The Balance of Behavior and Belief of Muslim Youth - Research Proposal Example

Belonging in America: The Balance of Behavior and Belief of Muslim Youth Introduction As the 20th century comes to an ending, it is time to echo on people’s successes and failures in replying to the Qur'anic challenge of establishing a morally upright culture on earth. The whole of the human past has been a story full of endeavors to create this ideal community (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 159). The ideal, which Islam is looking for, is also a widespread ideal for the entire human race. It has been an objective of all the sages and prophets to see that humankind, through its moral and spiritual perfection, creates a just community. However, it has not been a simple task. A lot of people in the world have strived and struggled to make this earth a much better place to live in; an environment that would expose a balanced person exhibiting an extremely spiritual life informed by utter moral values by the main institutions of socialization like family, religious centers, community and so on. In this regard, the Islamic religious text has reminded its readers more than once that a man obtains, but only what he strives for (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 159). Islamic people believe that their endeavors will be judged, and only then will they get their rewards in full. In essence, humankind has to keep on striving in order to earn its ultimate reward in its entirety. Therefore, the challenge remains to be how one upholds this dynamic energy, in faith, through striving to stay a Muslim, that is, an individual who has "suggested" their total being to the Divine will. Many institutions have been established, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which tend to deal with this matter. However, their endeavors have not been as successful as expected (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 159). Muslim youth in American struggle with a ?ux of social, developmental, religious and cultural factors, which can drive them towards negative behavior and attitudes that obstruct their growth. Also, many geopolitical events associated with the rejectionary antisocial behaviors and attitudes of small segments of Muslim youth in America have ended in capturing public interest in Muslim youth. However, little is known concerning this populace in spite of the fact that a projected 67% of American Muslims are less than 40 years of age (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 159). Muslim youths that are raised in the United States go through a lot of challenges, which arise from the complex intersections of culture, adolescence, as well as religious identity, which might drive them towards engaging in unconstructive activities. This paper intends to present challenges facing Muslim youth, convey fresh progress in the field of youth development and provide agencies, institutions and professionals, with suggestions for enhancing the positive growth of American Muslim youths. Some of the challenges identified by Muslim youth in American are namely the issues of individuality ad acculturation, the lack of support, challenges maintaining spiritual beliefs, and challenges with gender relations (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 159). The Positive Youth Development (PYD) replica is explored in the context of Muslim youth in American, and finally, suggestions are offered to community and government agencies, youth organizations, educational institutions and the Muslim spiritual community, so as to better meet the requirements of American Muslim youth and encourage their positive growth. Sufism in America A Gateway for Belonging The least attention granted to Sufi movements in much earlier scholarships on Muslim youths in the United States is pinpointing in the sense that such movements were marginal to the concerns of a majority of the Muslim youths residing in the United States and unimportant in reference to their effect on American institutions and culture. Organizations and publications, at the same time, sponsored by the American Muslim populace have greatly ignored Sufism. A majority of the American Muslim youth owe their image of a modern Muslim movement to Sufism, a tolerant and spiritual Islamic movement, which goes some decades back (Keller and Nawawi 45). They have sustained their social, religious and cultural cohesion of American Muslim youth society. Sufism gives the answers to a number of the most multifaceted issues in the recent American Muslim youth world. In fact, in the American Muslim populace, Muslim youths make up most of it. Sufi principles exist all through the American Muslim youth populace (Keller and Nawawi 45). They plan regular meetings to pray, chant and discuss appropriate topics of political and social importance, varying from social charity and the security of the environment to the fight on drugs, as well as the threat of terrorism. In addition, Sufi gatherings motivate young individuals to take part in interfaith dialogue, stressing the worldwide beliefs, which Islam shares with Judaism and