Muslim Parenting

“Because We Are Beautiful” is a short documentary about young Muslimahs at the University of Kansas. The young women come from diverse ethnic backgrounds and have various approaches to Islam. Several of the young sisters are hijabis, others are not. In the film they talk about their growing up experiences, the challenges of university (including those created by an often not-so-halal environment), parental expectations, etc.

A really interesting look at Muslim young people.

The following is a talk given at Masjid Omar al-Farouk in Orange County, California (USA). The speaker is Br. Shareef el-Arbi, a community youth leader. Br. Shareef speaks about his experiences growing up in the US, as well as what he has come to know from the youth he works with. The talk is fairly frank about the issues Muslim teens face and mash’Allah is also filled with guidelines for parents (with examples from the sunnah and Qur’an). Good, inspiring and cautionary video for Muslims raising children in the West.

**1/2 out of ****

I was excited when I first came across this magazine. Finally, a magazine geared towards Muslim girls - insha’Allah a publication with which they could identify and through which they could be inspired.

I applaud the effort, but so far, I don’t think that Muslim Girl lives up to its promise. I keep hoping and praying (insha’Allah) that it will - as unlike a book, it is possible for a magazine to reinvent itself in every issue - because our girls could really benefit from a good magazine just for them.

Good things

Here’s what I think Muslim Girl magazine gets right:

• Makes an effort to find exemplars/role models for girls from the Muslim community. Sisters who have interesting and meaningful careers, are involved in philanthropic work, have been blessed with artistic or literary talents.
• Profiles Muslim girls who are doing interesting things - as individuals or as groups.
• Follows a familiar magazine format

What I didn’t like

• The majority of the sisters featured in the magazine are non-hijabis. While I know that most Muslim women, especially in the US don’t cover, I would like to see the magazine make more of an effort to seek out those who do so that

1. - It could normalize hijab-wearing for Muslims and non-Muslims. Seeing a glossy American magazine full of positive profiles and images of hijabis would help do that for many people. Mind you, I think covering is an individual choice and like to see non-hijabi sisters acknowledged as well.
2. - It is really young muhajabas who need the support of seeing themselves in media outside of negative news coverage on the Middle East

Instead it’s a bit as if Muslim Girl’s staff thinks of hijab as a cultural marker or fashion statement rather than a choice of faith. Something we’ve moved past.

• The clothing in the fashion section tends toward the immodest. Think, sister in headscarf but skin-tight pants and shirt. I would like to see more tunics, long skirts, fluid pants and dresses and even jelbabs and abayas here.

Okay, I’ll pause here to say that looking through it, I am not sure about the magazine’s message or its target audience. And I wonder about who is behind the magazine. Are Muslims at the helm, or is the publication an attempt by non-Muslims or non-religious Muslims to tap into a so far untapped market?

• I would like to see more Muslim-produced/marketed products, both in terms of the magazine’s advertising and in terms of the products it chooses to profile and feature in its beauty and fashion sections. Where is Shukr Clothing, Muslim Gear, Crescent Moon Boutique and so many others?

• The magazine treats “Muslim” like a superficial ethnic designation and not as a living faith. So, it will profile, for exmaple, Asma Rasheed because she has an Arabic name and comes from a Muslim family, but never really ask her about her faith or how it influences her life. It’s good enough that she would check off “Muslim” on a form that asked about her religion. In similar vein, there is little about Muslimahs whose central focus in life is Islam and whose vocations and community work were chosen to fit their lives in Islam.

• It’s great that Muslim Girl shows our girls women who are succeeding in difficult or unusual fields - but then I expect the magazine to go further and have them talk about how their faith informs their work, if there are any day to day challenges to being Muslim and holding that job (for example, finding time to pray), etc.

• Too much space given to conventional, pop culture that 1) Muslim girls can get from any other magazine and that 2) many of us parents are trying to keep out of the home. I have zero interest in having my girls read about “Gilmore Girls,” “24,”"Harry Potter” (many Muslim parents would especially cringe at that one) or other such pop culture drivel.

