Altaf Husain – Navigating Adolescence Reframing the Gender Question
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AI: Transcript ©
To start off my topic, and indeed this
is the, culmination
in many ways of an effort that was
created and developed to call called the Gender
Collection.
Doctor Zaraf Khan will talk much more about
that, and indeed she'll reference it in her
presentation.
We are facing times right now
that are unprecedented
indeed for Muslims not only here in America
but around the world. This question of identity,
specifically gender identity,
masculinity,
feminism,
all of these are not some things that
have not been addressed in prior times.
However, the pace at which
these topics are now affecting our youngest of
children,
is indeed concerning
and what should be done indeed about it.
In addition to that,
I'm addressing the topic
about adolescence.
So I will begin with talking about who
am I, where am I, why am I
here, and the idea of navigating adolescence and
reference both the tweens, the teens, and also
parents. So just by a show of hands,
how many,
of our attendees
are between 10
and 13 years of age? Actual age, not
what you feel in your heart.
I'm gonna see some uncles and aunties raising
their hands like mashallah.
Okay? A few of you guys? Thank you
so much. Welcome mashallah. I think you might
be the only 2, mashallah. Or there's another
one, alhamdulillah.
How many of you guys are currently in
college or college years if you're homeschooled in
college, sorry high school years? Like so somewhere
between
13
and 17, 18 if you will, how many
of you guys?
The rest of you don't vote for anything,
that's why we are in the condition we
are in.
How many of you are in college?
And some of you never voted.
So, I don't know where the rest of
that population is because a lot of the
age ages look, mashaAllah, very young but you
didn't raise your hand. So I will assume
that predominantly we have high school and college
age with, I will call them, supporting
adults and allies, masha'Allah.
Sitra is something that the prophet salallahu alayhi
wasalam introduced us to, and it is by
far one of the most powerful concepts within
our religion.
It directly addressed
this concept of original sin as was presented
in Christianity if you will, so that the
Prophet
was basically turning that concept on its head.
Every child born,
as you recall from the saying of the
Prophet
every child born
is born in a state, in a pure
state,
in a pure state. And indeed it is
his or her parents, and then what we
now call in social sciences, socialization
processes,
that ultimately guide the child into any other
path.
But that pure state
is a god inclining state.
That pure state is a taqwetic or God
conscious God consciousness filled state.
That pure state, if you indeed nurture it,
is one that will ultimately incline towards understanding,
respecting, and loving,
Allah
as his or her Creator,
and indeed, turn
with love and obedience towards him.
The challenge for us is, we are not
without guidance as a community.
There's absolutely no one that can say there's
an issue coming up about which Islam, at
least the current and contemporary scholars, do not
have something to say about it.
In fact, we're working hard, and there are
ulama councils around the world that are working
hard to maintain and keep pace with all
of the new issues emerging,
but it is not that our religion
is somehow putting out adherence
without guidance.
The growth and the development,
the growth and the development of teenage of
young children and adolescents,
ultimately cannot be on autopilot.
And this is one of the critiques that
I have in studying this population,
is that I think for too long we
have maintained a, a sort of an autopilot
kind of an approach.
That indeed
children are being raised in a Muslim household,
so they must, you know, inshallah they'll turn
out okay. You know, we live by the
masjid, we take them to the masjid, so
they're being, you know, touched by Islam, and
somehow they'll just be fine.
Also,
a rude awakening clearly has occurred,
whereby just the sheer amount of information being
given to children
at very, very young ages.
Sometimes without the,
presence of parents and guardians who are Muslims,
which And by that I mean whether in
nursery schools, in, in in in, nursery programs,
in preschools, and wherever, whereby we are not
there to help our children even internalize, or
listen to, and make sense of what is
being presented to them. And it is just
by chance
that, alhamdulillah,
many of them are coming out well, but
there are clearly issues arising from the fact
that we don't have necessarily
a grasp on this,
on this age group. There are cultural and
social forces also,
that are really bent
on ensuring
that there's a particular
angle, if you will, a particular,
healthy, quote unquote healthy
developmental,
project that is being, you know,
presented, that if you don't subscribe to it,
if you don't subscribe to that project, if
you will, that somehow you are the one
out of line and you are the one
out of, sequence
sync. So what are some examples of that?
