By Kaleem Hussain,
There is a marked language gap between the discourse used by religious community leaders and that used by Muslim youth in western societies. This communication gap is why many Muslim youth are becoming increasingly divorced from the key tenets of the Islamic tradition – respect for teachers, elders, moral virtue, and high ethical values – and are following a path radically different from that of their parents.
Although the language of the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad is uniformly Arabic, the Qur’an teaches us that God has created human beings in various colours, speaking a variety of languages. Furthermore, Muslims are reminded how the prophets, sent to propagate the faith, conversed in the language of the communities in which they lived. It is therefore imperative to speak to people in a language they can understand.
Unfortunately in England, many of the religious leaders who have immigrated here cannot speak English, leaving British Muslim youth disenfranchised from the true message of Islam based on humanitarian ideals and respecting the laws of the land.
While these leaders converse in languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic, Swahili and other continental dialects that strike a cord with certain segments of the older, first-generation immigrants, these languages may not be commonly or easily understood by the youth of the host country whose main language is English.
So where does the burden and responsibility of instructing Muslim youth lie? Is it with the imam who has been preaching for years in his native language, or with the parents of these straying youths, or the youth themselves who cannot comprehend the sermons?
Discourses that have taken place with leading Muslim scholars, academics and politicians concerning Muslims in Britain since the 7/7 bombings in England have led to the conclusion that when British youth cannot understand authentic Islamic ethics, they begin to resort to other channels and mediums to learn about the ideals of their faith. It is at this juncture that such other channels may pose a distorted and extreme interpretation of the religion, thus hijacking vulnerable young minds and leading them to a catastrophic end, as was witnessed with the 7/7 bombings. One of the outcomes from these discourses was a recommendation that British preachers in the pulpit be required to speak and converse fluently in English. This opinion coincides with the prophetic examples in the Islamic tradition.
Unfortunately, even if this language recommendation becomes a requirement, Osama Bin Laden and others who are instructing in Arabic are still able to convince many youth to join their extremist campaigns. This is because mainstream media, which gives them free airtime in the process, translates their messages into English for western audiences and then sensationalises their words. Bin Laden and many others in the al Qaeda hierarchy have not been trained in the classical traditional Islamic sciences and use their high-profile positions to achieve their political objectives by luring youth to a distorted version of Islam.
And while some of the 7/7 bombers were bilingual, they still chose to pursue the dark path they did. Therefore, it is not the issue of language alone; if these young people had been given easy and open access to mainstream Islamic scholars in the West who converse fluently in both languages and are well-versed in traditional Islamic scholarship, they might not have chosen the path they did. Surely they would have realised that suicide bombing and killing innocent civilians have no place in Islam.
Yet another way to resolve this communication problem is to break the monopolistic culture, found in certain mosques throughout the country, in which an exclusive group of imams and committees manage all religious and community activities while placing very high barriers to participation. We must break such shackles and allow a new generation of Islamic scholars who are well versed in traditional and contemporary Islamic sciences to communicate with the youth at a grassroots level and in the media in a language that resonates in their hearts and minds. In so doing, the youth will have a sound comprehension of Islam, and only then will the communication gap that feeds problems of extremism and terrorism – and divorces impressionable minds from Islam’s true teachings – be resolved.
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Kaleem Hussain has a law degree and masters in international economic law from Warwick University. He specialises in politics, economics, and traditional and contemporary Islamic affairs. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.