Teenage Muslims For Trump
Don't be the 1%
This week at Sunday Schooled, I’m sharing a fun class I’m teaching (an introduction to journalism for high school and college students), an update from the last high school halaqa before Ramadan and a look at what’s on their minds. Hint: Gaza and government.
With that, bismillah—let’s dive right in.
We started last week’s high school halaqas with some math! As soon as we got to the subtraction, we felt the problem. I know, because I saw it on their faces. I know, because I felt it in my mind. Before we begin though, let me remind you that the blessed Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, dedicated a third of the day for family, a third of the day for resting, and a third of the day in worship. A third.
Is that surprising? God created us to worship Him, and while we can serve God through our day-to-day obligations, that doesn’t negate our specific obligations to Him, not to mention that we should want to spend time in ‘ibadah.
So let’s begin with the exercise.
Me: How many hours are in a day?
Them: 24. Well, almost 24. (Hello, leap years.)
Me: Everything I’m gonna ask you from here on out, answer only for yourself. Because this exercise is meant to be personal. We owe the answers to God and to ourselves.
Them: …
Me: Okay, so here goes. Take that number 24 and, silently, to yourselves, subtract the number of hours you sleep—on average. Doesn’t have to be exact. And remember that number.
Them: Okay.
Me: Now I want you to estimate how many hours each day go to school, including your commute, your homework, and subtract that from the previous number.
Them: Laughing, looking a little concerned.
Me: Now, lop off how many hours you dedicate to sports, after school activities, or work—
Some of them: I’ve uh run out of hours.
You can see how this exercise works.
Once we removed time spent talking to friends, eating, scrolling, and relaxing, we got to the big question: How much time do you spend worshipping God? As I reminded them, God tells us in the Qur’an that the reason humans and jinn were created is to worship Him, which means, for example, if we dedicate 14 minutes a day to prayer, a whopping 1% of our day is going to ‘ibadah.
Let’s put it this way. Most of us probably spend a small percent of our day doing what we’ve been made to do. I’m not excluding me here, to be clear; it’s good for all of us to be reminded of this before Ramadan. I’m reminding me too. Our screen time probably eclipses the time we dedicate doing to what gives us purpose, calm, strength, serenity, protects us from harm, and uplifts and elevates us.
But like I said, this part was not-out-loud. If you do it for yourself, keep it to yourself. Yeah, we have to eat, study, sleep, and relax. Nothing wrong with that. And just because you double the amount of time you spend on prayer doesn’t necessarily translate to some magical outcome. Islam isn’t a math problem, or a checklist, or a scoreboard. But if we can dedicate a lot of time to some things, and less to others…
Well, that’s gotta mean something. Or reveal something. If we don’t make time in the day to worship God, if we put that dead last, what happens? It’s telling that when I asked what happens if we don’t fulfill our obligations, they said “we could go to hell,” which was precisely the answer I was looking for—mostly to flip the script. Instead of thinking about Islam as judgment, I wondered, what about Islam as a commitment?
What happens to a person, over the course of their lives, if they don’t invest in education, or in friendships, or in exercise, or in relaxing, or in relationships, or in a healthy diet? Eventually that catches up to each and everyone. The same goes for prayer and piety. People who miss out on worshipping God, who choose other commitments over that, are missing the single biggest thing.
Some folks say you can’t be good without God.
Or put it this way. If there was no life after death, if when you died you just died, and that was it and that was that, would you still worship God? And if you didn’t, would that make any kind of difference in your life? I hope it’s undeniable it would. Without God, we’re lacking something fundamental to our humanity, necessary to our sense of self, purpose, community, and direction.
When we put God dead last, or way down the list of priorities, that’ll eventually catch up to us, too, in ways that ultimately shortchange us. Maybe that’ll present as sadness, anxiety, loneliness, freneticism, hollow materialism, unease, incompleteness, or insecurity. Or arrogance, intolerance, narcissism, invective, iniquity, or other kinds of general badness. But there’s a bigger problem.
In order to detect what’s missing, we need the time and the space to pay attention. Except we live in a culture that encourages us to spend every waking moment distracted. Practically everywhere I go, there has to be a soundtrack. Even the grocery store. What are we so afraid of? Why do we have to be accompanied in everything we do? And what do we lose out on when we do?
I certainly can’t begin to approach a third of my day in worship, but I’d love to get closer and closer. To start with, I need to cut out distractions. I need to make space for faith. Yeah, I’ve got a phone. I need one. Day-to-day life would be nearly impossible without it. But it also makes meaningful piety frequently impossible. Each of us has to devise his own way forward.
