Challenges of Modernity for the Muslim Family - Sheikh
By Yasir Qadhi | 2026-01-07T18:25:23.945944+00:00 | Topic: Relationships
Challenges of Modernity for the Muslim Family
Sheikh Yasir Qadhi - ICNA-MAS 2012
Opening
The challenges of modernity for the Muslim family, a topic that every single parent in our times is struggling with. How much do we compromise? How much do we not? How much do we remain firm to our values? Where do we cave in? And where do we stand our ground?
Modernity is changing everything. Even the definition of a family itself is being threatened and challenged in the modern world. This question is one that sadly there are no easy answers to.
I myself am a parent. I'm blessed with four children. And my oldest is becoming a teenager. Believe me, I too am struggling with the very same question.
The Framework: Two Historical Examples
But I do want to illustrate through my lecture two examples in our history. Examples that show us what happens when we adapt Islam to modernity versus shutting Islam off from modernity. What happens when we embrace change but we stick to our values versus we become close-minded and shut off any change thinking that we will remain pure and that change will leave us.
I'm gonna give two examples which are not related to the family but they are related to the family. They're not directly related but they illustrate the mindset of adapting to change versus isolating yourself from change.
And what I will argue is that we need to adapt with the change. We need to take in modernity while we remain firm to our Islamic values because there is no other alternative. To attempt to isolate ourselves from modernity, to build a false shell, an imaginary wall, a bubble that we try to simply live in and ignore the world around us.
The fact of the matter is that we've attempted this before as a Muslim community. And it has failed miserably. And so today, I'm gonna illustrate this with two technological issues that the Muslims have gotten involved with. The first very early in history and the second very recently in history. And these two issues actually demonstrates the rise and the eventual fall of Islamic lands.
First Example: The Success of Paper Technology
The Discovery and Adoption of Paper
The first of these issues is that of paper and the manufacture of paper. Many of you might not know that Muslims were the first to really manufacture paper at an international level. That Muslims were the one who spread paper to the entire globe from India to Europe. But they didn't invent it. They perfected it and they popularized it.
Where did it come from? In the battle of Talas in 751 CE, which is in the first century of the Hijrah, under the caliphate of the early Abbasid dynasty. In the battle of Talas, Muslims fought against a small group of what we now call Chinese nations.
And paper had been invented by the Chinese. However, they didn't understand its significance. And it was something that only the elite did. It wasn't mass produced. And the Chinese as a nation still used papyrus. Now papyrus is thick. Papyrus has to be folded up. Papyrus is very awkward to deal with. Paper as we all know is thin. Paper lasts forever. Papyrus only lasts for a few decades.
The Chinese invented paper, but they kept it a state secret. They didn't want anybody to know about it. In the battle of Talas, the Muslims captured two prisoners of war who were a part of this secret guild of paper manufacturers. New technology.
Muslim Innovation and Expansion
What did they do? They embraced it. They understood the significance of this. So they took these two prisoners of war, treated them like royalty, brought them back to Baghdad. And the Khalifa said, you shall be free to leave back to China as soon as you teach us how to build paper, how to manufacture paper.
So the Chinese taught the Muslims the art of paper manufacturing. And the first manufacturing mill in the entire Mediterranean world was set up in Samarkand. There was no paper in Europe at the time. There was no paper in India at the time. The first manufacturing mill was set up in Samarkand.
And the Muslims experimented, and they produced a better quality of paper. And eventually Baghdad, eventually Andalusia, the entire Muslim world produced different types of paper. Once upon a time there was Suleimani paper, there was Dawoodi paper, there was Samarkandi paper.
And by the way, the ancient Chinese, they used to call paper, kaagaz. And us Pakistanis, we preserve the heritage, and we still call paper to this day, kaagaz. This term is ancient Chinese. So we still call paper kaagaz from the ancient Chinese to show you where it actually came from.