Just this summer, I was made aware of
the fact that in the cartoon,
which I didn't grow up on and I
became familiar with later when we had kids,
Arthur, for example.
Arthur
was, amazing, you know, with DW and the
whole gang, and everything was just going along
fine, and then all of a sudden somebody
had to get married
in the story.
And in that storyline,
the person to whom they're getting married, or
this is the insidious, you know, way to
introduce this, this sort of idea that every
child can just make sense of things, is
that the person that was being married,
no one really knew who the spouse was
going to be. And so the amazing way
to show this was the kids are all
comfortable with whatever happens. So in this case,
it was the example that this,
shopkeeper would be marrying, if you will, someone
who is actually another man. So the man
was going to be marrying a man. Now,
in this case, Muslim scholars have talked about
this, and we won't go into that, but
supporting the rights of others
to do as they will
in a land like the United States is
something that we will we will not cite,
meaning, we will we will support their right
to do whatever they want. But how do
children make sense of this? How do children
ultimately make sense of what's going on, and
should they be introduced to such topics without
any attempt
by the Muslim community? And when I close
I'll talk about this, what are some things
we need to do to be involved in
dealing with some of these social forces.
Doing nothing is not an option.
Doing nothing is not an option. In fact,
we will be held responsible,
we will be held responsible
for every child
that has to deal with these situations by
themselves, whether a young girl or a young
boy, because we as a community, in terms
of a farad kifaya, we as a community
did not take this seriously and we did
nothing about it.
Who is involved?
Young
teenagers or tweens?
The teens? And of course, the parents.
In Islam,
we are not against exploration.
We are not against the exploration of
who the questions of who am I, and
indeed why am I here.
If you look back at our tradition, Ibrahim
discovered his Lord through that type of questioning.
Through that type of questioning.
And he was able to, and that conversation
is so beautifully chronicled,
because he was inclined from a fitratic, he's
Hanif,
He's inclined from a fitratik, if you will,
approach
to always be looking for God.
But if you have so many forces telling
you that God doesn't matter,
that you can succeed in life without any
kind of attachment to God, or religion, or
to houses of worship, if you have attacks
on houses of worship,
if you have attacks on clergy,
if you have attacks on the holy books,
ultimately the child is left to think
that maybe my exploration
of who I am, and why am I
here, doesn't have to be connected to anything
with religion,
because apparently
that hasn't helped anybody.
And that's a false narrative, and we have
to fight against it and indeed talk about
it. So let's talk about first the parents,
and then we'll come spend most of our
time on the adolescents.
My wife and alhamdulillah
are raising 4 children,
17, 13,
8, and 5. There are 3 boys and
1 girl. The girl is the 8 year
old.
We understand clearly
that there are challenges
to all of their upbringing because everything that
we're trying to tell them, they may come
in contact with those and and others in
the in the culture and social forces that
may tell them otherwise.
What is our bottom line?
How do we do parenting?
What are the styles of parenting? So briefly,
and I don't know how many of you
by show of hands attended Sheikh Yasir Birejes'
workshop last night on parenting. If you just
raise your hands.
I think I think I know what it
is. I think I do too much fundraising.
So you're afraid if you raise your hand,
you're gonna end up giving money.
So there will be no fundraising today. It's
just myself, doctor, Jonathan Brown, doctor Zarakhan presenting
some of our thoughts which you can agree
or disagree with. There's no fundraising, so relax.
Take it easy. Right? So how many people
attended Sheikh Yasser's
lectures? A couple people here, few more here.
Alright. So some of this he mentioned,
but I'll go slightly more into detail, and
then we'll talk about why this is connected
to the adolescent upbringing.
So in terms of the two major factors
that are involved in upbringing, and we talk
about gender,
gender identity, exploration, all of these things, we're
talking about heavily being compassionate.
