By Salman Khan

It was my senior year in high school and it would be an understatement to say that I was ill prepared for the college application process. I was a good student, but like many of us, I never really grasped how my high school career would impact the rest of my life. From the SATs to the actual application, I was floundering through. I took the SATs as if it were just any other exam like the annual TerraNova exam. I didn’t realize how much really rested on this one exam. The SATs would decide what college I went to, the people I would be interacting with, the educational level I would receive, and ultimately, the jobs I would be offered.

I had misunderstood the entire college application process itself. I was oblivious to the steps, the applications, the essays, and essentially the entire process. It was a mess and ultimately the lack of knowledge on how to attack the applications, the lack of focus on the SATs, and the relaxed attitude in regards to GPA, left me haphazardly prepared for the application process. Regrettably, I am not an exceptional case. My story is just one of millions of Muslims within the United States. Parents, school faculty, and guidance counselors want the best for students, but when the process to apply isn’t properly understood, students will not achieve their full potential. This translates into the following: mismatched college choices, students paying way more than they should for college, students majoring in the wrong subjects, and ultimately, the jobs students receive.

Of course, there is always room to excel regardless of the college you attend, but it would be silly to discredit the importance of getting into a top school. For example, a graduate from an Ivy League school with just a bachelor’s degree tends to receive much better job offers in terms of quality, salary, and prestige, in comparison to a state or non-ivy school graduate. It is an investment in the student’s future for not only themselves, but for their family as well.

The lack of urgency we as a community have in regards to things as simple as the SATs is alarming and regrettable. Our students are brilliant and have the capacity to excel well beyond their means, but the problem is that we do not show them why or how they can excel. We do not explain to them the importance of exams like the SATs. We tell them to study and we think our job ends there. The reality is that we have committed a grave injustice by not showing our students the real benefits of doing well in school. The lifestyle, networking opportunities, and quality of education are all the fruits of attending a top school. Our objective should not be that all our students attend Ivy League schools, but that each one of our students try their hardest and reach their maximum potential.

The Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him), taught us to aim for the best and have ihsaan (excellence) in everything that we do. This is a tradition that we must instill in our students, so that they can rest assured that they did their very best. Education is an Islamic obligation and a Prophetic tradition. The benefits of seeking knowledge are immense. As the Prophet ﷺ informs us, the one who seeks knowledge is honored by the rest of creations, because of their high stature in the eyes of Allah (Abu Dawud, 1631). Our students need to understand that doing well in school is a form of worship and is in fact an Islamic obligation.

We as a community need to start taking education in this country seriously. We need to prepare our students properly for college so that when they graduate and enter the real world, they can excel. And when our students excel, our communities will thrive inshaAllah (God willing).

By Rami Koujah

A recent encounter with a young girl opened my eyes to a silent, yet seriously disconcerting issue that many young people in our communities face. Almost everyone experiences something similar at some point in their lives; some succumbed to it while others overcome it. Yet for others it remains a constant struggle of negotiation and reconciliation. This isn’t an abstraction, it’s something genuine and deeply personal: the issue of doubting one’s faith and reconciling a perceived conflict of values.

The girl I spoke to was only 14. I could tell that she was unusually sharp for her age (our conversation was more stimulating than many I’ve had with adults). After giving a talk to a group of high schoolers about fasting the month of Ramadan, she found the opportunity to approach me once the audience had cleared. It was apparent she had many questions, difficult questions, and I was in no way qualified to answer most of them. I’m not a shaykh, an imām, or any type of authority, yet the fact that she approached me spoke volumes to a deeper issue.

Unfortunately, like many young people today, she was being mounted with the pressures of securing her future and navigating a career while still only a freshman in high school. She worried about securing her grades, playing sports, getting involved in school clubs, volunteering, and the list goes on. “How did you figure out what you wanted to do?” she asked. To her surprise, I told her that it wasn’t until a little over a year and a half ago that I discovered my calling. She didn’t know how to juggle all these demands and still be successful academically. It wasn’t until I suggested she spend her volunteer hours at her local mosque that our conversation took a more interesting turn.

Recent experiences, which I did not ask her about, had made the mosque an uncomfortable place for her to frequent. She told me that she did not wear the hijāb and that her visits to the mosque were usually met with judgment by other members and leaders of the community. Moreover, someone very close to her had become an atheist and, from what I understood, it was a subject of conversation between them. Finally, in a confessional outburst, she revealed that some aspects of Islam seemed sexist to her. I couldn’t blame her. She did not feel comfortable approaching anyone in her community. She had been alienated from and by her own tradition.

