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Introduction:

Every creation consists of two types, female and male.  Males cannot populate and live in this world by themselves, nor can females only populate and live in the world by themselves.  In order the world to be populated, children must be born. Generation refers to a form or stage in the life cycle of organism. It is the time between the birth of parents and birth of their offspring.  As a result, new group of people are introduced to the world, who will take the world which their parents handed them over. As any other creation, human beings go through stages of process. the first stage is unborn which consist of three mains steps, the second stage is after born, which consists of 10 steps with three mains stages. In this paper, we only discuss on youth stage.

After born, the main stages of human beings are three; one is the early before teen, which depends on their parents or guidance they receive. This stage, human beings usually take what was offered to them. They rely on their parents. They carry on and identify themselves to whatever identity that their parents carry on. Therefore, they usually do not care about who they are. This is the group that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said; their parents can make them whomever they want. The third group is settled. They already made their choice in life. They are parents, educators, leaders or whatever society is. However, the group between the two, the young and the old is the group we need to pay a special attention.

This group carries many names. They are called teenagers, adolescents, young adults. However, the term youth can encompass all of them. It is an early maturity; the state of being young or immature or inexperienced. It also refers to a condition or a quality of being young or an early period of development or existence.  Upon these two definitions of immaturity and inexperience which indicate that they need help and the quality of being young, which denotes that they are the future of the society, is what we want to examine in this paper.

Immature and inexperienced:

They are immature and inexperienced, so they are usually confused their role in life. They are not young as the first group, who identify themselves to what their parents identify to, and they are not established as the third group. They are uncertain about their place in society and the world. They are not independent, yet they think they no longer need anyone. If they do not get the right and proper guidance, they will be lost.  They will be affected by the media, friends and relationships as well. Media is a big source of influence to them. Celebrities, bad and violence movies and Films affect them tremendously. Friend is the first source that younger people can turn to both good and bad situations. If the friend is not one who can influence them in the right direction, then he/she definitely influences them into the wrong direction.  Relationship is another main factor that impacts the young people. Young people have curiosity to check out movies, imitate to celebrities, and find friends and relationships. If any of these connections or experiences fails, it will have serious of social and mental implications to them. It is for sure, it will have a big impact on them, because they do not have enough experience or knowledge or even capability to handle these cases. Failed relationship or friendship could create low self-esteem, lack of confidence and social exclusion, which could lead to stress, mental effect and finally some bigger social, physical, and psychological problems. Study shows that, young people who watch high levels of media violence are more likely to be aggressive in the real world and increase risk of aggressive behavior as adults. Therefore, education will never be their priority and impious actions will become their normal life.  They use opposite of every positive word or action to a negative meaning, as a result, a generation of anger and aggressive will be introduced to the world.

This problem will be even higher to minorities and low income families and even higher in immigrant families. In addition to all the pervious issues, belonging and lack of citizenship, intergenerational and identity crises will be developed among these groups.  Belonging is very important, but when a teen comes from a minority group; they usually develop double standard personalities.  When they come to school, majority of students or staffs including teachers are different from them either language, color of skin, background, ethnicity, or religion; then they try to adapt and belong to the school environment or their peers. On the other hands, when they come home, they have to adapt their home environment, which is different that of the school. This type of life style is very dangerous, and person cannot stay in that situation for a long time. At this point, identity crises is developed, they do not know which group they belong to. Therefore, citizenship is lost. Let alone to be active and engage the society to fulfill their civic duties. They feel that they are not part of the society. In some cases, hatred can be developed against the society. Intergenerational crisis and cultural barriers can be seen in the immigrant families.

Quality of being Young:

Having said that all; youth are the backbone of the society, both its young and old. They are major component of any society. If they are guided rightly in the beginning, they are the once who determine what the future of the world would be. Because majority of projects and programs are done by youth, youth have changed the world through education, writing and working revolutionaries. They changed the world both good and bad. Thus, with the world of 6.8 billion people and more than 195 countries, and perhaps more than million organizations, fulfilling and providing a good guidance to this group will be vital for parents, community, organizations, countries, nations, and the world as a whole.

Therefore, you hear and see from every organizations’ or community centers’ brochure youth program.  It became cliché, over used. However when that service is not rightly guided, these centers and organizations will not be a successful on their service to youth.  The majority of the programs are not either well implemented or organizers either do not fully understand the purpose of it or manipulate for their personal agenda. As a result, the world is burning more than ever before by youth serving their mentors’ orders who are actually supposed to do opposite. If you look at any war, young people are fighting carrying the orders of their leaders. When a country does not have central government or unstable one, the situation and armament of young people are even higher. When young people do not have right guidance, education, and enough resources, they are susceptible to any predator.

Religious people are not suppose to be predators who use the young people to fulfill their individual interests, but in these days, it seems like, religious people are creating wars and brainwashing youth; at least in the peoples’ eyes. Religion is being manipulated as same as youth being misused. It is the people who are using the name of the religion to push their political agenda to wage wars and to instigate hatred among people and not that of the religion.

