Imam Zijad’s corner: Muslim Youth in the West: Culture and Identity
When Muslims started emigrating to the West, they made a move towards reform by simply being and participating in Western societies. The intent of their living in the West was to provide better life for their families. However, they were hit with a harsh reality of many challenges. Some got assimilated – lost. Others got isolated – self-excluded into their own world. Many integrated constructively into new environment – lived as Muslims in Canada or to call them Canadian Muslims. This is our “reality.” Second generation Canadian Muslims are usually stuck in the middle because they grow up in the West and are accustom to Canadian culture yet their parents want them to maintain ethnic cultural ties. A challenging task for both: the parents and children. While parents try to maintain aspects of their “backhome” culture, children often struggle to be accepted in Canadian society. How do we find a balance between the two and this possible at all? Islamic teachings have not stood in the way of reform for Muslims, no matter where they chose to live or during which time they live. On the contrary, the Muslim intelligentsia encouraged Muslims to face challenges and live an Islamic lifestyle within the contexts of the new societies. Islam stands as a civilization due to the fact that it was able to express its universal and fundamental principles through time and place while integrating diversity and taking on the customs, tastes and styles that belonged to the various cultural contexts. Muslims’ integration within the Western cultural context in general is a part of their mission in creating Muslim Western cultures that are founded on the principles of faithfulness to the sources of Islamic intellectual tradition – the Qur’an and the Sunnah – although reshaped within the Western cultural contexts. This phenomenon of creating new cultures can be explained by the fact that many Muslims who emigrated to the West brought with them the concept of Islam along with their
When Muslims started emigrating to the West, they made a move towards reform by simply being and participating in Western societies. The intent of their living in the West was to provide better life for their families. However, they were hit with a harsh reality of many challenges. Some got assimilated – lost. Others got isolated – self-excluded into their own world. Many integrated constructively into new environment – lived as Muslims in Canada or to call them Canadian Muslims. This is our “reality.” Second generation Canadian Muslims are usually stuck in the middle because they grow up in the West and are accustom to Canadian culture yet their parents want them to maintain ethnic cultural ties. A challenging task for both: the parents and children. While parents try to maintain aspects of their “backhome” culture, children often struggle to be accepted in Canadian society. How do we find a balance between the two and this possible at all? Islamic teachings have not stood in the way of reform for Muslims, no matter where they chose to live or during which time they live. On the contrary, the Muslim intelligentsia encouraged Muslims to face challenges and live an Islamic lifestyle within the contexts of the new societies. Islam stands as a civilization due to the fact that it was able to express its universal and fundamental principles through time and place while integrating diversity and taking on the customs, tastes and styles that belonged to the various cultural contexts. Muslims’ integration within the Western cultural context in general is a part of their mission in creating Muslim Western cultures that are founded on the principles of faithfulness to the sources of Islamic intellectual tradition – the Qur’an and the Sunnah – although reshaped within the Western cultural contexts. This phenomenon of creating new cultures can be explained by the fact that many Muslims who emigrated to the West brought with them the concept of Islam along with their
individual cultural heritage. For many Muslims, to remain faithful to Islam meant to stay faithful to their culture of origin rather then a foundational Islam. Muslims try without really being aware of it, to continue to be Pakistani Muslims in Britain and the United States, Moroccan and Algerian Muslims in France, Turkish Muslims in Germany, and so on. It is with the emergence of the second generation that problems appeared and the questions arose: parents who saw their children losing, or no longer recognizing themselves as part of, their Pakistani, Arab, or Turkish cultures seem to think that they were losing their religious identity at the same time. However, this was far from being the case. Many young Muslims, by studying their religion, claimed total allegiance to Islam while distancing themselves from their cultures of origin. This brings us to the notion of change and the need for Muslims to accept change and, while not abandoning their formative Islamic principles, construct new Muslim cultures in the West just as they did previously when settling in different contexts. This will help them reconcile their Islamic principles without losing their identity. A fact of life that Muslims must accept is that they live in quite a new environment in the West. To that they must bring a new dimension of reading, or rereading, of the texts and sources of Islamic tradition, with the aim of recovering forgotten principles or discovering a horizon as yet unknown. Islamic identity is not, as many believe, narrow-minded and confined to rigid and inflexible principles. Indeed, it is based on a constant dialectical and dynamic movement between the sources of Islam and the environment, whose aim is to find a way of living harmoniously within the context of new societies. The elements that define Muslim identity, perceived in the light of Islamic principles of integration, appear to be open and in constant interaction with society. This allows Muslim communities to settle into different cultural contexts as long as they remain faithful to their religious sources. A return to the scriptural sources allows us to establish a distinction between the religious principles that define the identity of Muslims and the cultural trappings that these principles necessarily take on according to the societies in which individuals live… the elements of Muslim identity that are based on religious principles allow Muslims to live in any environment. However, elements based on cultural principles are often rigid and inflexible. As long as the sources and the principles derived from them are respected, Muslims have been faithful to the principles no matter what kind of an environment and what historical era they live in. Islam, as a Muslim way of life, did not prevent Muslims from achieving success during medieval times and will not prevent them in achieving this success in modern times. Islamic teachings encourage acceptance of other cultures as long as they do not contradict fundamental Islamic principles. Islam teaches us to integrate everything that is not against an established principle and to consider it as our own. This is, after all, the true universality of Islam: it consists in this principle of integrating the good, from wherever it may come, which has made it possible for Muslims to settle in, and make their own, without contradiction, almost all the cultures of the countries in which they have established themselves, from South America to Asia, through West and North Africa. It should not be otherwise in the West.
,
It becomes apparent from such reasoning, then, that to be Muslim is to act according to the teachings of Islam regardless of the surrounding environment and not in contradiction with it. There is nothing in Islam that commands Muslims to withdraw from society in order to be closer to God. Muslims need to exercise a choice to practice Islamic teachings in a Western context in order to be in harmony with their identity. At the same time, they must consciously develop this image of their Western identity for the present and the future. The nature of Muslim identity can only be something open and dynamic, founded, of course, on basic principles but being in constant interaction with the environment. It is about being a good individual and a good citizen. It is about being useful to all as the Prophet said, “The best people are those who benefit others.” The prophet did not qualify in this tradition “people” as being Muslims or believers but simply said “people”, including all. By exploring the Islamic sources regarding the notion of identity and considerations of living in the West at the same time, we can see that there is no contradiction in Muslims’ attitude of taking up full citizenship within Western societies and considering them their own countries. In fact, this is the only way for Muslims to build a place for themselves and for their future generations in the West, as they did in the past in often non-Muslim societies. As confident, assertive and engaged citizens, Muslims can continue to help shape Western societies and be of service to them. If Muslims do not realize it today, it could be too late tomorrow!
