Ismail Kamdar – Curbing the spread of Doubts about Islam
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the root causes of Islam's problems, including doubts about its origin and social factors leading people to leave, negative impact on parents' pressure on children, and challenges in the school education system. They emphasize the importance of finding room for questions, fixing problems, and updating curriculum, as well as acknowledging the need for patient and honest dealing with new challenges and addressing one's beliefs. The speakers also emphasize the importance of educating children on the negative impact of smoking in children and their families, incorporating safety precautions into school curriculum, and letting children know about the consequences of smoking in the setting.
AI: Summary ©
Holy Quran
we will get started now inshallah
we are running a bit late
Amin salatu salam Wa Karim Allah Allah, he was my God. Okay, before we begin
that all of you for attending, and
Charla, this is going to be every second witness aid that we get together to discuss some contemporary theology topics. So the purpose of this series is for us to have open and honest discussions about topics that we tend to shy away from the controversial topics, the questions that our teenagers are asking the questions that are you the asking, the questions are driving some people out of the fold of Islam, right. This is a very
it's a very hot topic in a way that most of us, when this topic comes up with just
a you don't know what to say. And doing so has been very damaging to our community. It's been very damaging, that we don't address these topics. So today's session is both a comprehensive look at the root causes of this problem. And at the same time, it's an introduction.
It's both comprehensive and introductory at the same time. And initially, we advertise this as curbing the spread of atheism.
I wanted to change the title, so I just changed it here anyway, to curbing the spread of doubts about Islam. And the reason that I changed the title is that it's not atheism alone. That's a problem. Right? It's doubts about Islam. Because doubts about Islam. For some people, it will lead to atheism. For some people, it may lead to becoming agnostic. For others, they may lead to them before becoming one of people where they are outwardly Muslim, but inwardly not. And we want to solve all those problems, we want to tackle only atheism, we want to make sure that people's Eman is strong, the People's foundation is strong. So therefore, we want to get to the root of the problem.
And the root of the problem is not ageism, the root of the problem are these doubts about Islam and where they come from.
And today's discussion is going to be more
on the psychology and the social aspects that lead people to doubt Islam, rather than the actual appearance of fake issues.
And the reason for this is that one thing we need to understand is,
it is very strange to have a phenomena of young people leaving Islam. It's very strange, it's out of place in Muslim history. From the time of Rasulullah, sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam. Until today, Islam has been the fastest growing religion in the world. And he continues to be I, despite the fact that some people have are leaving Islam, despite the fact that there are people today who are openly, openly leaving the Great. Islam is still the fastest growing religion in the world. Right, because we everyone who needs the other to convert. And you know, as I mentioned before, those who convert they end up having large families with their children and grandchildren, or later be Muslim,
right? Or very often those who leave and not even getting valued or having children. So the balance is usually in favor of Islam. And I think one of our problems is that we we exaggerate how bad the problem of apostasy has been in our times, because we are so shocked to see people leaving Islam, we talk about it as if it's every second or third person. But in reality, it's it's maybe less than 5% of people. Because when it happens, you also shocked it's not like every second cousin or every third person who has left Islam. It's not like that it's a much smaller number than the less we want you to be 0% We want you to be when nobody leaves Islam, we want it to be that we stop this problem
and we nip it in the bud. And this problem is bigger in other countries, specifically in the US in the UK. In those countries. It's bigger than it is in South Africa. So Africa, we still got some of the foundations you have right. It helped a lot of people to maintain the EMR because some of the foundations that lead people away, ask specifically about ageism, we have to also understand that atheism is unnatural.
It is against the Fidra. A human
being is not born atheist. No civilization the history of this world with atheists is not something that's passed along generation to generation. Most people whose parents are ages they end up converting to some kind of religion.
As the victor on the natural beliefs of a human being lead towards Islam, for someone to move away from that towards something as depressing and purposeless, and against human nature as atheism, there have to be factors that lead them in that direction, there have to be social causes that push them in that direction. So what I'm going to do today is discussed what I think are six of the primary social factors that lead people to want to leave this religion. And if we can fix these six social at least six aspects of our society, then inshallah we will be nipping the problem in the fog, we'll be building a strong foundation of demand for the next generation. So people wouldn't
even think about wanting to leave this religion. And I want to start with a parable.
Put this into context. Imagine two friends by two friends in the early 20s. Once a young Muslim boy grew up in a, what you would call the Muslim
Jew, this is a Muslim boy, he grew up, his family never really practice Islam. Maybe they go for Juma. You know, they don't eat pork. They don't drink alcohol, right. And that's about all he knows about Islam. He goes to a public school, he goes to a non Muslim University, he does not go to Madras. He does not get an Islamic education. His parents are caught up in this dunya they don't really focus on Islamic upbringing. He grows up just Muslim by name. And in his 20s in university, his philosophy teacher challenges him, why do you believe in God? Why are you a Muslim? Why are you following religion? He doesn't have any answers. And one day, he told his parents another Muslim
anymore. His parents are shocked. His parents are shocked. Do you know Muslim anymore? Why? And he's shocked by these parents being shocked because his parents were practicing Islam anyway. So he doesn't understand what's the big deal. That if you're not praying five times a day, if you're not practicing Islam, Why are you shocked you don't want to leave this religion. That's one side. Let's move on to his friends. Imagine his friend, right. So this is a man who grew up in a home where his father was abusive, violent towards it. And his father often use Islam to justify the violence. And his father kind of forced him to do a lot of things. So he made him you know, we look at this young
man is he mashallah he's happy to Quran. You know, he's got a big beard. She's praying five times a day, but the same young man, his father, forced him to do all these things. He was beaten up, if he didn't learn his hips. No one ever taught him about the Mercy of Allah subhanho wa taala. No one ever taught him about loving Allah, but loving Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wasallam. In all of these,
in all of his life, all he knows, and all the associated with his religion is punishment and reinforced to do things. So he enters his 20s he goes to university, and he realized he's a man now he can make his own choices, angry with his parents, and he with his upbringing, he says, I'm not Muslim anymore. And the society the society is shot. The half is of Quran left Islam. What happened?