We're talking about much of our energies
as parents being focused on being compassionate.
We're talking about following the prophetic model about
whom we don't have much in terms of
written documents or the narrations about his fatherhood,
but we understand how he dealt with his
grandchildren,
and other,
young children.
So compassion begins
to be the first, if you will, factor.
The second is discipline. So what I want
you to mentally do, and we're not gonna
grasp things out, but think about this. So
think about compassion being on the y axis,
and then discipline and control being on the
x axis.
Wherever
high compassion
and high discipline are there in a balanced
way,
high compassion and high discipline in a balanced
way, we're talking about
authoritative
parenting style.
We're talking about a parenting style that understands
that there will be hiccups.
There will be times when the children will
not listen, will not obey, will talk back,
will whatever.
But always,
there will be a sense of authority that
we, the parents, are are trying to do
what's best for you. So work with us.
When you don't do well,
did the,
did it sound like it went off? Okay.
If you think about
this, authoritative
parenting,
in that first quadrant of the highest on
compassion,
highest on discipline,
is the exact opposite on the other side.
If you think about very,
high on discipline, but very low on compassion,
and then very on the other side, high
on discipline
and low on compassion in terms of a
sort of a negative way. You have discipline,
if you will, occurring, but you have parents
who are fighting their children.
Authoritarian
sort of parenting style,
where no discussion occurs.
You do, I say, and that's it.
You have a style on the other side,
high compassion and negative, if you will, in
terms of disciplining,
where parents are actually very minimal on discipline.
Very minimal on discipline, the x axis. And
that's permissive parenting style. That's when the parents
are actually afraid of the children. And they're
doing fearful parenting, which is basically, you know,
what can I what can I give you
to get you to do what I want
you to do?
Right? And I'm going through this for a
reason. We come back to adolescence, you'll see
what I mean.
There is the helicopter parenting style away from
this grid, whereby the children just literally feel
that they're hovered over and they cannot breathe.
Everything is being watched at all times. If
you think about the the common day, example
of the drone. Right? Helicopter is the old
school term. It's basically drone parenting
where you can't move
at all and the drone is always there.
Now, when we grew up, and some of
you may relate to this, we actually had
drones. They were just called shapals,
ship ship, or slippers.
And those traveled the house, mashallah, really well.
And, and the wet ones were the worst.
I don't know if anybody dealt with that.
The last one is free range parenting. Free
range parenting is basically
where the parents say, you
know, God blessed us with children.
And then that's it.
That's it. And the community ends up dealing
with the consequences of that all the way
from And thankfully, it hasn't happened yet. Children
literally running across the stage onto the stage,
taking selfies
on the stage while the person is speaking,
and the parents are just happy that this
is going on. Right? This is free range.
It's a good It's a great organic way
of raising kids, but on a farm and
not in the middle of civilization.
Right? So there has to be some discipline,
some compassion.
Why do I begin there, and what's critical
about this?
This is important
because as we talk about gender roles,
we're gonna come to a point.
We're going to be looking at each other
and saying,
well, what is the example
of the gender that we're trying to or
who is an example of the gender that
we're trying to promote?
Now the easiest of those answers is what?
For the boys and the men, the greatest
of examples for the gender in terms of
being a man, and doctor Jack will talk
more about this, being a man is whom?
Really, it would try to make me proud
for Adams.
The guests are here. Who is the man
that's the example for the boys and men
in terms of
good good sort of masculine behavior?
The Prophet
Right?
And for the sisters, we usually refer to
the ummahaatal mumineen, the mothers of the believers.
There is no shortage.
There is no shortage of descriptions
of healthy,
masculine, and feminine behavior.
There is no shortage, if you will, of
examples
of how the Prophet
not only spoke to young boys and young
girls all the way into their early adulthood,
if you will, But also how He interacted
with them,
how He dealt with them, how He corrected
them. And indeed, there is no absolute, we
understand, there is absolutely no discrimination
between the genders in terms of equity and
spirituality.