Christianity such as love of one's family, the pursuit of happiness, open-mindedness of religious and racial differences and the endorsement of peace. Joint Sufi chants, seminars and trances offer hundreds of thousands of Muslim American youth a social forum where the combination of the secular and the sacred, the body and the soul, as well as the universal and the local is both possible and pleasant. Sufism is so diffuse in American Muslim culture that its duty cannot be correctly understood if diminished to a shrine or sect. The culture saturates even those musical trends tagged as "Western" or "modern". Rai, as well as Islamic versions of rap and hip hop, might look too sensual or too earthly to be related to Sufism, but they adapt their styles from Sufi poetry to chant the primeval significance of the human body, the merits of straightforwardness and the healing offerings of Sufi saints, such as Sidi Ahmed Tijani, Sidi Abderrahman Majdub and Sidi Boumediene religious masters respected by their disciples and peers for having achieved spiritual union with God in their worldly lives. The effect of Sufism on American Muslim youth culture is more open in the lyrics of Muslim urban band such as Native Deen, Seven8Six and the Kareem Salama. These three groups have overwhelmingly shaped the United States’ Islamic popular music for many years (Berry 324). Muslim legendary songs, informed by the hippie style of bands such as the Sonz of the Crescent and Project26, inspire a lot of listeners to a physical response called shatha, a Sufi word, which American Muslim youths use for modern dance. Sufism can mainly be considered as the gateway to have a sense of belonging to this culture (Berry 325). As we can see, Sufism gives the American Muslim youth a social life, which is extremely significant to develop a feeling of belonging. Sufi motivates these American Muslim youths to reside by the values of Islamic, which eventually creates a sense of self worth. It forms the core practices and beliefs of Islamic in all Muslim American groups, even the youth (Buitelaar 450). Islamic Fundamentalism in American Youth Islam is a strange occurrence to a majority of the Western minds while Islamic Fundamentalism is even much harder to comprehend (Pipes 1). There is a tendency to critic the Fundamentalists’ devotion as radicalism, their readiness to give up their lives while serving God as extremism, their holistic perception of life as revolt against the state, and their abhorrence of and longing to reprimand sin as blood-thirstiness, their beliefs as intransigence, their unity as selectiveness and their sense of honor and dignity as haughty pride. The American Muslim youths who are concerned with the Islamic Fundamentalist movement are from lower middle class households, as well as the students (Pipes 1). The main reasons for their draw to Fundamentalism lie 1) in their religious and social sense of hopelessness and 2) in their being a social class of the civilization that has no future. Such American Muslim youths perceive themselves as insignificant in their effect on the history of the country (Pipes 1). The lower middle class in the United States does not perceive a place of importance, either on the social ladder, or in the religious sphere (Buitelaar 450). Therefore, such people have a negative perception on life. Considerable impacts on the history of a country are made by individuals, and since a majority of the American Muslim youths belonging to the lower and middle social classes are deprived of their rights and qualities that give them a forum, they discover that the only means they can make history is by going through the Fundamentalism door. Islamic Fundamentalism pledges to essentially change this unjust social system and offer the insignificant population the chance to get into the heart of the history of the state (Pipes 1). These movements then not only play the usual duties, which they were deprived of, but also play a much greater role, opposing the foundations and values of the present social system. Another group of American Muslim youths who go through a parallel set of experiences are the university students across a number of universities in the United States. Learning is vital and a long period of years is needed to graduate from the university or college education. In this kind of educational system which provides no inspiration except to a few who get into the fields of engineering and medicine and students become marginal (Pipes 1). American Muslim youth students are persuaded to be insignificant and look to the future with despair and anxiety since they discern that what is waiting for them is disguised joblessness (Chen 703). They gladly turn into a social movement in the society with different cultural beliefs (Pipes 1). They, together with the young scholars who see no hope for upward mobility, become eager and open to respond to any summons of Fundamentalism, which pledges significance, involvement, as well as a role to play in making history. American Muslim youths, who belong to the groups, are mainly the lower and middle social class (Pipes 1). A lot of these youths