By Quazi Hussain

The United States Muslim community is facing an epidemic, which possibly extends elsewhere as well, but I can only speak for the country I reside in and actively participate in through whatever capacity I can. This epidemic is the absence of activity and participation of our future generation. This isn’t a conversation about liberal versus conservative nor is it about Islamic ideology or doctrine. This is merely a plea for the state of affairs of American Muslim youth at masajid (mosques) and their affinity to our sacred faith, or more specifically, lack thereof. The crisis at hand is affecting the vast majority of our communities and masajid across the board.

I would like to delve into possible reasons of said epidemic. Here in America, masajid have a very wide array of ideologies and beliefs that they hold as the standard. Unfortunately though, many do not allow for the acceptance of any other school of thought in practice, whether this be due to ignorance, culturally iconoclastic and myopic thinking, or merely intolerance to differences, I am uncertain, but that is a conversation for another day. The fact of the matter is that this is repulsive for the majority of youth. It is understandable to hold firmly onto matters of consensus, however most of the things that our youth get scolded for these days at the masjid are matters that are definitely not black and white and on some instances have huge room for varying opinion.

Furthermore, how many of our masajid are actually catering to our youth to foster a strong sense of understanding and embrace of our faith? “Why are masjids catering to the youth so much, and making everything entertainment?” These words recently left me speechless and dumbfounded. Are we expecting kids to come off the bat and pick up Sahih Bukhari and enjoy it and benefit from it? Are we expecting kids to somehow magically become responsible adults in the masjid who come for the sole purpose of worship? They wonder where all the youth are. They wonder why youth rarely show up to events “for the youth”. They wonder why youth don’t have a connection to the faith. Gee I wonder. I wonder how the youth could be so blasphemously apathetic, despite all the effort made for them. How can they not appreciate the Friday sermons catered to old men in a different language? How can they not appreciate a religion taught to them on a scope completely foreign to them? How can they run away from the mosque after being constantly harassed about their attire or their hair? These are questions that seriously need thought and reflection.

To begin with, we see a plethora of initiatives “for the youth” that may not be necessarily catering to the youth. How can you expect youth to show up without the effort of youth itself? I’m sorry to break it to you but the older generation will not attract and retain masses of youth. We see masajid all over trying to pull in the younger generation, and may Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He) reward all those involved in trying with sincerity to do all that they can, but we really need to change our focus. We need to start asking the youth what they desire and what their needs are. Needs that are not limited to entertainment, but to understanding spiritual and mental wellbeing. How sad is it that we have masjid projects all over and in some cases, not only are youth not asked for their needs but they’re not even considered. Forget general youth, how can we expect to foster the community when often even the children of the community’s leaders are not asked about their needs, let alone the rest of the community. Additionally, we receive complaints that youth aren’t taking initiative. I have seen this time and time again that when said youth take that initiative, they do not receive the support and aid of the masjid and its resources. Sometimes the programs that youth are inclined towards most are not even organized and funded by the masjid itself. We are ready to spend millions on grandiose masajid, filled with minarets and the best decor, but we are not ready to spend on filling those plush carpets with blissful adolescence.

Secondly our Friday sermons really are not catering to American youth. People always say “but what about those uncles that need their dose of spirituality in (insert choice language)”. That’s perfectly understandable but let me ask you this. Those uncles and ammos that have continued to come to the Friday prayer for 10, 20, even 30 years will continue to come regardless of content, regardless of language, merely because of the religious obligation of the Jum’ah, will they not? However we need to ask ourselves, will youth come back to the masjid after hearing a sermon they couldn’t relate to or worse, even understand? Will they continue to come back when they haven’t cemented their religious obligation? For some people, not only youth, the Friday prayer is the only dose of spirituality they get every week. So should it not be something motivational to excel in our spirituality and religiosity rather than inflammatory, degrading, and belittling content that doesn’t inspire and sometimes rather deters the less religious crowd? How can we expect youth retention when sermons are alien to them and not catered to them at the slightest? (On a side note, this also applies to converts and new comers to the deen.)