Eventually the government, the Islamic government adopted paper as its official means of communication. So paper spread throughout the Muslim land from Andalusia on the one side, on the west, all the way through Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, all the way through Arabia, Damascus, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, all the way down to the borders of what is now China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan.
The Flowering of Islamic Civilization
Paper became the norm. And with paper, what comes with paper? Books, education, universities, institutions, libraries. Because paper is the medium of education. And it is not a coincidence that Islamic science has flourished. The writing of books flourished. Scholarship flourished when paper was discovered.
And with paper came, as I said, the largest universities in the world. The first universities and the largest libraries were Islamic libraries. And the fact of the matter is that Muslims were the first to have something that we now understand as being a university.
And this is not a braggado claim. It is a claim that has been documented by researchers. A famous scholar, George Makdisi, has an entire book called The Rise of Colleges in Islam. You can find it on Amazon. And in it, he documents the first colleges and the first universities were those produced by the Muslims. The notion of adults getting an education was something that Islam did. And of course, it's not a coincidence. All of this is happening with the medium of paper flourishing.
The Transfer to Europe
The West eventually discovered paper in the first crusade, in the second crusade when they entered Jerusalem. And they found the Muslims with paper. They brought it back to Europe. And Europeans, their appetite was whetted for paper. Where do we get paper from?
And when they conquered Andalusia, they found the first paper printing presses they had ever seen in their lives. The first paper manufacturing mills. And this is an interesting fact of history. They expelled all the Muslims of Andalusia except for a handful who could teach them sciences they didn't know. And of those sciences they didn't know, how to make paper.
So of the Muslims who were forced to remain, were those who owned the paper manufacturing mills, those who knew the art of paper. And from Andalusia, Europeans acquired the art of making paper. And it spread throughout all of Europe until eventually, they set up paper mills in Italy. And guess what? The Europeans started making better paper than the Muslims.
For 200 years, paper was sold to Europe. Around 1500 or so, the Europeans began producing better paper. And from that point on, many of our manuscripts that we still find are actually being written on European paper. And we see here the beginning of the rise and decline, the beginning of the fall. Paper is coming from Muslim lands to Europe, 1300, 1400. Around 1450, 1500.
What happens? The Europeans discover better ways to make paper, better quality paper, stronger paper. So what happens? They begin selling to Muslims. You see the tides of change, slowly coming along. And Europe excels in the art of manufacturing paper. Eventually, of course, paper also moves to India in the 13th century.
The Renaissance and Knowledge Explosion
Now, paper is always the sign of civilization and education. Not coincidentally, when paper flourishes in Europe, what happens? The rise of knowledge. The Protestant Reformation. The Renaissance. All of this is happening. Around the same time that paper is being introduced to Europe. And Europeans have a surplus of paper.
And when you have a surplus of a commodity, what happens? You begin thinking what to do with it. What can we do? How can we better utilize what we have an excess of? And therefore, not coincidentally, around 1450, who comes along? Johannes Gutenberg. The inventor of the printing press.
And the printing press is considered to be one of the most important technological advancements in the history of humanity. Along with the wheel. Basically, number 2 is the printing press. Because with the printing press, what happens? Well, you can mass-produce books. And with mass-producing books, you are teaching a generation of people knowledge. They don't have to write an entire book by hand.
Before the printing press, if you wanted to buy Tafsir Ibn Kathir, if you wanted to purchase Sahih Al- Bukhari, guess what? You had to sit down and write it cover to cover. Obviously, that's not easy to do, is it? With the printing press, you can mass-produce thousands of books. Everybody reads.
And with the printing press education, technological advancements, everybody... Newton, Isaac Newton, his book on nature and on science became an instant bestseller. And this is in the 1500s. When the average person is reading Newton, what happens? The bar is raised. Knowledge becomes an easy commodity. And when everybody is knowledgeable, the bar continues to rise.