And the Quran is replete with examples in
terms of how a young girl, and a
young boy, a man, and a woman, an
elderly man, elderly woman can approach Allah,
and their acts of worship
are treated
exactly the same in terms of reward. And
even, and you hear me often talk about
this, especially when we're talking about fundraising,
we say even the sadaqa that is given
by the women and the men,
Those of the men who've given sadaqah, those
of the women who've given sadaqah, indeed for
them is a reward that is multiplied.
So what is it that we're talking about
when we talk about the youth and, indeed,
the adolescents, and what should we know about
them when we talk about gender identity and
development.
1st and foremost, it's important to understand
that it's a very fluid, fluid age group.
Very fluid age group. And it's hard to
know and understand,
from an American sort of Western point of
view why adolescence became
so highly associated
with rebellion with rebellion
as opposed to a time to flourish and
to develop and to have positive
and healthy development.
And so, we look at studies, and that's
what I'll do inshallah, I'll present a couple's
different studies that sort of track the youth,
in terms of a longitudinal
study. Longitudinal
studies,
as opposed to cross sectional studies. Cross sectional
study is, for example, if we had a
survey here of, let's say, 5 questions, we
just administered the survey on the screen, and
we asked each of you guys to answer
those 5 questions.
We closed the survey and then we look
at it and say, what did they say
for question 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5?
It's a cross section.
It literally happened for an instant. We know
nothing before,
you got into this room, we will know
nothing about after you leave this room, and
it just moves on. Longitudinal studies, on the
other hand, require a lot more patience.
A lot more patience, whereby you say, You
know what? I'll take this group,
I'll ask them this question
before this mini conference,
these 5 questions.
Then we'll have the mini conference, which is
an intervention,
and then we'll ask them another set of
questions after the conference, and then we'll see,
how the response has changed. Then we'll wait
2 years,
or 3 years or 5 years, and gather
the exact same group again, and then ask
them the same questions, and so on and
so forth. So if you're familiar with the
work of Yakin, we do a doubt survey.
It's an almost an annual survey.
That is a cross sectional survey.
We don't gather the same people,
we're hoping to get a certain sample size,
certain number of people responding, and then we
move on. The studies that I will talk
about are longitudinal studies, which means they are
patiently
looking and examining
what is going on in the lives of
these youth, and indeed, how best
they are ultimately
responding to these questions over a bunch of,
a number of years.
One of the studies done at UCLA
tracked 700,
700,
children from early,
toddlerhood, if you will, not asking them questions,
but just paying attention to who they were,
who were at risk.
And I can't go through all of the
challenges they were facing, but they were at
risk for a number of reasons, in terms
of positive development.
So the study wanted to see
what ultimately would appear to be significant.
What is the most significant thing in the
life of these youth as they go through?
And they followed these youth,
not for 700
of them, not for 1 year, not for
5 years.
Doctor. Warner followed the youth
for 40 years.
See the patience of this? So we're gonna
need some of you
to go to college,
to become researchers like doctor Zara, doctor Brown,
and others, and then be, like, specialized in
topics, and then dedicate your life to the
study of that question.
In this case, she was really trying to
say,
what will be significant
after 40 years of watching and, and, and,
if you will,
listening and learning from these children?
Believe it or not, believe it or not,
two factors appeared significant, and these are very
connected to our approach as Muslims in trying
to talk about,
if you will, how do we raise these
children in an environment that is so moving
moving so fast and so out of control.
The two main factors that appeared
significant for these,
well, let me ask you, what do you
think was one of the most that was
associated with their positive development over these 40
years? Someone raise their hand. We're all teachers,
so we're gonna be asking questions. Yes.
Relationship with their families. Okay.
Alright. Anyone else?
Right. Good. So the word is connection,
being connected
to either family members
or others in in their lives,
who ultimately came up,
came through to came through for them and
helped them out. Connections matter.
Attachment parenting, one of the styles, talks about
connections.
And this idea, and the Prophet peace be
upon him, subhanAllah,
when you look at the little things that
we think are little that he did with
children,
He was known.
He was known
to hold,
and to embrace, and to hug, and to
kiss his grandchildren
all
the time. All the time.