Now these two parables, these two parables are stories I have heard in the community, in South Africa, in the US in the UK over and over again. These aren't fictional stories. These are stories that are repeated over and over again, in our communities. And what did they tell us about the spirit of apostasy now in our in our communities? What do you think this tells us about the spread of apostasy?
It's not necessarily linked to intellectual arguments. I, most of the time, 90% of the cases I've had to deal with are people leaving Islam. There is an emotional aspect to it. There is a trauma related to it. And that's what I want to get you today. The I believe the causes of doubts about Islam are not necessarily intellectual. Because Islam agrees with our Phaedra Islam agrees with what's already there in our nature, and it builds upon that. Islam, teachings of the oneness of God, morality, having a purpose in life, the afterlife, of love, all of this, it fits in with the fitrah for someone to let this go, there must be something that broke him inside.
And this is why very often when people are experiencing doubts about Islam, it's not because of a religious reason per se, but because of something else. And the number one reason I found is family and one of them
Two extremes. Either their family completely completely neglected teaching them Islam, or the family kind of abused them in the name of Islam, forced Islam on them with beatings and shoutings and enforcing them to be, you know, the the problem here is some parents want the children to be a perfect one you love by the age of 40 with no sins, no faults, no mistakes, no room for error. You have to be perfect at school perfect that Islam by the age of 1516. And one mistake in the parent or traditional the child, that kind of emotional abuse reeks the child domain side. And on the other side neglect neglecting your child's Islam is just as bad. I mean, I don't want to mention the name
but there's a very famous comedian and Hollywood actor who was born in a Muslim family and he's not a Muslim anymore. And he says you want to be shows that the reason is that the Muslim was he was 12 years old or something like that at a friend's party eating pork. And his mom found the majority pork is haram. And that's the first time in his life he ever had walkies haram, while at a party at a friend's house, and he told his mom, it is too good to be haram.
And he ended up leaving Islam and becoming a Hollywood actor. But the fact that he didn't even know Boko Haram right to that age, told you he had zero Islamic education, his parents didn't bother to teach him a thing.
So these are the two sides. And in our community, we have both. In our community, we have both we have those who only emphasize on the material world and not on Islam. And we have those who who are maybe they're sincere, but the the method of parenting is so harsh and abusive, it brings the child on the inside. And in psychology, these this theory that a person's primarily understanding of God comes from the relationship with appearance, meaning, if someone's parents are kind and merciful, and understanding and compassionate and wise, then for child, that's the image you have of God.
And when someone's parents are harsh, and violent, and mean, and judging and unforgiving, then that child grows up believing that God is the same.
So the way we interact with our children, shapes the way we think about Allah subhanho wa taala. And so it's really, really important that we get the parents, right.
And this is really the number one cause, I would say maybe 80 to 90% of the cases I have dealt with, when somebody has left Islam or is on the verge of leaving Islam or stop practicing Islam, the angry with the mother or the angry with the Father, majority of the cases, when you break it down, they're angry with a parent.
And you're so what's the point of us then discussing the philosophy behind proofs of the existence of Allah or proofs of prophethood, when it's an emotional issue, they need counseling, they need to know to to move past it and separate the relationship with Allah from the relationship with the parents.
And that brings us to the second point, by the way, all six points are going to be controversial.
Because these are the things we don't want to talk about, right, where we can't fix the problem, if you don't talk about it. So if any of these points hit home, sincerely take it to heart and try to make a change in your life. Don't be offended or upset and think that I'm attacking you. I'm not attacking you on pinpointing things we have done
that are having a negative impact on the next generation.
And the second problem is our education. Three problems with our education. Number one, our curriculum is completely outdated.
The questions I want you to ask him, Why is homosexuality haram? We don't address this. How can I prove Allah exists? We don't we don't address this. How can you prove the Mohammed salsa with a true prophet? We don't address this. The questions they are asking, we are ignoring. Instead we want to teach him to pick up hunting, even though they probably never want to hurt you the life. You want to teach them. This is a car on sheep, even though none of them ever going to own sheep. Right? We are not teaching them the aspects of our religion relevant to their lives. Instead, we want to teach them things that are relevant to different types of places. Yes, the farmers. They need to learn the
trick of farming hunters need to pick up hunting. people growing up in a city in Durban don't need to learn either of these things. Right? Everything has its time and its place. The second problem with our education curriculum is there's no room for questions. What happens when you ask a controversial question to most Islamic teachers today?
You get shamed. You get shouted at you get told don't ask questions.
And sometimes it's a it's a it's not a it's not even a controversial question, sometimes just questioning something because you want to learn it deeper. And you know how many times this has happened to me in my life? I remember once when I was first introduced to the concept of the different mothers of Akita. And I asked my teacher, why are the mothers of Aqeedah? By teacher going hungry? And to me, don't ever ask questions like that.
And that question caused me to have doubts. I only discovered the answer. 10 years later, had the teacher just said, I don't know, I'll check it up. And he checked it up and gave me the answer the next day, there will be much better than telling someone don't ask questions like that. And by the way, a lot of us do this. A lot of us when kids ask us, How do we know Islam is true? We say Don't ask questions like that. When you tell a child Don't ask questions like that. The Christian doesn't go away, he just stops asking you that question. Shaitaan will play on the question in his mind until he moves into a doubt, and the Dow can cause it to beat Islam.
So we have to have room for questions in our education system. Number three, we have structural problems in the education system. We have problems at the very basis of how we teach Islam and who teaches Islam who's qualified to teach Islam and structural problems. Very basic one I can mention is a lot of our Islamic Studies, teachers don't have teaching methodology training. They don't know how to develop curriculums, they don't know how to answer questions. They don't know how to make topics relevant to the students, this can be fixed very easily. It can be fixed very easily, as long as we are able to recognize the problem and work on it. Instead of just saying No, there isn't any
problem. This is the way we've always done it, this is the way we will always do it. By the way, some people may think that these things go back 1000 years or 1400 years, these problems and
these problems are new, the parenting problem, the education problem, these are only in the past 100 years, we go back to the Ottoman Empire, we go back to the Abbasid empire, we look at how people parented in those days, we look at the education system of those days, they were much stronger and much better than what we have today.