• I’d rather the magazine talked to nasheed artists, featured good books (more than television or movies), maybe even covering halal things that teens outside North America are doing for fun. Instead we get the Disney, Warner, view of things.
• Muslim Girl - be brave enough to set trends instead of being a follower. Perhaps you did some polling of young Muslim girls and found that most of them are into the same things that their non-Muslim peers are. Well and good, but then make it part of your mandate to introduce them to some new things and encourage them to think a little bit more.
• Oprah’s booklist had an amazing impact on the publishing industry and on American women’s reading habits. These major changes could never have happened if Oprah had simply said, “You know, my audience just reads mysteries and romance novels, they won’t be interested in anything else.” In fact, she got women who weren’t used to difficult reading to challenge themselves with books like “Beloved.”
• If our girls are only interested in the mall, iTunes and makeup then I want a Muslim girls’ magazines that will challenge that and present alternatives.

In writing this review, I looked around for Christian girls and women’s magazines and found several that seem to be doing a better job of creating reading imbued with faith than Muslim Girl is so far doing.

I ask the publishers of Muslim Girl to look at Azizah , al-Jumuah and Emel magazines for inspiration.

At this point, I would not let my daughter read Muslim Girl without reading the issue first and then may still have to set it aside. We do so much in our home to try to encourage good values and focus on meaningfulness (not to mention keep out conventional consumerist influences) that we would be stupid to serve up fluff (like the current Muslim Girl) to our daughters.

Insha’Allah, Muslim Girl will improve. I will keep watching.

The Boston area is filled with colleges and universities. This video focuses on the activities of the Muslim American Society Boston geared for university students and young professionals. The video looks at the experiences of two youths (one female and one male) who took advantage of these programs. Their journeys are ones I hope my children can take, insha’Allah as well.

MAS Boston also has programs (scouting, sports, game nights, etc.) for children and teenagers. The chapter even trains youth workers. There seems to be a lot going on at this chapter. I won’t be able to describe it all. You can find out more on their website or by contacting them.

Muslim American Society Boston

10 Garfield Avenue
Somerville MA 02145
Phone:(617) 623-3004
E-mail: info@masboston.org

The Muslim American Society Youth Center in Raleigh, North Carolina lists its priorities for its work with Muslim youth as follows:

1- Islamic Education (Comprehensive, practical and authentic)

2- Spiritual Development (Uplifting, sunnah based, and life changing)

3- Outreach / Dawah (Engaging, Integrating, and Implementing Islam)

To those ends, they host regular youth group activities, such as sports and field trips, youth halaqahs and itikafs and provide many other forms of youth outreach.

Click here to view photos of their activities.

You can contact the center, insha’Allah, through its website.

The following is a promo video for The Muslim American Society’s programs in Tampa, Florida. The video highlights their youth programs and youth center.

Click here for photos of the youth program in action.

Muslim American Society Tampa

12226 56th Street
Tampa, FL 33617
Phone: 813-899-2267

This video profiles two initiatives for Muslim youth in Brooklyn, New York. Very inspirational, mashAllah. Those of us who don’t live in Brooklyn can use this video to see what can be done. Focusing on the young people is so important.

For more information:

Muslim Youth Center
1933 Bath Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11214
Phone: 718.232.5905 Fax: 718.232.5103
Email: info@mas-myc.org

alternately you can contact their parent organization The Muslim American Society at (703) 998-6525

Council of Peoples Organization (COPO)

Note that COPO is not an exclusively Muslim organization; instead its focus is on South Asians.

1081 Coney Island Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11230
Phone:718-434-3266

The following is a lecture that Sheikh Hamza Yusuf gave at the 2000 ISNA conference on the influences of non-Muslim (”Western”) culture on Muslim children and youth and ways in which parents and youth themselves can encourage good Islamic character.