Furthermore, we really need to start dealing with our youth with hiqmah (wisdom). “Knowledge is nothing without wisdom” as stated by a prominent scholar of the SF Bay Area, who went further to say that in the pursuit of knowledge we need to learn the wisdom to implement that knowledge. We forget that our Prophet ﷺ (peace be upon him) dealt with each individual differently and had different expectations for each. His wisdom with how he dealt with everyone to instill a sense of morality slowly and understandingly is something that we can really learn from. The amount of times kids get scolded for unwarranted reasons from people who have no right to scold them is too high! We have kids being yelled at for wearing shorts in the masjid, for having their hair a certain way, for not wearing a hijab or the “proper hijab”. Though I understand the house of Allah requires due respect and we should aim to appear as properly and presentably as possible, there is a certain way to instill that quality in youth and that most definitely is not via scolding.

When I was younger my friends and I used to play football near our masjid and whenever prayer time would come, we would think of going to the masjid in our current state (wearing shorts and such) and due to the fear of being scolded we would not and would hence often miss prayers. Note that we had the desire and remembrance of prayer time yet were hindered from obeying our Lord’s commands due to our community’s constituents, may He forgive us for all our shortcomings. I understand that going to the masjid in shorts, a tank top, or skinny jeans is not in the nearest bit preferable, however is it not better than not coming or not praying altogether, granted that what must be covered is covered. The amount of times that I myself got scolded for petty matters like this is ridiculous, but alhamdulillah (all praise be to God) by the help of those that guided me and mentored me, I understood my faith and thus that scolding did not turn me away from the masjid. However, this is not the case for most. The fact is, I know an endless amount of kids that never want to return to the masjid because of the way they were treated. Is there any hiqmah in dealing with kids in this manner? Do we expect our youth to gain a loving relationship with their Creator and His house if this is the way they are received? We know of a man who urinated in the sacred masjid of the Prophet ﷺ‎ and even he was not yelled at by our beloved Prophet ﷺ. Do those kids who are yearning and trying to connect to their Lord deserve being scolded then?

Lastly, a dense topic of its own but for the purpose of half of our youth, our beloved sisters definitely need acknowledgment. We want all of our girls to become exemplary women who resemble our mothers Khadija and Aisha radi Allahu ‘anhuma (may God be please with them). We want them to live to a certain standard and wish them to inculcate a level of modesty that is antithetical to everything modern society teaches us. It is beyond me to understand how we expect that to happen without enabling ample avenues of growth for our sisters. It is beyond me how we as a community do not promote female scholarship, and expect our sisters to learn to emulate our mother Khadija from bearded men with whom interaction is limited or nonexistent. Even more heinous is our attempt at keeping sisters away from masajid with the pretense that home is for the female. Wherever this notion started, I hope by now we realize that this doesn’t develop our Khadijas and on many countless occasions it induces a lot of repulsion to faith. Please understand that throwing on hijabs and `abayas (a type of long gown or dress typical of Arab culture) before establishing an understanding of faith does more harm than good. Our communities need to work hard to provide more access to female participation in all our activities and engagements.

The following is a list compiled at a recent Islamic conference in which youth anonymously sent in questions and concerns and it is something that should not be taken lightly. These are concerns that are alarming and should enable us to move forward in an attempt to foster the future we desire for our youth.

1. How are you supposed to love Islam, if your parents make you hate it? To be honest I’ve been trying to seek other religions due to my parents and how they make everything haram (impermissible).

2. What does Islam say about suicide? I used to wear the hijab but i took it off because I was bullied for it. I need hope and courage to put it back on, because I’m too afraid to. I’ve been battling major depression since I was young. How does Islam address depression? What does Islam say about self-harming?

3. My old Islamic school forced me to wear the scarf for 2 years which made me hate it and never want to put it on. It also made me hate my own religion and I don’t know how to find my way back to Islam, because I lost it all.

