Where Are Muslim Youth going?

Very many leading senior Muslim scholars are worried a lot about many,
particularly Muslim youngsters involving in all sorts of immoral,
illegal, dirty, and unlawful activities to make a living and to
continue with their undeserving lavish standard of living.

Internet access gives a tremendous opportunity to enhance knowledge
but at the same time, it wide opens the gates of dirty sewerage into
the lives of far too many youngsters. It makes it easy for them to
access immoral, irreligious, violent dirty and undesirable web sites.

Muslim society, like all other societies, is now very much enlightened
that both parents work and are away from home almost for 12 hours
leaving their grown up children under the custody of housemaids in
rich countries or alone at home to look after themselves watched by
the old grand-parents very many themselves are weak and ignorant.

We have to think of ways and means to instill in our youths the need
to preserve Islamic moral values. Mere teaching of religious education
alone or emphasizing on rituals alone is not enough. There are far too
many Muslims who are regular in disciplining themselves in
rituals(Ibadah)thinking that that will guarantee enough scores for
rewards in the Akhirat, but in their daily transactions,(mu'amalat)
many are as bad or worse than agnostics.

Is only ritual based Ibadah Islam? What about the following that we
got to follow if we are good Muslims but many of us are indifferent.
- paying the wages of our workers before their sweat dries
- keeping up our promises
- repaying money borrowed on time
- believing in the international brotherhood of Islam
- the spirit of generosity, love and tolerance
- not boasting and having ego and pride in one's wealth and Position
and fame and treating others with contempt.
- respect and devotion to the elders, children and the marginalized
ones in the society.
- concern for justice, equity and fairplay,
- dedication to education, knowledge and criticism

We have neglected the mu'amalat and have concentrated on showing off
rituals without understanding the spirit behind those rituals.

Mere lecturing about Islamic Akhlak has fallen in deaf ears. A lot of
lip service is given but very little is done in the form of effective
control and implementation.

Trained Alims alone cannot solve these social ills. We need a much
stronger iron fisted decision makers, morally righteous police force
and clean and religiously convinced bureaucrats. And all of them
should think of several measures to arrest the tide of immorality and
crimes in Muslim countries and where we live as minorities.

For instance, on 25 March 2008, the Indonesian Parliament had passed a
law, which made producing or accessing web sites with pornographic or
violent contents, as illegal. The law provides for a maximum penalty
of six years or a fine up to US$ 80,000 for disseminating pornographic
materials on line.

A similar law is an immediate first step that very many Muslim
Governments should take to stop our youngsters becoming the friends of
the most cursed one ( the Shaitan).We have the technology to do this
and we have liberal financial resources to employ the best brains. So
what stops us from preventing the decay( except the political will to
face the opposition of the scatter brained) before it gets out of
control as in the West where in the name of freedom of expression the
nude pictures of even a President's wife is on all newspapers in the
U.K.

There is no shame or etiquette. Anything and everything can be
commercialized as long as it pleases the sensualities of some people,
and brings money and name to others. It is the freedom of the jungle.
Man has become intoxicated and lost his power to think and accept the
moral laws of God Almighty

If a very large country like Indonesia, can pass such laws and
implement these, it should be very much easier in smaller countries in
the Middle East and Southeast Asia. It has become much more important
now since mobile telephones are now turning out to be secretly hidden
but openly exposed gimmicks for youths to access the most undesirable
web sites.

We hope serious discussion takes place and an effective action plan is
drawn to create an economically, educationally and technologically
thriving Muslim society without losing our cherished Islamic culture
and values.

Some suggestions:

Control and block some of the dirty TV channels, literature, adult
magazines and newspapers publishing and glorifying famous singers and
entertainers, of course all the pornographic sites. Make it a crime to
access any pornographic or violent or anti-Islamic web sites. Make the
law strict on Dish Antennas.

: Bring a law on dress code not only for Muslims but also for non-
Muslims because some of them are allowed to dress as harlots do,
revealing far too much of their Awrat and walk around the shopping
complexes wearing underwear length shorts and broad-necked upper
garments, particularly when these complexes have become places of
entertainments and avenues for killing time for our youth. All Muslim
women must be asked to wear a proper veil covering their bosoms and
heads, the length of which should come up to their navels-this will
help. We cannot have two standards as we have in Malaysian States like
Kelantan, one expecting Malay boys and girls to dress modestly and
another giving as much freedom as England has given to non-Muslims in
the matter of dress. Can anyone deny the fact that revealing dress
certainly leads to sex crimes? The present day Hijab designed just to
conceal their hair but show off their feminine curves to grown up male
students and men, in my opinion should not be acceptable.

: Muslim countries like Malaysia should try to go back to single sex
educational institutions, at all levels from Form 8th Grade to college
education. We have to build more educational institutes to cater for
girls and boys separately We should never have hostels for boys and
girls adjacent to each other. The State of Georgia in USA is
considering segregating girls and boys in educational institutions
because of teen related sex crimes. What more to say in Muslim
communities

: We need more recreational facilities separately for boys and girls.
Every big town must have a sports facility, a football pitch, women
community centre and a good well-stocked library. We got to change the
basic attitudes and habits of the people and cultivate more serious
outlook in the lives of our youths.

-pam.ameen-