Ali radhiyallahu ta'ala Anhu and Fatima radhiyallahu ta'ala
Anhu obviously inherited these behaviors and watched them,
and they displayed similar.
Why is that critical?
Touch
for the young children, at an early age,
from loving guardians and parents, is something that
starts to develop a level of trust.
A level of trust that all is well.
Even to the orphan
who may not have guardians,
and he was an orphan, as you recall,
we never saw his father, his mother passed
away by the tender age of 6. Even
to the orphan to show the love, he
said,
he said,
for the one and this is a cultural
thing where you comb the or you brush
your,
hand through the hair of a child,
basically kind of going like this as a
gesture of love.
Gesture of love. I'm I'm married, masha'a, with
4 kids, if I visit my mother, it
still happens, so don't think it's all that
strange.
He said to the one who does that
to a child and who is an orphan,
by by putting your hand through their hair,
sort of showing a gesture of love, for
every single
strand of hair that your hand touches, Allah
will
reward you. To show you how much,
you know, healthy,
embracing, and kissing, and holding of our children
was critical. So connection
in the lives of these children who were
at risk, at birth, and then through 40
years emerged as the one of the most
significant factors.
What was the second significant And I'll only
talk about 2 of them that, doctor Warner
had mentioned. What was the second one,
you think, as a as a guess? I
mean, you may not know it, you may
know it.
The sisters answered one question, so let's ask
the brothers to help.
What's another factor that emerged that was helpful
for positive? Yes.
Finances,
it does start with an f. Yeah. I'm
a very compassionate teacher, yeah. The word I'm
looking
Faith. Faith.
Believe it or not,
spiritual
sort of connection with some higher deity, if
you will,
and some level of connection to faith emerged
as the 2nd
strongest
predictor
of,
a positive development.
And so here's a culture saying,
run away from religion.
In fact, abandon God. And remember in the
eighties, you know, is God alive? And all
kinds of, you know, these, headlines that were
there. When we're saying, in fact, do the
exact opposite.
In fact, not only introduce the children at
an early age to who is their lord
and who is the prophet, peace be upon
him, and what is the Quran, and on
and on and on,
then create in them
positive associations
with the religion in early life. And the
recent Harvard study talked about this, that people
who go on to have very positive development,
developmental outcomes, they have had a very positive
relationship
with religion, and ultimately for us, that would
be God.
In what environment are we talking about this?
So, in other studies,
recent data has shown
that 1 out of 5 children
will likely suffer
a major depressive episode
before even leaving high school.
And we were intending to do a disclaimer,
it didn't happen, so forgive us, and I'll
just,
so many things, and I I will do
that disclaimer now. So, we want to assure
you that if anything we are talking about,
anything the other presenters will talk about
triggers
something in you, that within ADAMS itself in
the in our in our system here, there
is,
access to counseling and they'll facilitate inshallah access
to counseling so that you are not having
to work on this on your own. Our
own imam, Syed Umer, is available to debrief
and to discuss these things. So please don't
think that somehow it's a one way street.
Definitely make notes of things that may be
questions for you and things may that you
may yourself be exploring.
But this is what the data is showing
us. And this is not only the case
that people who are not Muslims are experiencing
this.
1 out of 5 children are likely it's
a study, so you're just saying likely, not
an exact science,
likely to experience a major
depressive,
if you will,
episode before leaving high school.
And some of that is connected to, again,
who am I,
unresolved issues about who am I, where am
I going, why am I here. And some
of that could then be connected back to
this idea of gender and even orientation.
Another one out of 6
another one out of 6 youth in the
youth risk survey
have actually attempted to
end their life within the past year.
1 out of 6.
If
life is moving so fast,
if we as a community, it's a critique,
it's not an
allegation, it's a critique,
are on autopilot
on the most part in terms of how
our children are being raised.
And then the data are showing us what
they need from the first study I talked
about,
what they need is connection,
what they need is spirituality and faith, And
then on the other hand, you are hearing
about these depressive episodes, the likelihood of it,
and then even potentially to the extreme of
trying to end one's own life.