My math sees in-between time as an opportunity to reconnect; on one drive a day, then, I won’t listen to music, or a podcast, or take calls—I’ll do dhikr, listen to Qur’an, do du’a, or just drive uninterrupted, allowing myself silence, taking in scenery, calming my mind, giving myself respite. The next step, for me, is to delete the things that take away energy and redirect that energy to something better.
Even if that’s a few more minutes of sleep.
In recent weeks, I’ve been introducing the high schoolers to two very important Muslim practices, muraqabah, the act of watching ourselves in the moment, and muhasabah, the habit of checking in with ourselves at the end of the day, to see how we’re doing, whether that’s leading us in the right direction, considering whether our practices and piety are producing the kinds of changes we want to see.
We do the practices of Islam to emulate not just the habits of the beloved Prophet, peace be upon him, but his character, his gravity, his nature, and through these, to get closer to God. That way, Islam isn’t crudely about heaven or hell. I mean yes, that’s part of Islam, but it’s less intimidating, more encouraging, and more empowering, in my experience, to see faith as coming closer or moving farther from God.
If there was nothing after we died, if life just ended, would we still be Muslim? Do we do what we do out of a desire for good, or hope for reward, or fear of punishment? To be clear, I’m not knocking fear. A person who felt no shame, no regret, no awe before the Divine would be missing the fullness of faith, which is to remember that He is Lord and we are His servants—without that, what does ‘ibadah even mean?
HOUSEKEEPING: RAMADAN RESPITE
There won’t be any halaqas during Ramadan, which gives me time to catch readers up here on more of what we covered. Below, I share updates on the high school halaqa (even as I’m working on the next middle school halaqa update), announce a class I’m teaching locally here in suburban Cincy, and share an update on a new series, featuring voices who can help us understand the fullness of the world we live in.
HS HALA-Q&A: TEENAGE MUSLIMS FOR TRUMP
No class or curriculum ever goes entirely according to plan. In the one high school girls’ halaqa, and in the two boys’ halaqas, certain questions kept popping up, which I’ve tried to work into the syllabus.
In the girls’ class, one student in particular pushed me to explain the backstory behind Imam al-Ghazali’s world, the ways in which Sunni, Shi’i, Sufis, philosophers, and the politics of medieval Islam came together. She wanted to know how to make sense of the differences, including how and why Islam includes so much diversity and difference. In an intensely diverse American ummah, that matters!
In the boys’ class, similar concerns presented themselves, plus questions about voting. We even dedicated half a halaqa to the November elections. While they’re all months or years away from the right and responsibility of voting, they wanted to think out loud about who might be better for the community and the country. That is of course also an opportunity to talk about differences, divisions, and democracy.
All these questions connect—some of the boys were disaffected Democrats (not one of them could countenance backing Biden, mind you), some thought a third-party bid made sense, a few wanted to vote for Trump (if this surprises you, you’ve not spent nearly enough time in American Muslim spaces), and others were disinclined to support anyone at all, at least at the top of the ballot.
Sectarianism isn’t that different—we might have strong reasons to support the choices we do, and these don’t take us out of Islam, but all the same we need to know where the lines are. We’re never going to agree on everything, but we have to agree on some things (otherwise we wouldn’t have a community!) It’s not my job to force them into a consensus, though. It’s for them to engage Islamic history and thought.
I try to be generous with my perspectives without sacrificing my commitments; I’m Sunni by upbringing and practice, and I have reasons for that, but we also live in diverse communities, which means we should be able to articulate what we commit to in ways that are respectful and responsible. Which is, additionally, a challenge for parents, and a reason for the new feature I’ll soon be debuting here.
We need more spaces where our kids can debate hard questions. But we as parents, educators, and community leaders also need to spend time thinking about the worlds our kids actually live in. In the weeks to come, I’ll include short and sharp interviews with really smart and unexpected voices, certainly not only Muslims, because the better we understand our country, the better we understand our kids’ lives.
Stay tuned! And last but not least—
A FREE CLASS FOR ASPIRING JOURNALISTS!
On Wednesday, March 20th, 4:30-6pm, I’m teaching a free class at Mason Public Library in Mason, Ohio—open to high schoolers and college students of all faiths and backgrounds, this is going to be a fun and interactive intro to journalism.
I’ll talk about the surprising ways my passion for writing led me to CNN, Washington Post, NBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, NPR’s Fresh Air, even FOX News. I’ll talk about the responsibilities of journalism, the challenges journalists face, and how these can help us prepare for success in almost any field. If you’re interested, please reach out.
This class is free and open to high schoolers and college students, but registration is required. We’re keeping the class size small so we can have a more engaging experience.
And if this is of interest, but you’re not in the area, or you’d be interested in a program like this for a broader age demographic, let me know. I’m organizing similar courses in other parts of the country and would love to come to you!
Even more to come soon. Until then, an early Ramadan Mubarak!
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