came from small towns and the villages, migrating to the urban centers to live in the suburbs of the United States, bringing with them their traditional culture. A majority of these youths arrive to a kind of self-actualization through jobs where both heads of the house work. A lot of the Muslim youths in America find it hard to triumph in this complex battle for survival. These embittered youths are the ones who turn into good candidates for Fundamentalism (Pipes 1). When this movement of deprived youths in the lower and middle social class becomes big enough, revolt then becomes unavoidable. The Internet Role in Jihadism The tendency by Islamic extremists to use the Internet, mainly through websites, as a means of communicating, coordinating and raising funds, continues years after 9/11 attacks (ADL 3). The practice of Islamic revolutionary movements to turn the instantaneous and openness nature of interactions on the Internet to their gain is revealed by the number, depth and variety of the sites devoted to helping such groups in their cause (Chen 711). While a number of the websites have been taken down or folded, new ones, for instance stopamerica.org (whose owner has been prosecuted as a likely Al-Qaeda agent) have flourished, conveying similar messages of destruction and hate (ADL 3). The already present sites run by Islamic extremists have gone on to act as central nodes of conveying propaganda, fundraising and messaging among members. The Internet permits not only the Muslim American youth, but also other groups that are spread all across the globe to quickly and effectively convey messages out to supporters, and the application of cryptography, as well as other privacy techniques permits groups to do so secretly (ADL 7). Since access to the Internet is extremely cheap, fast, as well as flexible, the difficulty of tracking and deciphering underground operations is compounded by the effortlessness with which websites become identified and shared; and can then be doubled and restarted under diverse names using diverse addresses. The diverse means and techniques to keep information and messages hidden online are a practice that these movements will go on to develop upon and improve in the future (ADL 7). Because a disturbing web site is gone, does not signify that Jihad has been neglected. On the contrary, steady monitoring is needed to track and trace the war that is been declared on the American Muslim youth culture in both the real and electronic world (Cook 730). Similar to hundreds of millions of other humans, Islamic militants, as well as their supporters, know how to use their internet. These supporters are considered to be groups such as the American Muslim youths among others. In numerous ways, the internet is a tool specifically made for such Islamic extremists, who utilize the tool overtly and covertly to raise money, plan attacks and spread anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda composed in Arabic, English and other languages (ADL 8). Distinct the online activities of a majority of internet users, the activities of Muslim terrorists, comprising of the coordination and planning of the 9/11 attacks on America, have contributed to common violence, death and fear. For sure, there is sufficient info to consider that in the future, these groups may even convert the internet itself into a weapon, utilizing it to cause havoc on the United States’ critical infrastructure (Cook 740). During 9/11, all United States citizens became conscious of the danger posed by Muslim militants to the United States. Many Muslim militants in the United States consider that it is their spiritual undertake on violent warfare against any non-Muslims. The group, commonly called Islamists, intends to topple each and every worldly governing body and replace them with Sheria law (ADL 9). Since these militants are all over the world instead of being situated in one geographical position, and since their messages are significant tools for incitement and recruitment to violence, the internet offers these any Muslim group an effective and successful way of attaining their objectives (Dillon 57). American Muslim youths can assess such delicate information that might have some stern consequences. Boston Bombings Roles of the Young Men Muslims youths, in the United States, have struggled with the implications of extremism since 11th September, 2001, when the proceedings of 19 men, allied to al Qaeda, opened up a new era, when fingers are perpetually pointed at supporters of Islam every time a terror attack occurs. Since then, American Muslim youths have spearheaded attempts to eliminate the discernment that the Islamic religion is an extreme or violent religion -- frequently working to convey the simple message that a majority of Islam's 1.6 billion followers globally condemn terrorism (Keeran 1). However, the Boston Marathon bombings posed not just a significant setback to over a decade of work, but also a much newer hurdle: how to counteract online radicalization, an identified recruitment tool utilized by terrorist networks overseas, which seemed to have a considerable effect on