How Do I Protect My Children From Religious Extremism? (Part One)
Q. I want my children to have the courage to be visibly religious Muslims, but I am scared that their religiousness will alienate them from mainstream American society and make them vulnerable to religious extremism. I am terrified by the stories of young Muslim teenagers being brainwashed by the violent ideology of ISIS, turning into home-grown terrorists or disappearing to join ISIS across the world. How do I make religion an important part of my children’s lives while at the same time protecting them from religious extremism?
Thank you for your excellent question. I will insha’allah answer your question in four parts over the next four weeks:
Part One - Genuine Religiousness (this week),
Part Three - Nurturing Genuine Religiousness, and
Part Four - Protection From Brainwashing
Part One of Four - Genuine Religiousness
Like you, I admire Muslims who have the courage to be visibly religious--to wear the headscarf, to seek prayer exemptions in the workplace, to request halal food, and to do all of this with confidence.
But in order to protect our children from religious extremism, we have to understand that such seemingly confident outward religious behavior may be motivated by a genuine religiousness, or it may also be motivated by an inward insecurity (which you aptly describe as “alienation from mainstream American society”).
When our children’s outward religious behavior is motivated by a genuine religiousness, they will not be attracted to religious extremism; but when their outward religious behavior is motivated by insecurity and alienation, then they are religiously vulnerable, and their religious vulnerability may be exploited by religious extremists. I will return to this latter point next week. Our focus this week is on understanding how genuine religiousness motivates outward religious behavior.
What is genuine religiousness?
Pointing to his heart three times, the Holy Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) once told his Companions, “Godfearingness lies here.” (Muslim) That godfearingness in the heart is the essence of genuine religiousness -- an inward fear of God that leads to outward religious practice.
This inward fear of God leads to humility. We fear God because we don’t know whether we will be saved in Paradise or damned in Hell, and that means that we cannot see ourselves as better than anything else.
One of my teachers once related how a Jew rudely pulled Imam al-Shafi`i by his beard, pointed to a dog, and asked, “Which is better--your beard or that dog?” to which the great Imam replied, “If I am one of the inhabitants of Paradise, then my beard is better than that dog, but if I am one of the inhabitants of Hell, then that dog is better than my beard.” It was in this same vein that the Companion `Abdullah b. `Umar defined godfearingness as “not seeing yourself as better than anyone else”.
Outward religious behavior that is motivated by this genuine religiousness does not define how we behave with other people. In other words, our behavior with other people is not defined by (for example) the fact that we wear hijab, the fact that we seek prayer exemptions at the workplace, or the fact that we request halal food. We do these things because we fear God. We don’t do these things to establish our courage, to prove our confidence, or to be better than other people.
How we behave with other people is not defined by any of these things. It is defined by the Sunna of our Holy Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), who taught that, “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother [in humanity] what he loves for himself,” (Bukhari) who responded to insults and harm with kindness and charity, and who had the optimistic conviction that, come what may, the goodness God had sent him with would certainly prevail over everything that might stand in its way.
True religiousness, true godfearingness, leads to outward religious behavior that is humble, and to behavior with other people that embodies this prophetic altruism, charity, and optimism. It is not associated with insecurity and it does not lead to alienation. The godfearingness of true religiousness protects us from insecurity and alienation. I will insha’allah explain that further next week in Part 2 of this answer -- The Superficial Religiousness of Extremism.
Every week, Hamza Karamali will select one of your questions to answer in this space. If you’ve any questions that you’d like to ask, please submit them here.