4. What should we do in times when in or outside of school we feel pressure and stress and we feel like there is nothing we can do or no one we can go to?

5. What do you say to parents who won’t let you marry young because of school? Literally struggling with pornography and I feel like I’ll never get over it.

6. All my life I’ve been told talking to the opposite sex is wrong, even if it’s in a friendly way, just to socialize. But is that right? Which makes me think of another question. Why do Muslims judge other Muslims quickly? To be honest it makes me not want to be around “my people”.

7. How can we deal with dating?

8. Where do we find faith in Allah?

9. What if you are a believer of Islam in front of your parents but behind them you are caught in a different religion? I love Islam but I never felt it was the right religion for me. What can I do?

10. What do you do if you really want to become religious but you’re afraid that other people will judge you?

This list of questions and comments taken directly and unfiltered from Muslim youth of California is something we really need to reflect on. When looked at initially there seems to be a general lack of faith, lack of understanding and a certain resentment of the faith in some cases. Though I am alarmed by some of the comments, my hope is restored by the overwhelming innate need for the creation to connect with the Creator. There may be some thoughts that are not healthy or troublesome, however you can clearly see a wide yearning for people to become more God conscious, more faithful, and more obedient; every single one of these yearnings are from our youth. It is our responsibility to satiate these yearnings in a manner that is lasting and effective. Our communities are indeed in peril. We have youth suffering from drug abuse, alcoholism and mental health issues. Our youth are increasingly smoking marijuana and having sex, amongst a plethora of harmful activities. It’s time to step into reality and realize the evasiveness of society. If you don’t believe me please take the liberty of looking up the statistics of these things among young Muslims. We need to remember that even some of our Prophet’s closest companions were prone to worldly prohibitions; our pure and innocent youth are no exception, regardless of how much they are “sheltered”.

We need to work to build healthy and sustainable relationships between our youth and their faith. A fearful relationship of the wrath of Hell is much less appealing than one that fosters a loving fear of Allah much like that of a relationship of a loving father, and not like that of an abusive father. We fear our loving fathers even as adults, not because of physical harm but because of disappointment after all they have done for us and thus want to make them proud. Whereas the relationship with an abusive father will forever hold resentment. We need to understand that faith and moral development is just like the physical development of a baby. Like a baby needs to start on the bottle and slowly transition into solid food in due time, a child needs to start their journey of faith suckled in by a bottle and not have what they cannot swallow shoved down their throat. Far too often is faith and morality shoved down throats, and as we all know, when that happens gag reflexes automatically kick in and people start to throw up what was shoved in.

Last but most definitely not least, we need to start building on foundations of our faith that are relative to this country and time. We need to have the people of this country including its youth be able to relate to the faith. When the faith is alien to understanding, how can we expect to get along with it? Think of it this way: many of our parents have a communication gap with their children even though they speak the same language. If that’s the case, then how can we expect no communication gap with our children and their faith that is predominantly delivered in a manner that is completely foreign to them. The Islam that was delivered to South Asia was different to that which was delivered to North Africa, though under the same banner and representative of the same beliefs, its details curtailed to each respective people of each respective time respective of the current state of affairs and status quo. Is it not only fair that we start delivering our Islam to the people of this land, to the state of current affairs and status quo of this land, and to the future betterment and fostering of this land which we hope to make fertile and harvest from it crops of benefit to society, crops that will nourish our future? We have an imperative to take action to actually implement change in our masajid and our communities in order to foster a bright future, a future full of young vibrant souls to carry on its legacy.

This article is a  response to the letter “From the Youth” that was previously published on this site.

Dear H.M.,

You spoke from your heart, and it reached ours. Your voice is needed, desperately. We need to hear your thoughts; we will always recognise your voice—keep using it. Keep your heart open a little longer, for this is a dialogue: we need to speak to each other.