Islam is peaceful religion that creates peace, tranquility and value.  It preserves principles, and ethics of the society. It is a religion of moderation, it is not and has never been nor will it be too far and extreme to the right nor too far and extreme to the left. If that is Islam, one can ask why Muslims are committing the most terrorist actions such as suicide. While terrorist actions including suicide bombing will never be acceptable from anyone or any religion under any circumstance, I believe the following factors could cause the increasing suicide bombings.  First, cultural traditions and dictatorship within the Muslim nations is the number one factor, second western powers mistreat and discriminate Muslims by using their power dispassionately. Muslim nations are paralyzed by their leaders and as a result people went against their governments. Because these governments are not serving their own people, the corruption, mistrust, and chaos are developed among Muslim countries. The dictators of Muslim countries are really acting upon the orders of the west; the long colonization of western powers created these leaders. In other words, these leaders are there for their service, but they did come from the choice of their own people.

Therefore, extremist who are existed and undeniable were given excuse by the actions of Muslim leaders with the support of western powers. They benefited the disproportionate western powers towards Muslims and incompetent and in ability of Muslim leaders to govern their own people.  Therefore, they pick up the youth who were looking for their place in society. These extremists were exited even during the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). They accused the Prophet for not acting justly, they declare of being unbelievers to the rightly guided caliphates. Part of their signs includes declaring people to be unbelievers including Muslim authorities/leaders, fighting against Muslims or anyone that has different views from theirs.  The ideology which promotes hate and violence is not part of Islam, no more than excessive and deviation from the path of majority of Muslims, but unfortunately in these days many people are using the name of the religion to fulfill their political agenda and to promote their hate crimes to the society. And if the Muslims do not stand shoulder to shoulder to stop this virus idea, it will create more problems. This corrupted ideology has a tie and is sister to the idea of (khawrijtes) who killed the Islamic caliphate, Ali bin Abi Talib (r’a). This type of extremism, who put much emphasis on people’s appearance and based on their corrupted description makes anyone who does not fit their portrayal out of the religion, will not make any benefit for Muslims nor to others. These extremist ideologies serve no one neither Muslims nor non-Muslims.

Thus, youth needs to learn their Islam and need to differentiate right Islam from the extremists’ ideas.  There is no question that Muslims are going through tough time, however, extremist actions will never be justified. We need to do good all the time, whether we are in a good time or tough time. Even if Muslims are mistreated, we still need to treat good those who mistreated us-and that is Islam.

Youth in Islam:

Islam placed youth in high level. As we stated above, youth are considered light and peak of the society. Allah emphasized many times in the Quran, so the prophet Muhammad (pbuh).  Nearly all the prophets were youth and those who believed, supported and stood by them were youth as well. For example, people who believed Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) at the first stage of the revelation were youth. Few examples of them were, mus’ab bin ‘Umair, Ali bin Abi Talib, Usama bin Zaid, Asma, and ‘Aisha bint AbiBakr. They basically sacrificed their entire lives, properties, and energies for Islam & Muslims.

Allah said, “Allah is He Who created you in (a state of) weakness, then gave you strength after weakness, then after strength gave (you) weakness and grey hair. He creates what He wills. And it is He Who is the All-knowing, the All-powerful ” (30:54).
The Prophet also said, “Take benefit from five before five: your youth before your old age; your health before your sickness; your wealth before your poverty; your free-time before your preoccupation; and your life before your death.”

The Prophet said, Allah will shade on the Day of Judgment…a youth who grows up worshipping Him. The Prophet (pbuh) also said, the servant will not move on the Day of Judgment until he or she was asked about four questions. One of the questions will be what did you do with your youth years of life.  Earlier Muslim youth acted upon the above verses and hadiths, so they basically sacrificed their entire lives, properties, and energies for Muslims and humanity in general.

Becoming an Effective Leader:

Any youth can be an effective leader when they are provided four things; first one is education both Islamic and academia; second one is guide and role model; third one is involvements; and fourth is affiliation.  Education is a cornerstone of our lives; it provides its person stabilities in all spiritual, financial, social status, freedom, security, direction and goals. Therefore, it is the first step of good life in this world and after. Guide and role model brings reassurance, confidence of one’s work, motivates, and encourages him or her to do more and proceed further, because life would be impossible without guidance.  Involvement and service is backbone of society and brings aspiration of heart and mind. It brings sense of relief when one helps others; it also changes one’s educational theory to practical and real life experience for it helps them to understand it more evidently. There is a proverb that says, Read it you will forget it; See it you remember it; and Do it you will understand it.  This means that action and practice are the best way to understand. People are divided into three groups, one group is unfortunate, and the second group is wicked, and the third group is worthy. The first group is the poor or sick, those who need help. The second group, are those who do not offer help and assistance for the needy ones even though they can. The third group, are those who help and serve the needy once. “Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others” Plato.  The fourth is affiliation, which is the origin of jama’a (collectiveness) and collaboration. It brings belonging and loyalty. The loss of affiliation brings cultural lose, which leads to identity lose. Islamic calendar is an example of importance of affiliation. The Islamic calendar did not start until Muslims get new home to affiliate with. One is unable to make date or progress unless they have a group they can affiliate with. There is a proverb that says, a person is a person with others. It really does not matter how much one is educated, smart, or rich; one really cannot achieve a lot individually.

Ending:

Therefore, if you want help yourself, your community and most importantly to go to paradise as our predecessors, then you and I are in a same page.  Thus I encourage you to take initiative immediately to help your neighbor as Muslim youth; we can save the world from extremists, injustice, and bring back the ethics and principles of Islam and lead the world for better once again. I believe this is a time for a great change. This is a call to safe Islam, Muslims and humanity, and you are the generation.  Let us be part of this great change, the world needs correct and true Muslim youth like you than ever before.

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