Ali Ataie – A Crisis of Faith The Plight of Muslim Youth Today

So I've been involved with a lot of youth, and there's a faith

crisis amongst many of the youth. Many of the youth are through a

chain, they have two faces. And the parents have no idea.

We see them in the masjid. These youth, they make wudu they pray,

they look like they have for sure. They listen to the Quran, they

read the Quran, then they go to school around the internet, and

they're atheist. They don't even believe in God. They're actually

arguing, arguing against the Quran. On the computer in the

masjid. They're reading almost half in the chat room. They're

arguing against the Quran. This is very, very common. Why is this

happening? Why is there a faith crisis?

Well, there's many reasons why. Right? The youth have intellectual

curiosity.

I met a brother from Afghanistan who was a Christian pastor, Afghan

Christian, this is a big oxymoron. When I think of an honest man, I

think of Islam. Right? Afghan Christian is like saying four

sided triangle doesn't make any jumbo shrimp. It doesn't make any

sense. Right? So why did you become a Christian? said, Well,

there's, you know, astute Christian students at my college

and they were telling me certain things and I tried to rebut them.

I said, Well, have you studied Islam, you know, in detail. So I

went to Sunday school when I was a kid. So your Sunday school? So

what about those Christian guys that were trying to convert you?

He says, some of them are seminarians, meaning they have,

you know, master's degrees in divinity, their sons and daughters

of priests and pastors, and your Sunday school education is

supposed to help you in that in that regard. Right. So this is a

problem with our youth, our youth, they don't have substantive

knowledge, deep analytical knowledge, know how to interpret

certain things. To put things in perspective. Many of them are in

what I call in this Scooby Doo Islam, Scooby Doo Islam, Islam is

a bunch of jinn and ghost stories. Right? That's all it is. His

brother came up to me one time and said, I have a very important

question for you. Very important, very private question. I said,

Yes. How do I catch a gin? This is your very important question.

Yeah. I said, brought that up front up. Fajr? No. Okay. Why

don't you start with Fajr. And then we'll talk about gin and a

few years in Java.

But the same brother, you know, he talks about computer engineering,

like he's Bill Gates, very precise, very technical, very

articulate, when it comes to some good new I don't know, some

worldly thing. Don't do anything. When it comes to the dean. Gen

story, Scooby Doo religion, this type of thing. Why?

Because they don't take the time to study the dean, the dean is on

a simple thing. If you if you go to it's simply, it's a religion

that everyone can grasp. At some level. That's true. But in this

context, when are being checked, were being challenged, right, like

my parents and back home and the mother countries, there was no

internet, they didn't meet atheists. Right? Everyone was

Muslim. The questions were regarding ortho Praxis there,

they're 50 issues. Like, you know, how do I pray? What happens if

this happened? What if I'm fasting and I vomit and these types of

things? These were the issues of the day, and that generation,

right, but nowadays, the youth in this generation, it's not worth

the practice as orthodoxy. The question is not what is Islam? Or

how do I practice? Why Islam is the question now? Why is there a

god? This is a question a brother asked his parents one time is

there how do you know there's Allah? His father said to him, a

Sultan, Allah who will make will do and pray and Allah will reveal

the answer to you. You can't even give them you can't even give this

kid an answer. Why give some evidence? This is how he's geared.

He's American. He's westernized. He lives in the Occident. Not in

the Orient Orient. This is how he's how he's been socialized into

thinking about Akita creed, orthodoxy, why should I believe

he's going online and listening to Christopher Hitchens? And Richard

Dawkins? Right. These scholars that teach at you know, Cambridge

and Oxford, that are anti Muslim, not even atheist. They're anti

theist. Like one of them said, there is no God and I hate him.

There. Listen to these types of people talk about God talk about

Islam, right? And they go to the Father, He says this, and this,

what do I do? Go make woowoo? Go make me do? What does that

continue to make you do? Don't worry about it. Don't ask these

questions. Right? Because that's how he was taught when he was back

home. But that doesn't work. They want there's intellectual

curiosity. They want more substantive, substantive answers,

and then we have another crisis. We'll end with this inshallah the

audits are out of time. There are some youth who rise above this

type of discourse, and they and they engage in deep study, and

they want to be good Muslims. They have high Hinman's spiritual

ambition. And then they go to their father, the sister goes to

her father and says, I want to wear hijab. And he said, No,

you're not allowed to wear hijab. Sorry, you can't do that. There's

no but it's fun. Danny and I want to wear hijab and the father

sister, I will answer Allah on that day. I will take it up with

God on the Yeoman piano. This is the answer that came from her

father. Well Paula in a cafe Rudy Latina Amaru it Teddy Russa been

in a while not been hotter, Jaco mentioned the Quran, Soulja

couple that the unbelievers they say to the believers Follow our

way we'll take your sin story about it. Will vicariously atone

for you this Christianity? What are you talking about? I'll answer

Allah, you can answer Allah. On the Day when when everyone is

terrified on that day, you're going to answer for your daughter.

Right? You're going to run from your daughter Yaffe. You're going

to run, flee, flee, Yuma the federal government asked me who

want to be, and she's going to flee from you.

Or you get this. His brother who wanted to study it is very common.

This just happened. His brother wanted to study when he was in

high school, you want to study the dean is a junior in high school.

So he went to his parents, his parents said, No, you cannot study

the dean, not even a little bit. You have to go get your master's

degree first. Seven years later, the brother gets his master's

degree, his parents call me.

So you remember that brother a few years ago who wanted to stay? He's

an atheist. What do we do about our son now? And well, seven years

ago, you told me to get his master's degree, you probably went

to some university and listened to the secular professors talk about

Islam in a derogatory way. You should have let him study a little

bit back then I can't do anything for you. Now I can talk to him. We

talked to him, he's gone. Any of us? It's gonna be very difficult.

Right? So we have to be balanced people. We have to be balanced

people. We have to think about our communities, we have to support

the communities. The first thing the Prophet salallahu Salam did in

Medina after he took a census of the city because he wanted to know

who he was dealing with, was that he built a masjid in the masjid

isn't simply a place of such that even though that's linguistically

what it means, it was a community center. The Masjid was a community

center where the youth could go, and they can ask questions, and

they can learn. And this is very, very important that we support

these types of places. Right? Because the youth have answers.

And if they don't get them here, don't think they're not getting

them from somewhere else. They are and I must say you're in one of

two states. Either you're being either you're calling people

towards something or you're being called to something. That's it.

Either you're calling people towards something or you're being

called to something