Second Example: The Failure with the Printing Press
The Introduction of the Printing Press to Muslim Lands
Now, we have the advent of the printing press. This is the second technological achievement we're gonna talk about. When the printing press is introduced to Muslim lands, what happens now? This is where we see the alternative model. And that is the bubble. That is the shutting off.
600 years earlier, when paper was introduced, the Muslims embraced it. They Islamicized it. They made it a part of their curriculum. Everything is written on paper after 750 CE. 150 Hijrah, everything is written on paper. Before 150 Hijrah, everything is written on papyrus and vellum and leather. After 150, everything is paper. They embraced it.
Now what? The printing press is invented. 1450. Muslims hear of the printing press. But now they have a thousand year history. Now, they think that they know everything. Now, they're not interested in change.
The Rejection and Prohibition
So what happens? Many of you are not aware of this. When the Muslims first heard of the printing press, they banned it. They prohibited its importation into Muslim lands. They said, this is something the kuffar have invented. We didn't invent it, it can't be good. And any printed book was banned.
So much so that in 1485, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II said anybody who's discovered with a printing press or a book will be sent to jail. And the decree became even worse in 1515. Sultan Selim I said, anybody who was found with an Arabic book that is printed on a printing press shall be executed.
The punishment for owning a book that was printed was death. Why? There's a lot of reasons my time did not allow me to go into all of them. But one simple reason, they did not want change. They wanted to somehow oppose modernity. They wanted to live in a shell because they were so confident our ways are the right ways. We are the right religion.
We have the true teachings of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. So we don't care if they invented a paper, sorry, the printing press. We're not going to take it. It was enthusiasm that was misdirected.
Yes, we are the ummah of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم . Yes, we are Muslims. But where does Allah tell us not to accept modernity? Where does Allah tell us, don't accept technology? But there was a sense of supreme power. There was a sense of arrogance.
There was also a fear of the printing press. Everybody is going to start reading. What's going to happen? They will become Shaykh Google and Mufti Wikipedia as we're now scared of in the internet era. Right? You ask Shaykh Google for your fatwas. There's a fear of change. So what did the Muslims do? They banned it.
The Consequences of Isolation
In the meantime, books are flourishing in European lands. Thousands and thousands of works. Not coincidentally, Martin Luther's Reformation utilizes the printing press. He prints the Bible in German for the people to read because before this time, the church had banned the reading of the Bible.
The renaissance is coming right after this. Challenging scriptures, interpretation that the earth is flat and the sun is going around the earth and all of these changes that the church had put on the people. Scientists come along and challenges. Galileo and Newton and all of these people. Thinkers come along that change and challenge the political structure.
What happens? The entire theocratic state, the entire dominion of the church collapsed completely because education was too powerful and ignorance is bound to lose over education. So, Europe was forced to change and the church was forced to cut itself and it became the Protestant and the Catholic, as you know, branches of Christianity.
The Printing Press and the Muslim World
It is amazing, brothers and sisters, that throughout the 1500s, 1600s, 1700s and even the early 1800s, printing presses were manufactured and transported and books were printed across the world except for lands of Islam. Can you believe that Hawaii and Tahiti in the 1830s had printing presses in their native languages and you couldn't find a tafsir or a hadith or a Bukhari book printed in Egypt because it was haram. It was not right. There was no such thing.
The first person to bring a printing press to Egypt was Napoleon Bonaparte. When he invaded Egypt, he brought a printing press and he put it basically in the Muslim lands. It was forced upon the Muslims. The Ottoman Empire collapsed. Egypt was cut away, as you know, by Muhammad Ali. So many changes came along.
Eventually the Muslims were forced to accept the printing press. And the first printing press was around 1840, 1850, 1860 around the Muslim world. And this is why if you go to any Islamic library, you're not going to find a printed book in Arabic in the 15th, 16th, 1700s. You'll find plenty of books in English, plenty of books in Latin, plenty of books in Swahili and in Hebrew and in the language of Hawaii. I don't know the language of Hawaii, whatever it is. But you'll find books printed in that language.