This is a new problem. It's not you know, when you try to change it, people tell you Oh, you want to change, you know, the you want to change the way we teach Islam or parent Islam. You want to modernize things. So we want to modernize things, we want to actually go back to the center.
Because it's not center to either child with the learning hips. Show me what are the instances that show me a single Heidi's your Rasulullah saw some heavy hitter child.
Show me a single Heidi's where the prophets also was teaching people things that wasn't what was not relevant to them. You will notice that the early Muslims, the methodologies were very different.
And let's move on to the things that are kind of outside our control. social pressure,
we live in a culture that is anti religion,
and where the moral standards are changing every year.
What was permissible yesterday is prohibited today, what was immoral yesterday is bottled today, and is a strong pressure, especially in universities. On being anti religion, whether you become agnostic or atheist, or just a non practicing Muslim or whatever it is, they don't care as long as you don't take religion seriously. Now you have to understand
that everyone's affected by the environment.
And in the past, Muslims had a very simple solution to this problem that doesn't exist anymore. We had the feel of it, we had a Muslim world to live in. Now, we can't see Oh, forefathers shouldn't have migrated here. You know, because if that was the case, we'd be stuck in India, which has other forms right now that help him and protect him and keep him safe. So whether we do here, this is going to be problems, both on the islands which are majority non Muslim.
But we have to understand that by choosing to live in a culture that is predominantly anti religious, where
the pressure on people is to, to doubt everything, where the pressure is to keep changing with the norms. And also, if you don't adapt to the latest trends, when it comes to morality, you are canceled. You can tweet something in 2010 minutes consider model quarterly fine. And in 2020, you suddenly decide that's immoral, and they will pull out your tweet from 10 years ago and cancel it. That's how the society has become. Their morality is changing every single year. And what happens is a lot of our youngsters are pressurized. They are pressurized into changing with the knobs
Imagine find it easier to just leave Islam altogether in order.
That's a reality right? Many people just find it easier to leave Islam all together than to juggle trying to fit in and trying to justify that in terms of their religion.
And this isn't something that we can fix easily. Because reality is that young people specifically, are always affected by the environment they grew up in.
What we could do, we could build young people's confidence, we could give them a better education, we could give them better parenting, we could build the community types. And all of this can help them to fight off social pressure. But we can't get rid of the social pressure itself. We have to teach them how to deal with it, how to find it, how to stand firm for what you believe in, instead of changing with the times.
The fourth reason why people leave Islam
is because they want to chase the enough's without feeling guilty about it.
And how many times when when you ask someone you know about why you left Islam in Islam doesn't let us you know, sleep around, or it doesn't let us drink alcohol. That's not a reason to leave Islam. i You saying because Islam stops you from immorality. Therefore Islam is wrong. That's not a logical argument. That's enough. See argument. And this is the case for many people. Many people today just want to fulfill their desires without feeling guilty about it, because as long as they are Muslim, they're going to feel guilty because they have.
So they end up just leaving the religion altogether.
The good news to this group is I found most of the people who left Islam because they wanted to fulfill their desires. Once they experience Jah Helia once the experience covered once the experience how bad that lifestyle is, they have sincere regrets and return to Islam after five or 10 years. The danger is they passed away during the period. i But generally, if someone leaves Islam to fulfill their desires, they end up regretting it. Because somewhere down the line they realize Islam was right following the desire.
And by the overcoming of who who wonder about this, Omar Abdullah, who had said that he worries a time will come when Muslims don't know what it was like to be a disbeliever and the end up wanting to leave Islam so they can enjoy all the things.
He actually foresaw that the time will come when people grow up and they'll be looking at the normalcy of D enjoying themselves that we shall restricted. I want to be like that, not realizing the harms of the aborted lifestyle caused by doing fixing this, again goes back to education. One of the problems our curriculums today, we don't focus on why things are haram.
You either if you tell a young person and explain to them the harms of fornication, the harms of adultery, the harms of *, the harms of homosexual behavior, the harms of alcohol, the harms of gambling, they not don't want to do these things, because they understand the rational, logical harms of these things. The problem is we just tell them it's haram without explaining why. And this is how our curriculum needs to change. That when we teach people that something is haram, we have to explain to them why. And we live in a time where you don't even need to explain it theoretically. We have statistics improve all around us. But why?
Because the people who live these lifestyles are miserable. They are miserable. Because these lie lifestyles are just following your desires. It leads to depression, it leads to heartbreak leads to loneliness, it leads to addiction, it leads to feeling purposeless, it destroys a person. And you just need to look at that and see I don't want that Islam has protected me from that. So again, this solution is to go back to changing our education system.
The fourth problem that causes people to doubt the religion or leave the religion is a spiritual crisis, a spiritual crisis in lack of connection with Allah subhanho wa Taala and righteous people.
You know, very often, young people will come to you with questions about Islam. In seeing why does Islam allow this and you get the mindset to keep away that Islam allow that and you didn't answer and say Okay, but why did the Prophet do this? Eventually, you have to realize that it's not those specific questions that caused him to doubt the using it to cover a deeper issue. Very often the doubts begin, when there's no connection Allah subhanaw taala with his no Eema it starts example when someone stops paying five times when someone stops going to the masjid when someone stops observing his job, when somebody stops doing good deeds that we were already doing
That's when it begins. That's when they open the door for shaytan. To put vice versa in their mind, that's when they open the doors for these doubts that creep in.
On the other hand, you will never find someone who is a pious practicing Muslim sincere, who ends up leaving Islam. Why? Because if you've ever in your life experience and answer to, or even a true dream, or even the sweetness of fate, or the demand in the rush you get from Ramadan, or the hatred, or any of these acts of evil that you can have no doubts about.
