I’m the good news. Tomorrow, as in Friday, March 8th, I’ll be at Human Development Foundation’s fundraising dinner in Fridley, Minnesota, right north of Minneapolis. If you’re in the area, and you’d like to support a good cause, meet good people, eat good food, and start Ramadan off on the right foot, join us!
The other news is from Ryan Burge’s excellent Substack, Graphs About Religion, examining trends in American religious life through hard data. Ryan’s latest tracks religious practice among high school seniors; so, in 1985, he finds nearly 1 out of 3 American high schoolers attended services once a week.
In 2022, that was down to just about 1 in 5. You should really read his piece, and pieces like these, which bring the nuance, complexity, and diversity of American religiosity to life. I’m often the first to say Islam isn’t a numbers game, so maybe you’re thinking, okay great Haroon, that’s nice, but aren’t you being hypocritical?
Maybe a better way of looking at this is as follows: Statistics paint a general picture. They don’t tell us who our kids are.
But they let us know who kids are, broadly, and what seems important, interesting, or challenging to them. For teenagers, peers are a major influence. So when it comes to religion, including habits of religious life and practice, they get more time with peers than with parents and elders, creating an imbalance.
Something as vital as Friday Prayers often has to be missed, thanks to school schedules. (America is secular, sort of.)
And sometimes we underestimate these practices, but the value of praying, and on time, and attending jumu‘ah, is more important than almost anything else, religiously speaking. How do we help them get through the years when they’re overwhelmed by secular obligations and generally don’t have access to as much religion?
Here are two.
The first is community—finding or creating community, even in small ways, but consistently. When the halaqa happens, I make sure to reserve some time for the kids to hang out. They need chances, low-stakes, just to be in person with each other. They also need to see us do that.
Another follows from there: educated expectations.
Nobody can or should enforce practice. But we should be clear about what matters and make sure we embody the same, setting an example they are mindful of. When it’s time to pray, do we pray, even if it’s superficially inconvenient? When we need an accommodation, do we ask for one, and model that for them?
And that include finding ways to balance where they’re at with where we hope for them to be. So say the boys want to wear shorts to practice. Even before they’re adolescents, they need to see how Muslim men carry themselves in public, which isn’t about who’s looking so much as the dignity of believers.
Not to mention, if you’re going to wear shorts, how are you going to pray, and if you’re late looking for your sweatpants, well, we had a deal. Blessed to know that all the young boys I teach are keen to find ways to make faith part of their lives, even if it led to this great conversation one dad recounted to me.
His child’s practice ran through sundown, but they’d agreed he would step aside to pray, and coach was onboard. Except, as they made it through car line, the kid said
Child: Wait, I forgot which way qibla is, now how do I pray maghrib?
Parent, concerned: Wait, didn’t you pray maghrib at the last practice, coach said that—
Child: Yes coach even gave me a room to pray in but which way is qibla?
Parent, less concerned: Well do you remember which way you prayed last time?
Child: Oh is it the same direction today too?