We never imagined it would be this hard for you, or for us. At your birth, we photo-shopped our minds: erased historical prejudices, airbrushed away cultural biases and brightened the picture, sharpened the faith-filled focus and patched together the best environment we could to receive and nurture you. We never expected that you would have to deal with this much, beyond your and our control.

You are never far. Your ‘being’, your challenges, your hurdles, your triumphs, the hope in your eyes are always at the front of our minds.

Yes, you are the pulse of our hearts. Without you though, we do exist. We are individuals with the same fire, passions, doubts and insecurities as you have; we have just learnt to live with them. You are a part of us, but not a reflection of us; just as we are not reflected in you – entirely. Yes, we share a symbiotic relationship; we have ties that transcend all, a bond that defies words and logic. But do not make the mistake of thinking our efforts are reflected in you anymore than a farmer who has toiled and sweat over his seedlings has any control over a storm that sweeps away all the blossoms he nurtured painstakingly. The result does not reflect the effort. On this journey of nurturing you, we have come to know, and then believe, that our efforts—flawed and patchy though they may be—are not the whole picture. We toil together, and we pray earnestly for your success, and yes, together that defines the future.

Seek us, hear us, friend us.

Your digital world is one we have held the hand of from its inception. Year by year, we walked with each new stage, stepping up to the next feature, exchanging our pen, paper and payphone world for the keyboard. So, while we may have tired from chasing and subscribing to every new platform, it is not because we can’t understand, but because we have made choices. Choices. We make choices to stay in control of our lives. All our admonitions, clashes and unwanted advice are because we want you to have the freedom of choice over the most valuable asset you have: your time. We understand technology, and we also understand enslavement. Sincere advice: break free. Look into the eyes of those close to you, walk with them beside a real sunset: face their face. We are here to help you, but we can’t do it alone. You have to want to live beyond the screen.

We are home too. Born on this soil, the same as you, we have muddled along with labels: native, foreign, country of origin, motherland – bewildered and lost. We too have walked a similar path to yours, step by step. A path lined with an aching desire to belong somewhere completely, walking this way and that, and finding we belong neither here, nor over there – our parents’ country. We had to make this our home. Ever since you have appeared, we have been working brick by brick, value by value, dialogue after dialogue to make this, here, now, a comfortable home for your identity. We have made mistakes. We have inherited other mistakes. At times we have had our ‘home-making’ efforts thwarted by those who want to see discord and divisions. But, between the earth under our feet and the skies above, we have tried and continue to try to be at home, with you here. Even though there are days when the heart aches and calls out: ‘where is home? I want to go home…’ Maybe we have fallen into the ‘gap’; neither belonging to the minaret skyline of our parents, nor feeling accepted in the urban jungles we survive in. Four decades to think over this has taught us a valuable lesson: that we truly are travellers, resting in the shade for a while. Transient. We want you to find comfort, acceptance, and joy, and to contribute to the land you are born in. It is a work in progress, for all of us…

There is no blame, no shame in learning to love Islam. Your honesty is what matters. It is from honesty with your nafs (self), that the love will grow from within. From the outside you are bombarded by all the messages of what Islam is not. We could only protect you from this to a point. If we could quiet the cacophony we would. Search from the inside, and you will find faith in the faith that will bring you peace.

We have faith in you. You are part of this planet’s future, a better future. Walk your own path as we did. When you fall, as we did, take responsibility for it. Privilege and responsibility go hand in hand. If we are your roots, then do not sever us. Many people will cross your path and tug you this way and that. As your stem is pulled, deep below, you do not see the indescribable pain we feel, fearing a severance. Standing firm is staying grounded. We will anchor you.

We do not see our paths as growing apart, rather, we rejoice in the novel, superior paths some of you are showing us. We are proud of those paths built by gems who have risen above the clamour and created highways to bridge the chasms…and gaps.

Do not be confined by a gap. Come out into the meadow and flourish.