You can have no doubts about Islam being the true religion, because you have experienced it. And this is why many of the Olimar say the best proofs of Islam are not rational truths. They are experience experiential truths, the things that you experience, the feeling you get when you are in such that at the time of 200. You can't explain that to anyone. And that's why in the past, you know, when you look at the Sahaba, and the early Muslims, they didn't go around handing out pamphlets to people about Islam.
People literally just observe Muslims. They saw the bedrock of Islam, they saw the vertical of the sahaba. They saw the impact of his of how it changed people's lives. They saw all of these things. And that is what attracted him to Islam. It was experiencing Islam in action. And that's why when there was a beloved Islam was growing, no matter how we dealt with word Islam was always growing, because you could go to a Muslim town, meet Thais, Muslims, live with them have have a meal with them stay in the house for a few nights and experience Islam. Islam is something to be experienced. Like one of the strongest proofs that the Quran is from Allah, that we went through all of the last
few into all of the rational proof that the Quran is a miracle. But still one of the strongest proves that the Quran is from Allah is the impact it has an allowance, that you can recite Quran beautifully to someone who doesn't understand a single word of it, but it hits them in the heart. That's something to be experienced. Very often people who are dealing with they would doubt about the religion, they are experiencing a spiritual crisis. Their hearts are disconnected from Allah subhanho wa taala. And this goes back to either parents not teaching them Islam at all or no resentment towards religion because of the way someone treated them. Or just the fact that we don't
focus on on dustier two naps when it comes for you to think about we don't focus a provocation of the show many company ourselves, we only focus on
if we look at our Islamic Studies curriculum for young Muslims, it's just there's no purification of the soul. There's no connecting or worship Ohana with Allah. There's no understanding Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, He maletto we don't talk about these things. We don't connect them Allah subhanho wa taala. It's just this is how this is haram. This in Baku, Dizzy McGruder, for me, it's just roots. The spiritual part of the religion is one, and is that spirituality that hits the heart and quality
for the heart. And so going back to being spiritual, to being people who experienced this religion, that is the next step to stopping this.
The final cause of doubts is community problems.
Everybody wants to belong. Everybody wants to feel like you're part of a society part of a community. And too often, too often, we alienate certain people from our community. When people feel alienated from the Muslim community, they look for other communities to accept them, they look for other communities. To be a part of a very often this opens the doorstep leaving Islam
and the many community Omar level problems that affect the amount of the youth.
So for example, we have on the global level terrorism, right? That they see these movements like ISIS, and they think,
and they don't want to be associated with these movements. And because they don't have a proper education of Islam, they end up thinking that this is Islam, and they end up having doubts about the religion, or they see the weakness of the Muslim next,
then Muslim lands are today amongst the weakest or the poorest and the most oppressed of lands. And they think how can this be the true religion? If you know if it doesn't have prosperity? Now, that's not a good way of thinking, but it's the way many you think. But that's on a global level on a local level. It gets much more personal.
So before today, I mean earlier today, one of your message me to ask if they can attend. Right? And that reminded me of this problem. The community level problems, they very often our sisters feel excluded from the community,
that they don't have access to Islamic education. They don't have access to the masjid. They don't have access sometimes.
for scholars to go and ask them the questions, and this makes them feel excluded. And just same with the youth because as a community,
too often we have this emphasis of being perfect. So when a young man wants to start going to the masjid, and he's got some tattoos, and he's got an earring, and his beard is shaving off, and he walks into the machine, what happens
to many of our machines, he gets kicked out. But who needs to be in the masjid most he needs the bastard, he needs that environment, he needs to reconnect with Allah, we are depriving him of that.
We need to meet people where they are and and show them the way back to Allah, one of our biggest problems today in this community specifically, may not apply to other communities in the world. But here specifically, is that if you are if you don't fit somebody's idea of a perfect practicing Muslim, they treat you as if not events.
And if people are treating you as if you're not even Muslim, for many of you, that will try them out to the fold of Islam. I mean, I've even heard parents say, Oh, my son stopped praying so that I don't think he's a Muslim anymore. Oh, that's a huge jump, that's a huge jump, you're making the feed of your son before even counseling him, or making dua for him, you already making the feed of your own son
in the community as well, like, some people expect every young Muslim man to be in full time talking full time. And I think that's what he was a practicing Muslim boy looks like, if you don't do that, a good Muslim, or you know, even a Muslim, you know, and then we have the field where everyone's every groups considering every other group to be out of the fold of Islam. This is breaking our youth. This is breaking our youth, there are so many young people who don't want anything to do with the Masjid. Anything to do with Islamic Studies, anything to do with lectures, because that's the slubbed of experience. It's just hatred and anger and judgment.
And where's the road back to Allah. And this goes back to parenting as well. I always tell parents, that your children when they are teenagers and young adults, they are going to do stupid things. They are going to make mistakes, they are going to fall into minuses ensure I don't fall into major sin, but that might happen as well. How you react is most important. We have cases where parents will react to a minus and as if it's confirmed, they will react to a minus in the sun was looking at the girl as if he could he became a gaffer. Here, the teenage son that's going to happen, instead of being so reactionary, how many of us actually teach our children?
How many of us teach our children?
How many of us tell our son you know what, if you look at if you if you catch yourself looking at the wrong way, turn your eyes away and see
how much better is that the to shout at them and scream at them and act as if they have left Apollo.
But we don't do this. Instead, we break them instead of helping them.
So let's go over some practical solutions quickly. And then we'll open the floor to q&a. By the way, this is just a
this is just say introduction to this topic. Inshallah, right, we'll dive into the specific things that the young people are bringing up in later electricity series. But number one solution, our parenting style has to change to meet the challenges of our time.
I think it was early. Even I'll be talking regular one who said that don't raise your children the way you were raised, because they are growing up in a different generation from you.
He said this to the sahaba. It told Sahaba don't raise your children the way you were raised. Because think about it. The youngest Sahaba were raised in Medina, while the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was alive.