the alleged perpetrators of the terror attacks that left at least three dead and hundreds injured. The case of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev is exceptional in that law enforcement bodies argue that there is no verification that the brothers, of Chechen origin, worked for any terrorist group (Eccles 46). The stories of these two young men with apparently normal ambitions are explained as likeable by their friends. It was 26-year-old Tamerlan whose perceptions became more and more extreme, leading to an FBI investigation, in 2011, which called into inquiry his exploitation of websites provoking radical activity. Dzhokhar, 19 years or age, as the authorities argued, seemed to have been greatly persuaded by his older brother (Garmezy 89). However, Dzhokhar was, in fact, radicalized online, as well, and allegedly admitted in a short message that the Boston bombings were meant as vengeance for the American-led battle in Afghanistan and Iraq. Radical Islamic websites frequently use United States military endeavors in Islamic nations as justification for terror attacks (Kareem 1). The full degree to which online misinformation pushed the Tsarnaevs to the edge was known when Dzhokhar was eventually tried in the law court (Keeran 1). Muslim American youth protesters, for their part, have a fresh item on their list of does: to make sure another Dzhokhar or Tamerlan -- home-made and radicalized online -- are discouraged from accepting such severe views. Attempts are taking place through community panels, mosque-based trainings and amplified operations to bring radicalization to the forefront of debates among Muslims. Elements in such a society might be affected by anomie (Kareem 1). Muslim Youth societies, in the United States, are challenged by the lack of an inspiring source of morality, values, hope and meaning. With the worldly view that only material things are valid, combined with the discouragement of spirituality and theism, people in postmodern communities are experiencing the loss of meaning ensuing in despair and anomie (Keeran 1). Since the initiation of Darwinian evolution, in this society, the university and public school systems have upheld naturalism and scientism without providing a balance of the search for significance. This inequity has led to the secularization of humanity and raising cases of anomic depression particularly among Muslim America youths, as well as their young adults. Connected to anomic depression are rioting, drug abuse, vandalism, terrorism, bullying, depression, promiscuity, suicide and self-harm that, even though, related to the youth stage of development, are worsened by the lack of spirituality, meaning and community, which is increasingly reinstated by an internet connection (Keeran 1). Democratization adds to secularization and the lack of former values, as well. This has challenged Muslim youth societies, in the United States, and led to terrorism in order to defend against the loss of identity (Keeran 1). The Local Mosque in America Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, America has attained a political and logical stalemate concerning the Muslim youths in their nation. A vast majority of Americans still fear their Muslim neighbors (Skerry 1). They consider them as potential terrorists or terrorist sympathizers or, more usually, as the carriers of an alien tradition shared by America's enemies. Stoking up these fears is a handful of fervent bloggers and investigative journalists who recycle a body of facts concerning the Islamist origins of most Muslim American youth groups and of almost all major American Muslim youth organizations. Mainly adapted from the central government's thriving tribunal of the Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas front movement, this evidence is unquestionable — but its effects are far from clear. As opponents repeat and retrace them, the facts engage a frozen-in-time feature, such as artifacts of political archeology, on no account, put into any wider condition (Skerry 1). The critics fail to admit that persons who once advocated Islamist perceptions do not mainly remain dedicated to them over time. Muslims do mature past youthful rage and folly, and the United States provokes immigrants to change. United States’ political, intellectual elites and media, on the other hand, habitually dismiss these facts as inappropriate, ancient history. This is a mistake, as well, both politically and substantively. Even though, these Muslim American youths and organizations do not signify all or even a majority of the Muslim Americans, they do control the significant political space (Keller 40). In addition, their Islamist philosophy has had, and continues to have, a decisive influence on how Muslims youths visualize their place in the United States and the United States’ relationship to the Islamic people. Elite beliefs also steadily ignore or deny the fact that Islam is an active and even forcefully proselytizing faith (Keller 50). This is not to propose that Muslim-American youths are terrorist sympathizers or the actual terrorists themselves; nor is it to condemn how they