How does this happen and why does this
happen? And as I start to close, I'll
wrap this up because I wanna give our,
other speakers time as well.
Brain development
is among the major concerns
of developmental psychologists,
social workers, and others who are focused on
adolescents
because this is the time
when the brain is most undergoing undergoing the
most change,
which is this idea of early teens and
teens and so forth. In fact, a
not a disclaimer, a, a preface to this
is that whatever we did know about when
adolescence starts
is literally being having to be thrown out
the window
because of how much
hormones,
steroids and other chemicals have been introduced into
our foods
that have triggered,
triggered
the early onset of puberty
in children
that was never seen before prior to this
last decade and and 2 decades.
So whatever we thought would happen at 7,
8, 9, 10, or 11, 12, 13, and
on and on, whether it was Piaget, or
Ericsson, or any of the other,
developmental,
psychologists,
some of that is being having to be
reconsidered.
In light of the fact
that these changes are occurring so fast, but
it's also altering
the thinking of young children in terms of
that hormonal development, but also societal forces for
the chemicals and
the steroids and stuff are affecting who they
are, how they're developing physically, and then psychologically
they have the impact of culture and society
on them. So, what are the things they
go through?
Among the things that adolescents have a hard
time with is perspective taking.
They are often one-sided in their thinking. Not
every adolescent.
It's just the case. It's just how they
grow out of it, most of them, and
then ultimately if they don't grow out of
it, they end up becoming dictators who head
up countries who only have one perspective.
So we wanna pray for people who grow
healthily out of this inshaAllah.
On top of that, they're consumed with self.
It's literally
this word selfie
wasn't invented with the camera because it could
take this picture this way. It was always
there.
Every youth throughout, you know, history has been
concerned about oneself, consumed with, Who am I?
Where am I going? What do I look
like? How do I look? Comparison, if you
will, with others.
It's also a time of loss. As you
come through,
you've had,
perhaps, a lot of, you know, family and
friends and others kind of watching who you
are, watching who you are, watching who you
are, and you're excited about everything about who
you are, suddenly you're spending more time alone,
wanting to spend more time alone, but you're
also feeling the loss
of that,
thriving sort of childhood that you had, if
you were
blessed with it. It's also a time of
struggling with identity, the questions that I mentioned.
While this is going on,
while this is all of this is happening,
what we're finding out is that the reality
is that while the brain is under development,
there are societal,
cultural forces
literally attacking and hitting hard at that vulnerable
age group.
Magazines,
websites,
blogs,
all kinds of, you know, marketing forces that
are there. One of the students in my
class did a study about how young girls,
for example, with any who develop
ultimately
eating disorders or, or con overly, you know,
concerned with their physical shape,
partially it comes
from an industry
that is destined
to create in them at least schizophrenia,
if not complete loss of self esteem if
they don't fit a certain shape or size
or look as is being prescribed by those
marketing forces.
So, while that brain is under development,
who is there for them?
Who is there for them? So, I'm raising
more questions
than potentially giving answers in a setting like
this, but this is what we need to
have. This is what needs to be done.
We need to be talking about these questions
and and looking at this. They're also more
prone
to emotional outbursts
because of, again, that development they're going through.
They're also more prone to misread,
misread emotional cues.
Which is why, by the way, and I
and I said, I have a 17 year
old, I have a 13 year old, and
I'm sure I was a teenager, others are
teens now and raising teens. Right? Sometimes it's
a strange reaction between parents when we say
something to them and how they ultimately react
to us, and they read anger when there's
no anger present
because they misread those tools,
they misread it as controllable.
So if we're gonna be having a compassionate
environment,
in which they're able to explore who they
are, and some of these questions about gender
and other things. Have we done the homework
from the very beginning to introduce them to
a very healthy concept of gender,
and a healthy concept within Islam of both
genders, not just the male, but also the
female, and to do it equally and, and
equitably.
So, in
closing,
in closing,
we've tried to raise some questions and, ultimately,
we wanna be sure
that we are giving at least some guidance
and some advices.