In that land in that environment. Ali rajadamnern followers are raising their children 20 years later, in a time where those children have never seen the Prophet saw you saw them in a land that with a Muslim that civil war with each other? Two very different types. You're not going to have the same parenting methodology. How much more does that apply to our times? Our children are growing up in a completely different world from us.
I mean, my kids can't even imagine a time before YouTube. And before Google, they can't imagine it either. There's like a world without internet doesn't exist today. The internet has been around longer than the new generation.
And they have access to information and knowledge at a young age that we didn't have access to our entire lives, both the good and bad. They have.
How do we handle this? We can't use the same parenting methods that worked 20 or 30 years ago,
or maybe maybe 50 years ago. It worked to to either hit a child or maybe
I don't think it works in the 21st century. So how wrong technically, but I'll tell you the methods. We have to focus on what's going to have the best effect
Back to this generation. I don't think that works in this day and age and has culture.
We have to find ways to improve as parents. And that means for example,
having a kind of relationship with your children where they can ask you questions
within other free to ask the parents, how do we know Islam is true? And you'll sit down together and have a conversation about it. And if you don't have the knowledge to have the conversation about it with them, guess what you have YouTube, you can watch a video about it together.
You know, you have a relationship with your children, where your worship Allah to get, have a relationship with your children, where you openly discuss the vices going on around you don't act like they don't exist. Don't act like all these vices in South Africa don't exist. Be open with your children. Tell them listen, those people drink alcohol. This is why it's haram. This is why we don't do it. Listen, there are people in this community who commit Zina It's haram because of this, why that reason, explain to them the reasons why have an open discussion with your children about devices. They understand why it is haram and why we don't do it.
Another thing that needs to change our parenting style is we as parents have to understand that our children's understanding of who Allah is stems from the relationship with us. And I mentioned this at the beginning, that if parents are harsh and unforgiving and violent, that is a child's image of God as well. And then parents are kind and loving and merciful and forgiving. That is the image of God as well. And so we represent this religion to our children, we are the first teacher, we are the first model of Islam.
And if we are doing a bad job on either direction, either by being too extreme or being too, you know, of negligence of the religion, either extreme, then we are sending them a wrong message. So parenting is something that needs to change the way we do it. And that's a discussion for another time, inshallah.
Another thing that needs to change is a major restructure of the Islamic education system on every level. There are so many gaps in our education system today. Number one, we don't focus on Islamic studies for high school.
That's our biggest that's one of our biggest problems. Think about it, most Muslim children go to madrasa to what grade seven or eight, eight, right? How many grade 10 1100 grade 12 students you know, go for madressa classes, probably like less than 10%. And even if the arguing most of the time the only learning
will understand that age. At that age, they are young adults. And they have a lot of deep questions. That's the age with a needle connection Allah subhanho wa taala. That's the age where they need a mentors, that's a junior need righteous friends, that's the age they need someone to ask the questions to. That's the age they need to feel connected to the masjid connected to the community. And that's the age of agnostic completely untethered only to focus on school.
And so they hit 18. They're not praying five times a day, they forgot wherever they are the madrasa they go to university, and we wonder what happened to them. So we have to find a way to educate the teenage group, the young adult group, and to make sure that they're getting the right education, not just an education, but the right education. And the restructuring of our education system has to happen if you've never even the Alim program itself. It needs to start including things like psychology, counseling teaching methodology, so that our odema are equipped to handle the challenges of our times
100 other countries that are doing that Inshallah, US Africa will follow one day.
The third solution is we need to allow spaces where our youth can ask questions about Islam without be judged for these questions.
I do it people can
ask questions about Islam without being judged for the questions. And that's what we hope to do with these circles. It is Wednesday nights every second Wednesday when we get together. And on Fridays, we have teenagers only, by the way, a Friday. We also have a program like this, but it's for teenagers only. The whole purpose of these programs is to give them a space to ask these questions our judgment, not just teenagers, but young adults as well. That you can come and you can ask. Because, again, going back to what I said earlier, if we tell them don't ask questions like that, the question doesn't go away, and she cannot play on it on their mind until it grows into a major.
We rather have spaces where we can ask the question without judgment. We can discuss topics frankly, and we can give them the answers that they need.
The fourth solution is a focus on desk era or purification of the soul and character
and this
goes back to changing our education system.
In fact, most of the solutions I'm mentioning are related to the education system. But
we have this huge gap in our education that we don't teach children and specifically teenagers. purification of the soul. Again, how many of us were taught as teenagers? How and when to make history? How and when to make Toba? What type of sins are you obviously a stock Viola for which type of sins we make doba how many of us have told our teenagers that if you commit a major sin, and you make Toba, Allah will forgive you? How many of us have actually taught him
how many of us have showed them the way back to Allah, when you go,
how many of us have have taught them the importance of of good company of having a mentor of having a spiritual connection with your Salah Quran, we don't focus on these things. And if we can adjust our curriculums from a very young age to focus on this, there may be from the age of 10, we have some level of spirituality in our Islamic Studies curriculum, then this can help to shape the mind as they grow.
So for example,
where the family gets together a pre Salah Jamaat
and where maybe the father recites Quran, and you know, translated, discusses with his children, or in the madrasa, where the teacher doesn't just focus on faith, but teaches some books of purification of the soul, and teaches the students how do you grow your EMR. And again, here, we have to be realistic.
Again, we have two extremes, we have those who don't focus on this at all. And then we have those who expect the child to be perfect by the age of 15. It we have to understand that spirituality is a journey, it is a lifelong, gradual journey. And everybody moves at a different pace. And some people by the age of 20, they may not be at the level that depends which they react. But if you are gently helping him move in the right of the right direction, maybe by the age of 30, or 40, to get them. But if you shut them down, push them away, write them off, say Oh, my child is not a Muslim, or my child not a good Muslim, or I'm not going to talk to him anymore. You are closing the doors for
them. You are making it harder for them to to grow.