For many, she fit the profile of an irreligious, rebellious, and corrupted youth. Instead, I saw a concerned, passionate, and inquisitive mind desperately searching for answers. Her search for a moral anchor and authenticity had driven her to approach someone she had just met for the first time, and with no idea of the qualifications the basis of my speech. With my inexperience and lack of knowledge I didn’t really know what to say. Still, her worried expression indicated a hope that maybe I could provide some answers, maybe I could help ground her wandering pursuit for truth. Given that I was a stranger to her community, perhaps it was in the security of anonymity that she found comfort in opening up to me.

At 14, she seemed to understand these issues — hijāb, sexism, and atheism — as if they concealed seeds of hypocrisy. Maybe she thought that doubt is a taboo. Maybe it was my lecture’s discussion of al-Ghazālī, one of the greatest skeptics of our tradition, that inspired her to express her uncertainty. Obviously there was no one she felt comfortable in opening up to. In confirming my suspicion, she told me that she had only been exposed to a rigid binary law of halāl and haram (right and wrong), a model all too many of us falsely call “Islam.”

I tried the best I could. I told her that what she understood to be sexist was a construction of popular values that appeared to conflict with a particular interpretation or (mis)understanding of Islam. It was her way of reconciling what she understood to be moral and what she was told was “Islamic.” She didn’t tell me what it was exactly she found sexist about Islam, but I think I had a good idea. Like many other Muslims, especially at her age, she had been presented with a shell and nobody had told her about the pearl that lay hidden within it.

These issues often arise when Muslims try to reconcile a set of values with the outward form of an Islamic practice without knowing the morality and spirit embodied by that practice. ((This is the heart of the issue that al-Ghazālī tackles in his magnum opus, Ihyā’ ʿUlūm al-Dīn)) What is surprising about a Muslim who questions the virtue of hijāb, marriage, and other issues pertaining to women when they are bombarded with what they conceive as being a contrary understanding of right and wrong? Young Muslims in the West are growing up in an environment where they struggle to reconcile their values — often conflated with their identity — with their immediate contexts. They are familiar with the rules, but they struggle to find meaning in them.

I felt that rather than trying to rationalize different Islamic rulings to her, it would be more effective and lasting if I shared with her a principle that could help her understand the roots of her struggle. God knows best, but I could have been wrong. Still, I know she sensed my sincerity. Echoing my teacher, Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl (may God preserve him), I told her that God is beautiful and His religion is beautiful. In short, I told her that she should not let her set of experiences or the way others convey Islam to her tarnish her appreciation for that beauty.

I’m reminded now of a time when my sister came to me with a very similar set of concerns some years ago. Having read a few books and taken a few classes, I told her that her questions were misguided and that she had been influenced by a corrupt set of values. I told her that understanding the wisdom of the law is irrelevant and all she should concern herself with is submitting herself to its letter. Alhamdulilāh (praise be to God), my sister was smart enough to see beyond my arrogance, or maybe my arrogance suggested to her that there was a problem. Nevertheless, she understood that God’s religion was more beautiful than that.

I ended my conversation with the 14-year-old girl with an analogy. God’s religion is an ocean. It is vast, deep, and beautiful. ((Some of my teachers have told me that roughly 80-90% of Islamic manuscripts have not been published. That is 80-90% of our tradition that is virtually untapped.)) Any student who tries to navigate the ocean knows how easy it is to drown in it. Unfortunately, too many people tend to treat it like a kiddie pool. Don’t run! Don’t splash! Don’t jump in the pool! That’s the model that many of us grow up with: a strict set of do’s and don’ts. Yet we are expected to love it when we don’t even understand it. I pray that teachers, community leaders, and especially parents can tolerate the curiosity of our youth and, with empathy and compassion, show them the pearl that gives beauty and meaning to the shell.

By Gabrielle Deonath

The Hijab Diaries: Part I | Part II

Because I started wearing my hijab in the beginning of this past summer, a thought that was always in the back of my mind was how people in school would react to the change I’d made. How would acquaintances and friends treat me? Would the people I had previously had problems with mock me?

All summer while I was wearing my hijab, I felt comfortable and confident. I would have conversations with co-workers or classmates about Islam or religion in general. I felt so happy and free to be myself. As much as I tried to analyze what people would think, for the most part, I thought I would be confident and have a different perspective, socially, this year.

After two months of being away, the first day of school came and went. I remember seeing some friends I hadn’t seen all summer who were very supportive of my hijab. I remember my health teacher telling me how pretty I was (She’s a female. Don’t freak out!). No one stared, no one asked any questions, no one seemed to care about my change. I was happy, but some part of me didn’t feel completely comfortable either.

Before, I was always a loner. I just enjoyed being with my own thoughts, rather than getting caught up in high school drama that I’d had enough of and wanted to take no part in. This time, it somehow felt different. Over the summer, I had become friends with people who were in college. They seemed more in my headspace. They were thinking about their future and they were more mature in socialization skills; we just had much more in common than I’d ever had with anyone in my own grade. I went from feeling very connected and confident to feeling very detached, alone, and insecure.

