advice…

A few days ago I had a young friend of mine get in touch with me saying that he had to talk to me about something.  He goes to a local Islamic school and said that he was thinking about leaving the school because of the things that he saw going on there.  He wanted my advice on what he thinks I should do and went on to tell me the following…

He told me that he never used to be religious and really pray or care about any of that stuff.  Ever since he started at this school, he felt more enthusiastic about praying and says that he is trying to be good (which is hard for any kid his age–I am going to refrain from saying his name or age because I promised him I wouldn’t).  Anyways, he went on to tell me that the kids in this school are “horrible and worse than his non-Muslims friends that go to public schools”.  He went on to tell me how some of the kids use some of the worst profanity that I have EVER heard (for those of you who don’t know me, when I was in high school I had a lot of friends who were gang members and used pretty bad language, but these kids take the cake).  They would swear and make fun of teachers to their face.  They would lie, steal, and cheat at school.  Essentially, they acted exactly how Muslims are not supposed to act.  They made fun of other kids in horrible ways, made disgusting jokes and even became physical with kids who were smaller than they were.

This young boy who I know well and respect tremendously was confused.  He talked about how all of these kids just talk about money and clothes and all of these things and don’t care about anything else.  How they say degrading things about women/girls and laugh it off as if it meant nothing.  He finished it off by saying “I don’t get why they do all of this.  I came to an Islamic school because I wanted to be protected from these types of things.  But these Muslims kids are worse than my non-Muslim friends.”

After all of this, he told me the most shocking part.  He wanted my advice on whether he should stay at this school or if he should leave.  My advice.  Why?  I don’t know.  I know he looks up to me because he is quite younger than me, but I am one of the worst people to ask for advice.  So I went on to tell him that he should stay at his school for a simple reason.  He sees all of these things happening around him and it hurts him to see Muslims doing such wrong acts; but whenever he sees these things he knows that they are wrong.  Yes, it hurts him to see Muslims do these types of things.  He is a little young to understand that even Muslims are capable of doing bad acts that some of us may think that only non-Muslims do.  But we are all human after all and are bound to make mistakes.  The key is repentance and to turn towards God for help, because without His Help, we can never overcome any obstacle…

It saddens me to see some of our youth heading in this direction.  When I see such kids, or hear about them, I never once think to myself “astaghfir’Allah what bad kids” or anything like that.  But I get sad and my heart weeps for them because they all have such amazing potential to be such great people.  We all do.  Yet sometimes we fall victim to the easy path of just doing whatever which leads us down the wrong way.  Many of us can bounce back from our mistakes, but there are some who never gain that realization and let go of Allah’s Hand and are lost, sometimes forever…

Which reminds me of an Immortal Technique lyric which always serves as a great reminder whenever I think of it.  He says:

So when the devil wants to dance with you
You better say never
Because a dance with the devil
Might last you forever…

-peace-

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Tags: advice