Photo: Rehan Shaikh

I doubt you can recognize us anymore. It’s difficult to live up to who you thought we would be and everything you wanted us to become. We wanted that for ourselves, too. We never imagined it would be like this, that it would be this hard. But should you ever find yourself wondering where we are, know this: You will never have to look too far.

We are a part of you, and you of us. We are the pulse of your heart—without us, you are nothing—for we are the reflection of your efforts and the manifestation of your actions, the sigh of relief at the end of a long day and the ache that keeps you up at night. We are your downfall and your only hope, your heartbreak and your salvation. You are a reflection of us just as we are a reflection of you, and while we define each other, together, we define the future.

Find us, learn us, save us.

We are inhabitants of a digital world. We are navigating our way through tweets and statuses, through profiles and articles and newsfeeds, essentially scrolling our lives away. Because this is how we live: gazing out of monitors instead of windows, choosing the hum of a laptop over the thrum of the trees, taking pictures of thousands of brilliant sunsets that we’ve never really seen. We make wishes on blinking lights instead of shooting stars. We ignore the glorious earth that we are destined to become a part of. Don’t let the only light in our eyes be reflections of the screens that surround us. Don’t let the last fleeting thought before we reluctantly put our phones down to go to sleep be the profound feeling of missing something we’ve never really known.

We are home. Home is here. We are not from a land in which the adhan (call to prayer) echoes off the rooftops of a small village, nor from a land in which rays of light reflect off of countless minarets as the sun lazily returns to rest. We cannot promise to walk life with the confidence you carry in the faith that wove into your culture hundreds of years before you were born. We cannot promise that our tongues will roll as smoothly over the beautiful language your mouth is accustomed to carrying, nor to always wear the clothes that symbolize the rich legacy of your homeland that you don with your stunning, melancholy pride. We are looking for home on this shore thousands of miles from your own. We are finding home in this land you sought opportunity for us in, a land that, oddly enough, is often as unfamiliar to us as it is to you. We are making home in the journey. We are home.

Islam is strange to us. Islam is strange to this country, to this culture, to this media, to this society, to these schools, these books, and these people—our people. It is strange to us.

It is a religion we are still learning to love and that’s the heavy truth that you might not be ready to hear. We try not to find it where it is shoved at us: on the news story blaring about the terror wreaked by those plagued by ignorance, in the bitter words strung together by the nation’s top analysts and the books that vehemently line shelves, drawing countless readers into the defamation they perpetuate. We try not to find it in the subtle nuances that our teachers and peers disguise their remarks in, nor in the resentful glances that are haphazardly hurled our way the day after a particularly nasty story airs.

Instead, we find Islam in the room at the end of the hall that’s usually emptied around two o’clock, where a couple of us can pray in between classes. We find it in the knowing smile exchanged with the lady who we always see shopping at Target, the one whose kids always tug on her headscarf while she tries to pay the cashier. We find it in the verse that we’ve heard a thousand times that never ceases to startle us, in the reluctance of our heads to get up from prostration after a long day, in the moments our hearts ache for a fulfillment that this world cannot provide. We find it in the serendipity that allows us to conclude that good things don’t happen to us—they happen for us, and in the knowledge of the One Who we forget despite all that He does to cause us to remember.

Have faith in us.

Do not prevent us from falling, for fall we must. But understand that walking a paved road is not the same as forging one’s own path. We are aliens to this land and often to you: unrecognizable to those who birthed us and to the land we are born to. Do not let us be extrinsic. Bring us back to you. Remind us who we are because while everyone sees the flower and sometimes the thorns, you are the roots. Keep us grounded and keep us safe. Don’t prevent us from crossing the street, but teach us to look both ways. We know you worry. We worry too—all the time. There is so much at stake. The future of our Hereafter is no small price to pay. But let us find our way there, our way, and know that while our paths will not be the same, they will inevitably merge. But if you ever feel as though we are going too far, moving too fast, know that with every step we take we promise to look back for your blessing, your guidance, your prayers, and if you ever feel the distance is too great, that we are going too far too fast, that we won’t come back to you—

Don’t mind the gap. Let us grow in that space instead.

