YOUTH IN COLLEGE

Young people live for the day when they can move out of the house and go to college and finally be free. Freedom from their parents, from restrictions on their lifestyle, from everyone telling them what to do. This is why in college you find a whole generation that does what they want.

Life's short they say, let's enjoy ourselves while we can.

So it goes for Muslims. In college you find the most amazing things, Muslims who don't pray, Muslims who date, Muslims who attend meetings but go out to parties and drink. Why is this happening?

For one, when students go off to university they finally realize that what they believed in was blind. Religion becomes like a fairytale, when they got old enough, they knew better than to believe in it. Most have little knowledge about Islam and have maybe memorized the right rituals to get by. Why believe something on faith, they ask. After all we cannot see heaven or hell. How do we know Islam is right anyway?

Islamic culture to them means marrying someone they never knew. It means arranged marriages and never hanging out or having fun. For girls, Islamic culture has even less to offer. It would mean double standards or having to serve a husband the rest of her life.

In college and in the world, success in life is not seen in terms of religion. It is seen as what other people think, one's careers, how much money they make. If you are religious you must have failed at life. However, why do we have this separation and this blindness in religion?

We are reminded again and again not to have blind faith, not to follow the religion of our forefathers. Yet, we as Muslims have stopped thinking. We may think about what our friends or other people will say, but we avoid thinking about the real issues. We spend so much time on and with the opposite sex, thinking about careers, money, but we forget to think about death and how much of this will we really be able to take with us?

"Every soul shall have a taste of death: And only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have succeeded. For the life of this world is but goods of chattels of deception." [Ale-'Imraan: 185]

Shouldn't we take the time to contemplate what will happen to us after we hit the grave? After all, what is the point of life if we are not accountable for our actions? If there is no creator, what is the point of being honest or good.

If we really look at our life we see that everything is indefinite, getting a job, even living until tomorrow. In fact we could die anytime, this is a definite, the only dead certain thing in our life. Most of us believe we can make up for our actions later or we can be religious later. We are gambling. The chances of dying today are little, but the stakes are high. Allah SWT reminds us of the importance of this:

"O you who believe! Fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except as Muslims." [Ale-'Imraan: 102]

Each of us needs to decide. Is Islam right or not? Why don't we take the time, just once, once in our lives to find out if Islam is right. Is the Holy Qur'an from God or not? We can't see God, but is there a maker to all this? We need to study nature, and the world. We only live once. We shouldn't go to a club thinking we are only going to 'hang out and are not doing anything wrong' then feel guilty about it later. We shouldn't go on a date or drink, then feel guilty about it, worrying about hellfire. If Islam is right, we should follow it.

This is the true definition of freedom. To learn about Islam and the world openly. To contemplate about life and death. And after learning the truth, obeying the word of God.

Once students have this rock-solid intellectual belief in Islam, the corruptness and falseness of the people around them is clear. The beauty and wisdom of the Islamic way, the best alternative is clear. What others do is of less importance. If others think they were weird to pray or weird to be honest, they would still pray and still be honest because they know their deen.

How many of us are Muslim, yet have never read the Quran in our native language? How many of us are Muslim, yet have yet to open a book on sunnah? How many of us defend Islam to non-Muslims, but do not follow it ourselves? May Allah SWT forgive and lead us and all those lost to the straight path, InshaaAllah.

Courtesy of: www.modernreligion.com