But you won't find books printed in Arabic. Why? Because we were too scared of modernity. And we thought that if we allow the printing press in, it's gonna corrupt the minds of our youth.
The Inevitable Collapse
But what happened? Eventually modernity was forced upon us because we were too scared to embrace it. And when that did happen, it was too late. Within few decades, the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
After that, the Sykes-Picot Agreement carved out the nations that we all know of the ummah. We had one ummah, now we have mashallah 60 members of the OIC. All of this came about, I'm not blaming entirely on the printing press, of course not, brothers and sisters.
But I'm saying there's a mentality that is reflected. There's a mentality that is reflected that the Muslims were so confident of their cultural heritage that they mixed up religious glory with cultural glory. Yes, we're supposed to be proud, we're Muslims. Of course we are. Yes, we're supposed to be thankful that Allah gave us the Qur'an and Sunnah. But where does the Qur'an and Sunnah oppose modernity and change? Yes, we're not gonna change belief in Allah, but paper and the printing press? Come on.
So the Muslims could not distinguish between that which should not change versus that which must change. And this leads me to the final points which is related to the family now.
Lessons for the Modern Muslim Family
The Reality of Change
The reality is, brothers and sisters, that the world will always change, that modernity will continue to be modernity. And what is modernity now will become antiquity tomorrow. The reality is we're living in a fluid environment. And just like in any river, you know, I was actually, believe it or not, white water rafting three days ago, believe it or not, in Mount Tremblant in Canada, believe it or not.
We're there for a meeting and we decided to go white water rafting. The guide told us, this is what he told us, the first time I went, it was level 2, 3, 4, 5. It was very scary. Alhamdulillah, I had a great time, didn't damage myself, Alhamdulillah.
But you know what the guide told us in the white water raft? He said, the biggest mistake if you fall off of the raft is that you try to stand in the water. Because if you try to stand in the face of that river, he said, you're gonna drown. You can't. You have to go with the flow. You're wearing your life jacket, you simply let yourself free and you control yourself along with the current. You let the current take you, but you simply try to force your way eventually to get to the shore.
He said very clearly that if you try to put your foot to the ground and stand still, you are looking at 10,000 cubic gallons of water rushing straight at you, you're not gonna win. This is what modernity is, my dear brothers and sisters. You have to embrace it along with keeping your values.
Distinguishing Between Culture and Islam
Nobody is saying that we change the meaning of family, that we say that homosexuality is permitted in Islam. Nobody is saying this. But at the same time, many of us do not distinguish between what is culture and what is Islam. Many of us have no understanding of that which is allowed to change and that which can never change and that which is a gray area. Perhaps for some families they can and some families cannot.
We need to compromise where the Sharia allows for compromise. And we need to be firm where the Sharia tells us to be firm. There are many things to talk about, but again, time is of the essence. I just wanna mention some examples.
Career Choices
One of the biggest tensions that occurs in any family is over careers. We want as a immigrant generation, we want our children to go into very narrow defined fields, primarily engineering and medicine, and engineering and medicine, and maybe sometimes engineering and medicine. And if you're lucky, you might even be allowed to go into engineering, or maybe medicine.
If our child, if our son, if our daughter says, I wanna go into architectural design, I wanna go into another field, I wanna go into law, I wanna go into media, I wanna become a sportscaster, or he even decides, God forbid, (لَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِٱللَّٰهِ - la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah). He doesn't wanna go to college, he wants to go to vocational school. Tawbah, tawbah, astaghfirullah.
We can't deal with the issue. We don't know what to do. Brothers and sisters, the ummah needs engineers and doctors. But I think I'm pretty confident in saying, we have a surplus of engineers and doctors. And I say this as a person with a chemical engineering degree, so nothing personal guys, right? I have my own engineering degree as well, because mashallah, tabarakallah, my father also said, you first have to become an engineer, then go do what you want. So I listened to my father.