I also had what I would describe as paranoia. If someone was laughing with a friend and they were looking at me, I would assume they were mocking my hijab and/or Islam. I somehow felt people were treating me differently, even though in actuality, everyone was treating me pretty much the same. I cried the first Friday I spent in school. I was overwhelmed by my feelings and I didn’t have anyone to turn to. Being a practicing Muslim was new to my life, so it was hard for me to believe that I didn’t need anyone else, except Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He).

After I calmed down and a few adults and an old friend soothed my feelings, life began to change. I gained that confidence back, little by little. I realized that yes, I look different than I did before, but that’s all that changed. I always had the morals of Islam in my heart; I just never outwardly showed it. I soon began to get into the grind of school, and the workload began to take over that empty time I had.

I started a club about religious awareness and tolerance, which kept me busy and gave me something to be passionate about that involved Islam. My idea for the club came to me this past school year when I was still deciding about whether to wear the hijab. I wanted a way to connect to others on this journey so I thought starting an MSA would be a good idea, but unfortunately, there aren’t many Muslim students in my school. Plus, those that are there are interested in other things besides Islam. I, then, thought about a club about religious tolerance and acceptance. I believed this would be a great way to spread Islam’s message and squash the misconceptions that many Americans have about it. We’ve had some really interesting conversations in the club. People want to learn about Islam and understand our religion. We’re also able to see many of the similarities between the major religions. The turnout wavers meeting to meeting, which is expected with any new club, but for the most part, it has been an uplifting, encouraging experience.

Going back to school has been a normal experience. Much of the anxiety I’ve had stemmed from my own insecurities and paranoia. It’s like going into school with a broken limb: in the beginning, it’s a big deal and everyone wants to help, but eventually, you’re left on your own and people don’t really care. If you are worried about what people are going to think, whether it’s your co-workers, or your classmates, don’t let it hold you back. You never know when your last day will be. People are generally very open-minded and encouraging. This decision is for you and Allah (swt) alone. Remember that Allah is always watching over you and He never gives you more than you can handle.

Gabrielle Deonath is sixteen years old and is a new hijabi. She is of Indian and Guyanese decent. She is a student in high school. She strives to learn about new things about Islam every day, and implement what she learns in her life as best as she can. She hopes her story can help other sisters who are in the spot she once was.

Question:

I have twins who will be graduating from high school this year, and I feel like I am fighting with them all the time about the choices they are making. I don’t like the friends they hang out with, and I don’t think they are mature enough to make the right choices. Their major complaint is that I don’t trust them, but how can I trust them when they are making choices that are completely wrong for them?  They both want to go away to college, and now I am regretting having allowed them to apply to colleges away from home. I feel like I am losing control of my kids. What do I do?

Answer:

It sounds like you are having a difficult time with the prospect of two of your children crossing over into adulthood. Having children grow up and move out of the home is a difficult transition for many families, and it is doubly difficult when you have children moving out at the same time.  The fighting between you and your children is probably a reflection of the tension about the upcoming changes that all of you will be experiencing individually and as a family.  It also sounds like you may be struggling with some sense of regret because you see them making decisions about their life that you disagree with and were not expecting.

The goal of parenting is to instill a sense of personal responsibility in your children and to launch them into adulthood.  Therefore, as children reach adulthood, a parent realizes they no longer have control over the decisions their children make, and that ultimately their children are responsible for their actions. Their bad choices are their own and not necessarily a reflection of you.  As a parent, it can be difficult to witness your adult children make choices that are contrary to what you wished for them during your journey of raising them. However, if you hope to have a long-lasting relationship with your children, it is important that you begin the process of letting go and accepting the reality of who your adult children are.

The establishment of trust is a long term investment. Trust begins in their younger years. Parents must trust their children unless proven otherwise. Many times, parents assume that teenagers and young adults are untrustworthy, but this paradigm creates suspicion and lack of connection between parents and children. In order for the relationship between parents and adult children to mature and develop, trust needs to be rebuilt over time in order for the relationship between the parent and child to flourish.  Since you now have adult children, your role as their parent is shifting to mentor and advisor.  You will need to continue to express to them that you will be available to hear their views and advise them, but ultimately you will need to show them that you love them even if you disagree with their choices.

VMCounselors was a collaborative advice column produced by two previous website authors, Amal Killawi, a Clinical Social Worker with a specialization in mental health and marriage education, and Munira Lekovic Ezzeldine, a Marriage and Family Therapist, specializing in premarital counseling. Please note that our counselors are not religious scholars and will not issue religious rulings. 

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