We expect too much from people at a young age. And what's interesting is even the Sahaba did not expect them teenagers from young adults. But I think it was Abdullah even Abbas for them who said that youth is badness. He said youth is madness. At that age people do stupid things. If you look at the people who kill smart, regular man who are the people who rebelled against, against them, early believers, many of them are young people. And the Sabbath, the young, these immature, they don't understand it. That's why they're doing these things. When you look at people, even amongst the Sahaba, who were young, the prophets always have had a relationship with them, we never expected
them to be perfect. They will literally have young Sahaba coming to the practice loads of missing also like is the girl What do I do about it, and you tell them to pray to rock solid, and
he didn't expect that level of perfection that we expect today. Instead, he was their spiritual guide, showing him the way back to Allah showing them the way forward showing up to work your way towards Allah. Because let's face it, none of us are perfect, and none of us will ever be perfect. So why do we expect perfection for teenagers and young adults?
So let's focus instead on our spiritual development and their spiritual development as well. Then we have one last thing about the education system. And that is we need to update both our fake and Aqeedah curriculums to reflect the needs of our time. And that's one of the things we hope to do with this series. And that's one of the things that I've been working with the arcane Institute is that we've been working on developing contemporary modules related to both Aqeedah epic so what do we mean by contemporary issues related to
you know, fit in the past we will teach you this without children Xena is around alcohol is haram. Salah is compulsory, we need to update it but ultimately I don't mean you change the fate. I mean, you explain to them in the modules, the goals of the Sharia.
Why is he not Hara i because of the problems he causes the family look at how families been destroyed in the modern world talk about the importance of family housing are completely destroyed how the Xena has completely destroyed that in our lifetime.
You show them why it is haram in the Quick module itself. When you talk about something being compulsory, don't just tell a child three five times a day. You explain to them the spiritual benefits of praying five times a day the spiritual harms of
Avoiding the prayer, what it actually does for your soul. So they have a deeper connection with the
Akita even more important because Akira is where we discuss topics like, Who is Allah? How do we know Allah exists? How do we know the Prophet saw some is a true prophet.
These are the topics you have to cover Nikita not fighting over how to interpret Allah's names and attributes, not fighting over what is the definition of other, leave those fights for different time and place, focus on the questions that we used to have that are causing you to doubt Islam. If we can update our curriculums, in schools in madrasahs, and universities, in early programs with our weekly programs, then we can build a stronger foundation for that from the time they are young. They have a strong foundation and not just Muslim by name, they are Muslim, because they have learned from the very beginning the proofs of Islam have finally, we end
with a reminder that we have to be patient and honest when dealing with these new challenges. Many of us take one of two wrong route to the country dealing with this we
live was nothing to do with Islam, we end up lying about our religion, which is completely wrong. Because then the child goes online and he googled and he finds a Quranic person, if I do this, and you realize that you will. I do like to default in religion. And that's why I'm always very brutally honest place about history of fake Wakita very brutally honest, there's no room for lying about your religion, when it comes to dealing with these new challenges. Seed as it is, even if it is controversial, right? If something is haram, it's Herat, we don't change it. Because we don't want to face reality. And number two, we have to be patient, we have to have struggled with dealing with
people, because everybody everybody is today is dealing with new challenges, challenges that we didn't even think about 10 years ago.
And it's not going to be fixed overnight.
If a teenager comes to you and says that I have doubts about Islam, we're not going to solve that overnight. You have to be very patient to that individual. You have to sit to them for multiple sessions, and discuss a variety of issues and deal with a variety of traumas to get to the root of the issue and help them solve the problem.
Many of us we get angry, we get irritated. And we're like why can't you just believe why can't you just be a good Muslim. That's not how it works. It's not the real world. Sober is necessarily when dealing with people. Look at Musa Ali Salam as an example. We look at all the stories of Bani Israel, and the sobor Musala Islam had to have with it whenever they messed up over and over again. And he kept leading them in the right direction. No matter how many times money is flowing, messed up, Musa is kept leading them and kept trying to get in the right direction. And that's the relationship we have to have with our students, with our children, with our community members, with
anyone who's facing spiritual crisis at the moment. So this is this is my introduction to his topic. If we can fix these six things, right, if we can
show if we can parent better fix our education system, decrease the social pressure by improving our children's confidence, help them overcome the desires, we're teaching them why those things are haram help them have a connection with Allah, we don't experience a spiritual crisis. If we can fix our community problems, right, we now give them a strong foundation upon which they demand is bought. And when the demand is built on a strong foundation, there is less room for doubt, it is far less likely that person will ever apostate or leave the religion or when the foundation is shaky when there's no real Islamic education with there's no evidence is taught to them with a strong
social pressure with the disconnection with their parents or with community, it becomes very easy for shaytan to get to the heart of a person at a deeper way.
So this is the root of the problems and what we're going to do over the next few minutes days every second Wednesday is going to take one specific question that a lot of young people have today and address it to ensure for example, our next session in two weeks time will be on proofs for the existence of Allah.
Because this is the most common question, right? Especially in this age of Atheism and agnosticism. We have people asking how do you know God exists? How can you prove the ally exists? And I will present to you three or four ways the Boosters go about through the existence of Allah and focus primarily on the way that I believe is most important and strongest and the one that stops it easiest, Charles will do that inshallah in two weeks time. With that we come to the end of this presentation, open the floor to discussion and to questions and answers. Before we take any question
Raise your hands. If you've ever dealt any of these six cases, if you've dealt with someone whose demand which we call the lefty stuff for one of these six reasons, raise your hand if they happen to you.
So, you believe these points aren't quite right.
Because other people will tell me that
it's nothing to do with this. It's just the individual. It's just the individual and his problem.
As well as not taking responsibility for our side. Because sometimes we are the cause of somebody else leaving the religion just like we can be the cause of someone entering the religion, remember, our existence is doubt.
If we are projecting Islam properly, people will flock to this religion. And if we are portraying Islam, polio, people will need this religion.
