That's my only point. We have to do that at an early age.

Forums like YM and programs like regular programs like YM where youth get together and have company of each other, these are components of building confidence in your faith because you're around other people that have similar confidence. Confidence feeds confidence. That's one part of it.

But now we have to think even further and we really have to give some serious thought on how to develop these kinds of institutions and how to evolve our current institutions and make them ready for these real challenges that are coming. And see the symptoms for symptoms and see the actual disease that needs to be attacked. Most of the time we talk about the symptoms. We don't talk about the disease.

May Allah azza wa jal allow us to see the disease and empower us to be able to find a cure for those diseases through His book and the Sunnah of His Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam). Barakallahu li walakum.

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.