Sheikh Hamza touches on consumerism, advertising’s influence on children, television-viewing and guarding eyes and ears from the haram.

Here is what I took away from the talk:

• Don’t allow children to watch television. Sheikh Hamza feels very strongly that it is a negative both in terms of form and content. He also criticizes movies and actors - though I know from reading materials on Sheikh Hamza’s Zaytuna website that he is okay with allowing older children to watch carefully chosen (informative) videos.
• Educate children about advertising and consumerism so that insha’Allah they can be better armed against them.
• Encourage children to use their (limited) time to study Islam and also to develop other useful skills and talents.
• Encourage children to be active in community and family life rather than waste their time with video games, TV and movies.

My rating ****/****

Although I’m not it’s target audience - I’d say that this picture book’s intended demographic is toddlers (as a read-aloud book) to 6 year olds - I really enjoyed “My Mum is a Wonder” by Michele Messaoudi.

The story follows a young boy through a typical day with his mother; the wonderful Mum of the title. The tale is told in perky rhyme.

What I liked…

- Islam is seamlessly integrated into the boy’s day. There is no awkward exposition during which the author through the boy explains that the characters are Muslim. We see Islam in the mother’s modest dress, the fact that when the boy greets her in the morning she is reading Qur’an and I think,the author intends, through her kindness to her son and to the others around her. As such the book would make a good subtle introduction to Islam for a non-Muslim child.

- Mum and son are not the Western stereotype of Muslims. I’m generally on the look-out for books with brown and black characters, but in this case I found the way in which the family was portrayed (they are both fair - the boy has red hair), refreshing. By making this choice, without being too specific (we don’t know whether Mum is an English revert, Bosnian, Aydge, etc.) the author is letting the world and our kids know that Muslims come in all sorts of packages.

-The real appreciation that the little boy shows for his mother. The whole book is an ode to Mum. Insha’Allah the book can reinforce respect for parents in little readers and encourage them to appreciate what their parents do for them. Again, refreshing, given the sometimes subtle, sometimes not way in which so much of what is out there for children’s consumption undermines these values.

Finally, “My Mum is a Wonder” is well-written, fun to read and it’s illustrations are clear and cute. One for the library.

I’ll keep an eye out for other books by the same author.

**Note - “My Mum is a Wonder” is put out by The Islamic Foundation - UK, and as such uses British spelling and phrasings. As an American, I didn’t find this to be a problem at all - just letting you know.

My husband and I ended up talking a lot about the suggestion presented by Soundvision that parents should encourage their teens to marry in order to safeguard them and their faith.

Again, it may be our cultural bias, but we are having trouble thinking positively about this suggestion.

The divorce rates among Muslims in the West are already very high.

It seems that there can be so much difference even between someone at 16 and that same person at 25. How does early marriage accomodate these changes? How does it inhibit or facilitate growth and maturity?

I think that the article writers may not be suggesting that 16 year olds set up house together. Instead maybe the vision is of married teens living with their respective parents, continuing their studies and benefitting from parental guidance and support.

But then, I thought, are these teens really growing as a married couple, or just continuing to live as children with few responsibilities of their own?

What happens if children come into the picture? Will they become Mummy and Daddy’s responsibility as well?

Also, what happens if the person our daughter liked or who we thought well-suited to her at age 16 is a very different person; one who is less compatible with her at age 26? I know that I don’t want a “starter marriage” for my daughter.

While no one wants their children to sin, is early marriage the only way to prevent pre-marital relations?

These are all questions we asked and for which we have no definitive answers.

I was thinking, however, that one important element in all of this is preparing children adequately to wait, if wait they must.

Making sure that sex and romance are at once explained and in a sense demystified. That they know what Muslim parents expect of them and why. And also importantly know what can happen when the straight path isn’t followed. Having some sort of timeline may also help. It is easier to wait for something when you know when the waiting will end.