Because our existence is doubt that that's a reality, whether you want to do Dawa, or not you as a Muslim, represent Islam to everybody with that with Muslim and non Muslim alike. Any questions?
Political.
News films,
join political movements
in the process, the last
use,
one of the things that Muslim
Students Association able to do was provide a platform for people to express is no.
And therefore, providing platforms to be able to express themselves on particular areas.
And I think if it doesn't actually happen, we will have lost an entire generation of young Muslims, communism, socialism.
It's also because of that, of
the initial use
cases using
the Muslim platform.
So that's just one example. And when we think of a similar thing is happening today, we we can provide a similar platform for people to express themselves particular areas, which has not at the moment.
Okay, so it's a good point that
in your generation of Muslims who left Islam left it for political reasons, right. For example, during the apartheid struggle, a lot of people became disillusioned with the whole Ummah, who decided the party government, right, and many of them ended up leaving Islam by joining communist movements or other type of movements, right. And what saved him was having a Islamic political platform, a platform, you could be Islamic and political at the same time that saved the model for for many people. So for this generation, how do we deal with the problems nowadays, in South Africa, not necessarily political, it's more moral, that's a bigger issue. What what is morality? And that's
one of the topics we're going to cover. Because in Islam, how morality is set. And in the modern world, the definition of modality changes every five years. And we don't have discussions on these topics, you know, we just assume that everyone's on board what Islam teaches, and we don't give people the space to to express,
you know, doubts in this area. What would be needed, I think over here is, is, as I mentioned, a space where people can ask the questions and deal with the difficulty. So for example, look at issue of women's rights, because we don't have Islamic spaces where women can express their rights the Islamic way, right. A lot of we lost a lot of the current generation of our sisters to feminism. We lost a lot of feminism, because they don't have access to the masjid didn't have access to Islamic classes. They don't have a voice in a community. But they found a community in feminism. They found a voice in feminism, they found someone who accepted for who they are feminists, and we lost him to
feminists. So one of the ways to avoid that would be to have a place where they can have a voice, have a presence and be able to have open honest discussions about these topics with a strong Islamic foundation that will ensure protect them from falling in that direction.
Any other comments or questions?
I have a lot of them I have to update my training. So any questions
creating the role of cheap prices, ladies is effective.
And we came to this
influence
that's a good point. And that goes back to the dusky upright image that we we forget about Shall we take from today we tackle everything rationally forget the spiritual element. So when we someone's having doubts about Islam, we think about the rational side, the philosophical side, we don't think about the topic of the wassup cheetah, the cheetah, have influence over this person. And that's where the density comes in that if you have this provocation of the soul, we can spot was was outside ourselves and see I wouldn't be that big Tony regime, he said to me, is this about us? With the profits lies I'm said that shutdown will come to one of you and ask and ask you question after
question. Who created this? Who created that? And then she done who put into your heart to question Who created Allah? And then Rasulullah Hamza, when you get that question your heart simply say, I believe in Allah.
Meaning don't even entertain the washboard. Don't even entertain it. Because it's never ending. Okay, you answered that question. She doesn't mean another another one. Now you have to understand that something's coming for treating the problem, again, is this we have a lot of our Muslims retreat and like
the 3d legs mythology, not like his actual real gym was spring, it was a conscious effort, you know, they don't have this understanding of it. And yet, she doesn't leave it all, who does she don't have an impact on.
We know, we say that the wolf catches the lonely sheep. And that goes back to the community problem. When someone does not have a sense of belonging, when you don't have a sense of community, differentiate and help them you put in their foot in their yoga generation, it was the communist other movements today, it's, you know, it's the, the LGBTQ movement, it's the feminist movement, it's a liberal woman, she dabbled in the art, you know what, these guys are not going to accept you, those people will accept you. So that's the way the West was accommodating. And if you don't have a sense of community, and so much firmly and strongly is looking forward, they will be drawn to the
community. So, this is very, very important, when we are educating our youth about purification of the soul, that we discussed the role of the ducks and the worksheet on and how to contact them and how to contact the board. So, she talked to the people talks.
centers
in the process,
everything happened
today still in the building.
And
many years ago, we noticed this in some of the problems
that normally do
not understand the kinds
of denoted.
Here we are actually having notices
locally. I am the ones praying in a particular manner.
And it gives you enough not to sell on Sunday school.
And for the parents who in the end, it is something you can't concentrate, excellent barrister, parents and children. I think that's a big problem, because
millions of rands millions, you know,
definitely are subject to become places of worship, effectively, the center of the community, the activities for children, sisters, to own.
So I think that that's a big deficit.
That's very unfortunate with the community problems part of it. The Turks have seen that if you can't do the sounds of children playing in the masjid, what about the next generation?
Because children who grew up playing in the masjid he grew up with a heart attack.
And for many other countries I visited, this children's play area is a children's play rooms in basketball courts and coffee shops, all of that in and around the budget.
And
we don't have that, Africa. For me, how do we solve it? I mean, we've been talking about it for 2030 years. We need solutions. I think, for me, solutions start not complaining about what other machines are doing, but focusing on what can we do? I think what we can do at least this center, to make it an example for everyone else, so other people would see the center see the Halacha see the teenage program, seeing everything going on, you're seeing
the effect it has, and maybe others will be inspired to do the same, it will have been shown as a ripple effect in the community. But instead of us only talking about these things, we have to start taking action, we have to start seeing what is within our control to change 100 Many of you're sitting here you're either have your own centers, or you will have one day Inshallah, you can do this, you can at least have that sense of being a role model for the others. And then people will see the end that will spread throughout the community and that's the one way that we can change that is very, very true. I personally know people who would go into the masjid when they're five or six
years old, and got traumatically shouted at in front of everyone in the masjid the age of seven or eight. And right to know the age of that is they are terrified of questions that people have.
And they were traumatized from the masjid for life.
So instead of attracting people to the house of Allah, we are chasing people away. Even with adults the other day, I was standing in the masjid talking to my friend, two grown adults will be standing the masjid talking to my friend and two uncles walk up to us and one shout at him for his path below his ankles at the other shelter. We are waiting.