I did the engineering degree, then I did what I wanted. The point being, careers are one of those things we need to understand. This country, America, alhamdulillah, it's great, we have engineers and doctors, but we need Muslims representing every single field. Every single field. No exceptions. And that is the reality.
Marriage Issues
Another major problem that we have is that of marriage. Marriage.
"And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought."
Where do we even begin with the fitnas of marriage? We can give lectures after lectures after lectures about the problems of marriage. And wallahi, I understand as well. I'm second generation, I was born and raised here. Now I have my own children. Subhanallah, the changes between even my generation growing up in the late 70s and 80s, and now seeing the changes now. Subhanallah.
The children that are now growing up here, they're not interested in the values that our parents were interested in. They don't care whether their spouse was born in the exact same village or the sub-district of India that you were born in. They really don't care. Honestly, brothers and sisters, forget Punjabi, Muhajir, even Pakistani, Indian.
For me as a second generation, what's the difference really? It's the same. There's hardly any difference at all. And for us to continue perpetuating this jahiliyya, this nationalism. We are all Muslims. I know of so many couples, brothers and sisters, who got married cross-culturally. And alhamdulillah, their marriages are flourishing.
This is a part of the Islamic reality. And how we find a spouse as well. Arrange marriages versus the Muslim, the matrimonial services association. Sorry, the MSA is the matrimonial services association, right? Nothing wrong with it. It's the largest matrimonial services association in the entire North American hemisphere, right? Not a problem at all. How are we gonna get married? This is something also causing a lot of tension.
The age of getting married. If my father got married when he was 38 years old, subhanallah, I'm not even 38 yet and I have 4 kids. Were I to follow his path, where would I be now? Times change.
And by the way, I have no problem saying this. I got married when I was 21 years old. And wallahi, it was the best decision of my life. The brothers are really happy like, yeah. We have to understand that it's a new time and place. Dear fathers and mothers, maybe you got married back home at an older age, but the world has changed, society has changed.
You either want your son or daughter to be protected within marriage or else you're asking them to do haram. It's one of two choices.
Parent-Child Relationships
Another issue that we're always dealing about is the relationship that we're supposed to have with our children. Let me be frank and wallahi, I have given on this very podium an entire lecture dedicated to praising my mother and father. And I would not be here without the blessings of Allah and then the tarbiyah that they gave me. But at the same time, times have changed.
And the way that my parents dealt with me in the 70s cannot be the same way that I deal with my parents in the 2010s and 2020s. Times change. Our parents, I speak as a second generation, our parents were our elders, respect. There was no concept of being friends with a parent. I understand that. Because that was how my grandfather was with my father. And my great grandfather was with my grandfather.
But for me, as somebody born and raised here, I honestly want my son and my daughter to be my best friend. And I want them to think of me as their best friend. Times change. And I want them to confide in me their problems, their fears, their sins. I want to be able to have open doors that they come to me and say, you know, baba, I made a mistake today, I did this and that.
And I want them, if they don't come to me, who are they gonna come to? Brothers and sisters, times change. You need to have a relationship with your kids that maybe your own father or your own mother didn't have with you. This is modernity.
Living Your Dreams Through Your Children
Also brothers and sisters, the aspect of your sons and daughters living out your dreams. Wallahi, one of the biggest mistakes that I have seen is that a father wants his son to basically relive his life as the father might have done had he been in these shoes. You cannot live your dreams through your children.
Your children have to discover their own dreams. And you need to support them in those dreams. And let me be brutally honest here, dear uncles and aunties, did you live up to the dreams of your own mother and father? You found your own way in life, didn't you? You discovered your own things that you wanted.
Why can't you understand that this generation as well wants the same freedom, wants to be able to do what it wants to do. And if you refuse, you put yourself in a bubble, what's gonna happen? The bubble is
gonna collapse and you're gonna lose both this world and the next. You're gonna lose your children and the love of your children.