deduce the call to spread Islam. Similar to many Christian youths, a lot of Muslim youths in the United States consider their own commendable actions as the most prominent way of spreading their faith. However, Muslim youths, in the United States, readily accept that just recently they dreamt of, as many have put it, "one day the crescent flag flying high over the White House" (Keller 56). For a vast majority of Muslim youth groups, maybe for all, this dream long since crashed with reality, but its power lingers. The lack of these elites to accept such evidence has fueled the concerns of Americans. However, if elites have been too offhand concerning the challenges Islam caused to America, normal citizens, as well as their tribunes, have been too hysterical, representing scenarios in which Muslim youths are not just deceitful (which a majority of them have been), but also omniscient —exempted from the tough trade-offs, which all political actors certainly face. In reality, Muslim youths, in the United States, have characteristically been recent arrivals hugely unaware of America's huge and its tough politics. Like other immigrants needed to learn and adjust, they have produced many mistakes. Outstandingly lacking from both the popular story lines and other Muslim youth groups in the United States are an acknowledgement of how the United States has changed Muslims. Certainly, not all of these transforms have been gentle, but it is vital to address them in spite of everything (Skerry 1). Such a reckoning would not just abate people’s gullibility concerning the competence of Muslims, but would also aid in restoring their faith in the flexibility of American institutions and values — a faith, which has been noticeably absents among American Muslim youths’ most loud critics. Conclusions and Recommendations Given the many challenges faced by Muslim youth and the numerous points of intervention, it is essential that agencies and people work in a mutual fashion. A joint effort is likely to reduce risky behaviors and encourage proper conduct among American Muslim youths (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 172). At the moment, a lot of Muslim youths do not feel that a vast majority of existing programs meet their cultural, developmental, contextual and social needs. Few programs give insight on how to resolve disagreeing factors, as well, so as to navigate the hardships of their lives and create an integrated and whole self-image. Hence, it is vital that persons committed to the growth of Muslim youth think about the following suggestions. Government bodies and community foundations must offer improved funding to faith-based youth agencies and research institutes upholding Muslim youth development (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 168). Funding for program assessments of existing programs are required so as to recognize successful programs upholding youth development and comprehend the components in these programs, which facilitate growth. Cultural and religious trainings and learning programs should be introduced in schools, as well as universities (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 168). These programs would work to increase understanding and approval of Muslims and Islam to ease the notion of clash of culture normally supported by the media, as well as to promote the incorporation of Muslim offerings to humanities, science and technology, social sciences, along with other areas of research into the classroom curriculum. In addition to cultural and religious awareness trainings, health experts should be ready so as to successfully assess and serve Muslim youths and their families (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 170). Community agencies and organizations should empower families through granting them with education on matters facing American Muslim youths, help parents develop more efficient parenting skills such as enhancing family cohesion and improving communication between parents, as well as their children and help families stressed with issues of acculturation (Ahmed and Ezzeddine 172). In conclusion, Islamic educators and scholars should provide spiritual knowledge, which is reliable and applicable, and that contextualizes Islam in American society. Spiritual education should promote age-based exploration, encourage critical thinking skills and use different educational methods, for instance problem-based learning, creative arts and case studies, so as to help young individuals in their religious growth. Attempts to establish and reinforce higher education Islamic institutions in the United States must be endorsed to encourage-age and set up native religious scholarship, easing the urge for American Muslim youths to study Islam in other countries. Works Cited Ahmed, Sameera and Ezzeddine, Maha. “Challenges and Opportunities Facing American Muslim Youth”. Journal of Muslim Mental Health 4.2 (2009): 159-174. Print. Anti Defamation League (ADL). Jihad Online: Islamic Terrorists and the Internet. New York: Anti Defamation League, 2002. Print. Berry, Sam. 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