ISLAM AND THE RISING GENERATION

A MESSAGE FOR OUR YOUTH

With few exceptions, our modern-educated youth equate the Islamic way of life with the traditional customs of their elders. In their minds, Islam is identified with the quaint, the out-moded and the dying. Strict adherence to Islamic injunctions means to them “conservatism”, “backwardness” or the “reactionary fanaticism” of aged, white-bearded “mullahs”. For more than a half century, our rising generation have been taught that an unadulterated Islam intrinsically lacks appeal to the minds of today’s young. If only they could know how enormously mistaken they are!

In the developing mind of each child is the insatiable hunger for exemplary people with whom he can identify himself and esteem as a guiding inspiration after which to pattern his own behaviour and ideals. This is why Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley and now the “Beatles” arouse so much excitement among adolescents wherever they go. When these “pop” singers make their tours in Europe and America, they are besieged with clawing mobs of thirteen, fourteen and fifteen year olds. A mere glimpse from afar is enough to incite the girls to cry, yell and scream and in their frenzy, beat their breasts and tear out their hair. Some are so overwhelmed, they faint in ecstasy.

It is through the mass-media that the images and desires of teen-agers are at once standardized and distorted. The printed word, the television screen, the movie 112 and that no-man’s land between art and entertainment, the recording industry simultaneously extract the flashiest, most obscene and least meaningful aspects of adolescence, crystallize this titillating mixture into a commercial formula which is then beamed at teen-age America. Violence and frenzy—substitutes for real action and motion—are always present either as the main theme or leitmotif.

The family, if it is not actually in a state of total disintegration, is never free from open or thinly camouflaged hostility … What are today’s teen-age heroes really like?

The most important common denominator of most teen-age idols is that they are mass-produced. They are not really people with individual characteristics and personalities; they appear to have been manufactured in a mold.

They are managed. They are “handled” commercially. They did not grow; they are manufactured by press agents, publicity departments and vast efficient relations. Their success story is told almost entirely by dollar signs, Cadillacs and swimming pools. They share with teen-agers a semiliterate jargon and an almost total absence of original ideas … Elvis Presley has been an idol longest … It seems a long time since his gyrations outraged some television viewers and threatened to turn his appearances into a national controversy … Presley was pushed to fame and fortune by his hips and his mentor, Colonel Tom Parker.

After “Heartbreak Hotel”, his first record, the way was paved by suggestive pseudo-notoriety, swooning prophetic starlets, hysterical fan clubs, superb press agentry 113 (which followed him through the army with hints of romance with German teen-agers), and finally led to the movies, the pattern of patterns. Today he is hot property, guarded by a group of young companions who act out the rat-pack, mixture of clique and bodyguard … These “pop” singers appear to be the product of an assembly line, as interchangeable as the packages of detergents in the supermarket.

They not only sound alike; they look alike as well … Many of them have been “fixed up” with “nose jobs”, contact lenses, elaborate hair-dos and rigorous diets in a manner that used to be reserved for aspiring movie starlets in their attempts to achieve whatever “look” was currently fashionable …

Teen-Age Tyranny, Grace and Fred M. Hechinger, Fawcett Publications, New York, 1962, pp. 86-89. Is it not pathetic that for young girls and boys, Western society can offer them no better heroes than these? Because Elvis Presley, Nancy Sinatra, Tuesday Weld, Joey Dee and the “Beatles” can never quench the thirst of our young for inspiring ideals to emulate, is it any wonder why in their frustration, they resort to juvenile delinquency?

For the young in search of a hero what has Islam to offer?

… So we gave him (Abraham) tidings of a gentle son. And when his son was old enough to walk with him Abraham said, > > Oh my dear son, I have seen in a dream that I must sacrifice thee.

So what thinkest thou?

He said: “Oh my father! Do what thou art commanded! Allah willing, thou shalt find me of the steadfast …” (The Holy Quran XXXVII: 100-102). The “gentle son” was none other than Hazrat Ismail (peace be upon him). When this event took place, he could not have been more than a child of twelve or thirteen.

After his wife, Khadijah, the first to follow the Holy Prophet was Ali ibn Abu Talib, at that time only a boy of nine, living with them as their adopted son. When the Holy Prophet asked the boy to believe in his message, Ali replied, “I will ask my father”.

But the next morning he came up and said, “God created me without consulting my father so why should I consult him in order to serve Him?” When the Holy Prophet was commanded by God in the Quran to make his message public, he gave a feast and invited all his relatives, the great men of the Quraish. When they had finished eating, he said to them, “I know not any man among the Arabs who has brought you a thing better than I have. I have brought you what will do you good in this life and the next. And my Lord has commanded you to it. Who among you will help me in these affairs?” There was only a silent rebuke as the great men of the Quraish turned their faces away from him and resolved to leave him. But Ali, who was then still only a small boy, rose to his feet and said, “Oh Prophet of God! I will be thy help! My eyes are sore and my legs are thin, but I’ll stand by you, Oh Messenger of Allah! I will fight him who fights thee!” In 115 subsequent years Hazrat Ali was to fulfill his promise and much more.

And what of Muhammad bin Qassim who brought Islam to India, led an army to victory and ruled the people with such justice and righteousness when he was but a mere boy of seventeen! Should not these heroes of Islam provide greater inspiration for our youth than “pop” singers, filmstars and cabaret-entertainers?

Lest our youth spurn the heroes of Islam as relegated to the remote past, may they rest assured that they are not absent from the scene even today. In Egypt there are hundreds of youth together with thousands of their elders in jail because of their sympathies with the efforts of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun to promote an Islamic renaissance. These young people, despite having been reared from infancy under atheistic socialism, are enduring unflinchingly all the hardships and agonies of imprisonment because of their staunch adherence to their faith.

They are not deceived by the shoddiness of the “teddies” or the “Beatles!”.

The most outstanding characteristic of youth everywhere is their unlimited idealism.

To our youth so thirsty for high ideals, modern civilization has nothing to say to them except, “Be happy! Have fun and enjoy a good time to the last limits of self-indulgence while you can!” But our youth are not convinced because even they know that not everybody can be happy.

What of those of all ages, not excluding adolescents, suffering on their sick-beds in hospitals, mental asylums and prisons throughout the world? How can they “enjoy life?” If there are no goals in life other than 116 happiness, comfort, prosperity and worldly success, what remains for these unfortunates but to commit suicide?

According to Islamic teachings, life is not a pleasure-trip but an examination. Every minute of our lives we are being tested and the suffering and misfortune we endure on this earth is not the decisive calamity but only part of the testing. God did not put us here to be happy and enjoy ourselves but that we may succeed or fail in His examination, the final results of which will not be known until the Hereafter. Far from encouraging stagnation and decadence, Islam is the most dynamic and revolutionary faith ever known. Were men really convinced that God is greatest, how many monarchs would topple down from their thrones and dictatorships crumble to nothingness? In their heart of hearts, our youth do not want comfort and ease. They yearn the world over for the excitement and challenge only a sacrifice of self to a higher end can bring. The harder the struggle, the greater the obstacles to overcome, the sweeter the ultimate triumph.