I mean, that's how adults are treating adults in the masjid imagine how they treat each other.
So we have to change our attitudes, what we don't realize, I mean, that didn't really impact me much. Because Hamdulillah I have a foundation of knowledge that I can maintain my motto and all of us here do. But what about those who are just there for the first day? What about someone who was not practicing Islam, and they go to the machine for the first day to keep on practicing Islam today, and someone shouts them for their pants being below the ankles because what does it have an impact that they have that person? Because they don't have the knowledge to say okay, this person understanding of Islam is wrong. All they can think is this place is scary. I'm out of here. i
right. So that's very, very important point you brought up we're almost out of time any other questions?
Draw
community
in integrating
Shukla, what do you like to do train like
the amateur amateurs give ideas?
I must.
What's what's the word?
Surely you can repeat the question for what I love
to do it.
Curriculum. Yeah, okay. Well, it's actually one things right.
I mean, contaminate other ideologies.
Contemporary.
Thing is, is
video, I know, just a question, contaminate your other ideas, and how do we keep it pure? Okay, so when I'm talking about updating, there is two sides of it. One is updating the curriculum, which is our curriculum right now is designed for maybe people living 200 years ago, right? It discusses topics which were necessary for the movie, it might not be necessary for us to give the example of difficult planting. If someone's a hunted issue started to pick up party, but the average person doesn't, doesn't need to study it. We're not saying it's bad or wrong or incorrect fit. We're just seeing that person doesn't need to like that. But the other aspects of that are not taught in
schools that the person in the city needs to know. So for example, the FICO of business, Fico, finance, Islamic banking. Everyone growing up in Durban needs to know these things. But we're not taught at school or high school level. And the average Muslim doesn't know what is Islamic banking. Why is it different why's Riba? Haram? What's the big deal? So we say updating Vic, we're not talking about changing the laws of Allah. We're talking about teaching people based on what they need to learn about or what's relevant to their lives. The other aspect of updating is that in the Mudhouse, there are certain laws that change from time to place to place right there is in a rule of
fate, on all the matchups that
the certain laws change with culture. So for example, if
if you're teaching people in FIP, that
it's
that it's compulsory to be Adobe. Would you say that
is it
really compelling to me? Is it all there's a difference of opinion? And this is the difference of opinion? Could we follow the other opinion? Which opinion is stronger? Right? Sometimes that might change. Sometimes we might not. But we at least need to have these discussions that something's changed from time to time and place to place. So for example, we look at the concept of TV of watching television, right. 30 years ago, everyone said Hara i Nowadays many of the same Molana juices around have their own TV shows where they teach Islam using their own TV chat, right, why they realized that the fix has to change, that that opinion was the wrong opinion. Right? Same
sometimes it goes the other way, that 50 years ago, everyone said smoking is moku. Now we all say It's haram. Why? Because we realized we were wrong. We realized we were wrong, because Ember fit is not just karate speakers very often. HDR is the OLA having to work something out. So for example, just say today, something new is invented.
Let's just say someone invents, what's, what's something new that's coming through the metaverse, right, the metaverse, and they asked you in attending a Halaqa. In the metaverse permissible. Everyone says no, It's haram. Right? And then 10 years later, someone comes in, but is it really haram? And did he come with an Adobe signal with Hello? Are they changing Islam?
No, did you think that persons have been the people before them the opinion was rough, because the Quran doesn't talk about the metals, it is the same with with modern technology and stuff like that. So sometimes updating it means that maybe some of the big books written in the past 100 years got something wrong.
Now we are seeing the Quran was wrong, or this was wrong, but something has in the past 100 years.
And maybe we need to re analyze those things, and come up with new conclusions. Right? So for example, if someone says that, you know, to be a good Muslim, you have to recall that,
well, we can go back and say, Well, you have to study the Quran and Hadees there isn't anything about that at all. So maybe we got that wrong.
As long as your aura is covered, it's fine. You didn't change Islam, you just, you know, you're fit is different from the generation before. So that's one aspect we have equal change. But you are right, you also have to be careful, we have to be careful here. Because this is this does become a slippery slope, that if if we don't have the right shul the right principles in there's too much of change. And then we end up overstepping we end up changing the laws of Allah. So this is why anyone training to be firstly, the changes must come from all of us and come from anybody who has come from.
Number two, the older man making these changes must be properly trained in the art of HDR must learn to shoot a wide variety. Of course, initially, they must learn and master all of the sciences, those levels olema have to have this discussion.
So we make sure that updates are within the Sharia and not changing the Sharia. And we said sometimes, sometimes updating fit doesn't mean you're changing the shader. It's simply it happens inside the Sharia. Right. So for example, in the early Ottoman Empire, they considered coffee to be haram
that any Muslim consider coffee haram today.
Nobody comes in, right because some people realize that those are Avira, give a wrong call the same with the radio. The radio was first invented, people thought it was magic, the Muslim whoever he said that this is returned in Jim's talking. And he says Nobody considers the ratio higher up to the right. So fit can change when you realize that maybe a fatwa of the generation before you before what what you can't change is what is clear in the Quran and Hadees that's where we draw the line. So in a different discussion, I do have a whole series we did online on issues with you watch a series and I have some good books I can recommend for you on that topic. If you read those books, it
shows you what is changeable and what is not and will help you to understand where to draw the line with the controls. But I think I'll give you more resources.
Good and now
to ensure we meet again in two weeks time and we will then discuss proofs for the existence for any announcements to make before we go though.
Okay, really shut up in Shabbat after this. And this Friday night is a program for teenagers which belong. If any of you have teenagers, someone between between grades eight and 12 boys or girls, we think a benefit. sign them up for it. We try to have it every second Wednesday of every second Friday with a different teacher. So that teen program it utilized for building him up it's for the staysky and o'clock and all of that good shout out excetera community. We are working on all of that to that program. So please, if you do have teenagers besides adults
For that she's off on a free run walk with a 100