If young children
are in a society where everything is always
open to questioning,
and seemingly done in a vacuum where no
guidance is provided,
they will have, they will develop a lot
of trauma.
Alhamdulillah,
we are not a people who are left
without guidance.
So how do we use that guidance, and
what can we do? Number 1.
It is urgent,
it is a matter of urgency for us,
to develop curricula or curriculum
that can be shared with parents,
so that this conversation about gender and socialization
and roles,
healthy gender roles,
understanding and appreciation of those begins at the
earliest of ages.
In our home, for example, as I mentioned,
with 3 girls and 1 boy, it is
not at all
not a day goes by that I don't
have to watch my language when I speak
to the children and not just say, hey
boys or hey guys. And if I forget
if I forget, my 8 year old
will fold her hands and then I'm almost
in timeout. Right? Because she gets it. She
gets it. If we're doing activities,
I have to be careful about what I'm
promoting
as being the in thing to do and
making sure that she and they are both
being raised in a way that is healthy,
but also indeed enjoyable for them. At home,
and I've mentioned this before, and I don't
say this just lightly,
I'm, because of different, you know, obligations with
the community and other things, what can I
do at home to help the family? I
do the laundry, I do the ironing.
Typically, that is not known to be gender
roles in terms of males. So when my
daughter sees me doing that, and my sons
see me doing that, I've already contributed to
a healthy
understanding
of not my thinking or my views, but
how the Prophet
conducted himself
in the life of his family. You follow
what I'm saying? So he's starting to make
it go full circle. So that curriculum, insha'Allah,
insha'Allah,
is something
that needs to be developed. Some of this
is being developed through resources, and doctor Zara
will talk more about that, within the Yaqeen
family.
But a lot more will have to be
done so that we don't leave the children,
especially boys,
to just say as long as they play
basketball and eat pizza and don't hurt anyone,
and child will be okay. Like that's our
approach to raising boys, whereas the girls and
the young women were, you know, talking about
and
training and discipline, and and and, you know,
and telling them all the teachings of Islam,
and then supposedly doing that so that they
can be great wives and mothers,
forgetting that they could never be a wife
or a mother, and still be a beautiful
human being. But how would they understand their
roles, and how would men understand their roles
if they never saw us talking about these,
particular,
expectations of them. Rights of passage camps. In
the African American community, this was a big
deal. It has subsided to a great extent,
and is being revived now. Rights of passage,
literally at every level of their upbringing,
where every aspect is celebrated. And sometimes we
make fun of cultures,
like in the Desi, in the Pakistani, South
Asian culture for example, there's such a thing
as Bismillah,
which is when the kids just first start
reading the Quran. There's such a thing as
Amin, as a, you know, as a function
to have it. Of course,
and and memorization
is valued.
Salah parties are emerging. Hijab parties are emerging.
Beard parties are emerging when the first air
emerges on the cheek, right? Not prior.
These things should be celebrated
because what it's doing is allowing them to
connect back to the religion and say, these
are natural,
expected
parts of your upbringing.
And we want you to enjoy them, we
want to celebrate them, not let you just
sort of be out there in a vacuum
when your religion is under attack. So, yeah,
but I'll close there by saying that a
lot of questions are there,
but we are not a people without guidance.
We must understand and value adolescent development,
the import the impact of culture and society
on the brain development.
And so we cannot have children being raised
in an environment where their self esteem has
been hit hard, not just from this whole
radicalization
and terrorism and extremism,
but indeed separating people
from their faith during their upbringing. We must
reintroduce religion back into that.
And of course, heavy emphasis on gender and
on socialization in terms of roles. And then
lastly,
every, yeah, masjid and Islamic center must be
investing in this actively
so that no young people who are getting
ready to be married can be married without
going through some classes,
with even premarital counseling particularly,
but classes
that help them if they haven't already understood
what will be the best role that they
can play as a husband and a wife,
and then as a father and a mother
so that they can raise children insha'Allah, who
then ultimately have the best of,
health, and physical and psychological health in this
world. So inshallah, I'll stop there.