—

Editorial Note: A response to this letter was published a few weeks later titled, “From the 40 Somethings.”

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.

While it’s a natural instinct in all of us to seek to beautify ourselves and seek out beauty in others, we live in an age in which there is, as one author puts it, “a profound attachment to looks and aesthetics.” ((Ojoma Akor, “Aging Gracefully as a Woman”)) Instead of considering our physical appearance as simply one aspect and dimension of our being, we are often told—subtly as well as explicitly—that it should be the center of our focus, and the means by which we value ourselves and others.  This is in no small part due to the fashion and beauty industry, a multi-billion dollar global business that churns out products and images that define for us what beauty is, and what we need to buy in order to attain it.

Often, the image of beauty put forward by this industry, and reinforced in many ways in our society, is that of a woman who is flawless in form and feature, and most importantly, young.  Any sign of age is considered a defect. Gray hair and wrinkles are unacceptable, and even laugh lines and smile lines are considered repugnant.  Many cosmetics are marketed not only as revitalizing and enhancing, but as literally transformative; such products will not only beautify you, but are ‘age-defying’ and ‘age-reversing’, erasing years from your life and making you more like the idealized, adolescent woman that fits this image of perfection.

Studies have found that an aversion to looking older is found not only in middle-aged women (for whom these products have long been targeted) but increasingly in younger and younger women who are turning to cosmetic procedures ((Use of Botox and Dysport in 13-19 year olds has increased 2 percent over the past year and 100 percent in the past 15 years. Ther has been a 509 percent increase in Botox use by all ages over that period. (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/face-it/201102/too-young-look-old-what-youth-fears-about-aging))) , and also in men, for whom the cosmetics industry is booming. ((Male cosmetics sales in the U.K. are growing at twice the rate of the female market.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/03/08/us-britain-grooming-idUSTRE6273CI20100308))

What are the effects of this aversion to aging?  And what does it mean to live in a society where the height of beauty is looking forever sixteen or eighteen?

The Problem with the Idealized

While there is certainly a fresh-faced appeal in men and women in their teens and twenties, putting such an image forward as the only standard for beauty is troubling on many levels.  This narrow standard does not speak to the multitude and diverse ways God has manifest beauty in human beings.  It also reinforces the idea that any sign of age is unequivocally tied to ugliness.  This and similar ideas lead people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s to desperately grasp at a perpetually youthful look, instead of considering that there may be more refined, mature images of beauty that progress with age.  Not comfortable in their own skin, they become deeply dissatisfied with their appearance and/or that of their spouses, which can lead to a myriad of issues and problems.

A Broader Perspective of Beauty

Instead of encouraging a robust and healthy conception of beauty, such ideas promote a narrowed and distorted version of it.  There is more to beauty than the particular, exacting (and often digitally altered) images that we are shown again and again by the fashion and beauty industry.  We must consider such images in light of the teachings of our religion, which emphasize that God has created us in due proportion and form ((Qur’an 82:7)) , and the repeated example in His creation of the beauty of variety and diversity:

“And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the diversity of your languages and your colors. Indeed in that are signs for those of knowledge.” (Qur’an 30:22)

A wonderful illustration of this can be seen in the Mothers of the Believers, who were each ‘ideal’ women, but very different from each other, not only in personality, but in age, background, form and feature.  It is also a point of reflection to consider that the first love of our beloved ﷺ (peace be upon him) was Khadija, a woman who was many years the Prophet’s senior.

Appreciating Signs of Age

In addition, we should not be repulsed by signs of age, but consider them reminders of our inevitable mortality, and as opportunities for introspection and change.  We should live our lives aware that we are constantly moving from one stage to another closer to our death, and conscious of the fragility and shortness of this life.  Islam teaches us in so many ways that we should keep this reality in the forefront of our minds; the Prophet ﷺ encouraged us to “remember often the destroyer of pleasures (death)” ((Sunan at-Tirmidhi)) and to “visit the graves, for they remind one of death.” ((Sahih Muslim))

Imam al-Busiri, in his famous work Qasidat al-Burda, likens gray hair to a guest that arrives to remind one of one’s mortality:

Verily my soul which is laden evil did not heed advice

Due to its ignorance, from the warning by grey hair and old age.