Understanding Human Nature
You need to understand that not everyone is perfect. You made mistakes when you were young because you're human. So if your children make mistakes as well, and you know what? Maybe their mistakes will be worse than yours. Maybe they'll be more un-Islamic than yours. Maybe they will. But look at the environment and cut them some slack.
With all respect to my uncles and aunties, remember, you're the one who brought them to this land. You're the one who raised us here. You can't expect except that we take some of the positives and negatives of the country around us. This is inevitable. It is a part of life. It is a reality that cannot be changed.
Accepting Change
Accept it. We will not treat you the way you treated your father because we weren't born when you were born. We weren't born where you were born. We didn't learn the culture as you learned it. And if you try to bring that culture and force it on to us, you are trying to stand when the current is flowing straight in your face. Brothers and sisters in Islam, time is limited and I need to wrap up.
The Role of Parenting and Dua
Learning on the Job
I want to conclude by simply pointing out. Subhanallah, there is no school to teach you how to be a mother or a father. Life is that school. You learn hands-on, on the job. And wallahi, I'm the best example of this. In that, before I had children, I had these grandiose visions.
By the time he's 7, my son Ammar will be a memorizer of the Qur'an. By the time he's 10, he'll be quoting Bukhari, left, right and center. By the time he's 15, he'll graduate from here and there.
Then when I had Ammar, mashallah, tabarakallah, reality strikes. And I'm so proud of him because he's living up to his vision, not my vision. He's learning to be who he is. He's learning to carve out his own way in life. And I'm giving him the tarbiyah. I'm giving him the family environment. I'm putting him in that school. And then I told him, Ya Ammar, you do as you want. You want to be an engineer or a doctor. You want to be a car mechanic. Whatever you want to be, I will be your father and I'm always going to be proud of you no matter what you do.
Embracing the Current Generation
Brothers and sisters in Islam, modernity is upon us whether we like it or not. This is a generation of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all of these things out there. This is that generation. You need to adapt to the change, with the change, if you're going to keep your children and their deen and their dunya.
The Power of Dua
And one final point of advice, brothers and sisters, which is really the most important. Never underestimate the power of dua when it comes for your children. Never underestimate raising your hands up to Allah, humbling your head down, lowering your heart in khushu'a and making dua to Allah.
As the Quran tells us so many different times, as Ibrahim did, as Nuh did, as Allah says the righteous people do:
"Our Lord, grant us from among our wives and offspring comfort to our eyes and make us an example for the righteous."
Ibrahim, while he's building the Kaaba, he says:
"My Lord, make me an establisher of prayer, and [many] from my descendants. My children, I want them to be righteous."
Oh Allah, make them righteous. Parents, instead of exerting your muscles, instead of rebuking, instead of showing harshness, when was the last time you lowered your head to Allah and pray to Allah to guide your children rather than your harshness and your strictness. You will win with the language of Allah.
You will win with the power of dua above all the rules and regulations, above all the stern lectures and the daunting and this and that. You will win above them if you turn to Allah and you treat with them the way that Allah wants you to deal with them.
Conclusion: Hope for the Future
Your children, my children, they are the future of the ummah. Preserve them, protect them, and make dua for them. And inshallah, we will see a glorious future ahead of us because we are a nation that Allah has preserved Islam through. And every generation has been better than the one before it.
Look at this, and I have said this before at ICNA stage. Look at what we see now. When I grew up, I attended ICNA back in the... was it early 90s or something. We had one-tenth of the attendance and audience. Now look, how many thousands of people are coming. Look at the environment, look at the knowledge, look at the level of scholarship.
No one could ever have imagined that Islam would flourish so much that mashallah we have now two congressmen in office. We have Muslim mayors and Muslim people all across this country. We have Muslim scholars and intellectuals.
Who could have imagined this? The future is brighter inshallah. Put your trust in Allah. Do your best to be good mothers and fathers and make dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And inshallah, we will see the future far brighter than the present.