And I have not prepared of good deeds a feast,

For a guest (that) has lodged on (my) head nor did I honor (him).

The Prophet ﷺ also said, “Gray hair is light on the face of a Muslim.” ((Al Bayhaqi)) While it is not specifically prohibited to dye gray hair (with certain conditions), one should consider one’s internal state when doing so, and realize that while one can conceal the signs of age, one cannot erase its reality.

Contextualizing Beauty

Physical beauty must also be put in its proper context, taking into account the reality of the purpose of our lives.  Beautifying our inner state and inner ‘image’ should be given critical importance, for “God looks not at your faces or bodies but at your hearts.” ((Sahih Muslim)) A poet stated, “Do not be like Iblees (Satan) and see in Adam only water and clay,” meaning we should look beyond mere form to value what is deeper and more meaningful.

Our Attitude Towards Aging

Our culture’s negative feelings towards aging are not only manifest in its obsession with youthful looks, but also in the way it often rewards and idolizes adolescent behavior.  Advertising encourages us to preoccupy ourselves with gadgets, toys and entertainment.  We find music, television and movies filled with portrayals of relationships in which maturity and responsibility are absent and an objectifying sexuality is key.  In many ways, we are being taught that we should not only strive to look like adolescents, but to act with the immaturity of them too. For this reason, we see many grown men and women lacking wisdom, responsibility and maturity in their behavior and displaying a lack of seriousness and purpose.

We must realize that there is a level of dignity and maturity that should come with age and that should alter one’s behavior as one becomes older.  A thought-provoking prophetic tradition states,  “There are three to whom God will not speak on the Day of Resurrection, nor praise, nor look at; theirs will be a grave punishment: an old man who fornicates, a king who lies, and a poor man who is arrogant.” ((Sahih Muslim))

Fornication, lying and arrogance are sins in and of themselves, but when enacted by such people there is an added element of incongruity.  A king has no one to fear in this world due to his power, and therefore has no need to lie, and a poor person has little of worldly things for which to feel arrogance.  In the same way, for an old man to fornicate is not only something sinful but an act that is unbecoming and ill suited to him.  He should have matured and reached a level of self-discipline that would preclude indulging his desires in a prohibited way.  The greater lesson here is that we should be constantly developing and growing spiritually, in a way that would lead us from the hot-bloodedness of youth to a more composed, disciplined and serious nature as we age and realize the gravity of our purpose in life.  The prevailing attitude towards age in our society is one that undermines this natural progression towards maturity, and we should recognize this and work towards a dignified attitude and behavior that befits our age and experience.

Conclusion

While we may be aware of Islamic teachings on beauty and age, our understanding and feelings about them are often more deeply shaped by the prevailing ideas in our culture and what we see around us.  It is for this reason we must turn a critical eye to the ideas that we are being taught and consider whether they are sound, psychologically and intellectually as well as Islamically and spiritually.  As the title of this series indicates, we may need to ‘reconstruct’ some of the ideas we hold dear and reconsider how we think about beauty, age and related concepts.  May Allah bless us with clarity of understanding, and grant us a deep and profound beauty that makes us beautiful in His sight.

As college students, we are well aware of all the worldly aspects in life that can detract us from our faith. Every day we face a struggle with materialism and spirituality, and many times, the former wins out. With constant distractions facing us in our everyday life, we need a perpetual reminder of our religion in order to stay in tune with life’s priorities. When making the short film Fajr, we wanted to remind people about how much of a difference making the right decision between materialism and spirituality can make. We wanted to show the world that religion is not a distraction, but an investment into one’s life.