Raising American-Muslim Ambassadors

"Mija, don't miss a day of your life.  Find ways to make each day matter-- to you, to another, to the world.  Remember that we are all part of something bigger than life" my grandma on my dad's side wrote to me in a letter that she gave me before I went away to college.  Today, on a day soaked in exams, stress, and a bitter cold reminding me of winter's existence, I find myself re-reading it and remembering a lifetime of memories with a full heart.  How could it be that eighteen years could pass by in such a blink of an eye?

My dad converted to Islam when he was in his early 20s.  And when he converted, he made it a point to not let his observance of a different faith and its traditions get in the way of the close relationship he had always maintained with his family.  My parents made sure that my Christian side of the family felt as included in our lives as our Muslim relatives were.  At my parents' wedding my mother walked down the aisle to Pachelbel's Canon in D, my father wore a shervani (an Indian version of a suit), and my parents released butterflies at the end of their ceremony.  Their wedding was a symbol of what the rest of our lives would be: a completely distinct hybrid of east and west, new and old, and just pure wonderful.

I grew up having cookie baking parties with my grandmother the weeks before Christmas, playing with her three dogs (and feeding them food I didn't want when my mother wasn't looking), having wrestling matches with my uncles, and having family sleepovers the night before Christmas at my grandparents' house.  But never once during any of this was I confused about my own identity.  My parents would explain to me on the way to Christmas celebrations "Samar remember that we don't celebrate Christmas, but we believe in Islam that you maintain connections with your family no matter what, so that is what we're doing.  This is how you show family that you support them and that you appreciate them".  So they would give us Christmas presents and we would give them Eid presents in return.  They would make us marshmallow free sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving and make a few batches of turkey bacon and turkey sausage for us on Mother's Day breakfasts too.  It was the most compromising and dynamic union I had ever witnessed and not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for it.

My parents also balanced that by raising me in a circle of the most knowledgable and innovative western Muslim scholars.  From the age of seven I sat in circles with people like Dr. Umar, Shaikh Hamza, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, Dr. Sherman Jackson, and Dr. Abdul Hakim Winters.  Not only did my ambitious 28 year old parents make me sit in on these circles at 7, I also got quizzed on what was said during these lectures on the way home.  In addition to learning about Islamic ethics and values, I also learned about Christian and Jewish ones as well.  I sat in on synagogues, went to various different church services ranging from monastaries to evangelical congregations.  My parents thought it was imperative that I learned about other faiths than my own so that I could have the knowledge to choose my faith on my own accord because when you choose something for yourself, you are much more likely to hold fast to it and value and appreciate it.  It also provided me with the tools to combat the post 9/11 misconceptions with my own unique perspective and insight that were the result of my unique upbringing.

Recently, at a Muslim Student Association gathering on campus, I found myself frustrated that many of the members stuck to one another like the grains of sticky rice.  As I overheard many bits and pieces of conversation, it saddened me that there were repeated fragments like "yeah, I have this friend but she's nonmuslim..." as if it discounted the friendship.  Growing up, I quickly realized that my Christian family members were some of the best people I had ever come across.  They were moral, and ethical, caring, and open-minded.  They were people that were fearless when it came to standing up for what was right.  It was my grandmother who taught me how to truly care about a person, and my grandfather taught me how to be dedicated and do the absolute best in whatever I did, regardless of what that was.  My uncles taught me how to find the humor in the mundane and how to always make appreciation and love known.  And my aunts taught me how to be patient but fierce and resilient.  When push came to shove in my silly suburban teen life, it was often these people that I went to for advice and comfort over anyone else, even my Muslim relatives.  And in my mind, that says a lot.

What I'm trying to say is that this divide where we try to shelter our children from other faiths, where we take them from one Muslim place to another, and then send them to commuter colleges with more Muslims, and then get them married and have them live inside of this Muslim community and then still complain about how "no one understands Muslims" or that people are being "ignorant" or that systems are "stilted" towards certain people.  Because the reality is that we live in a predominantly Christian society, and shutting our youth up in little bubbles isn't the answer.  Teaching them how to coexist, how to not think of people outside of the Muslim faith as the "other".  If we want people to start understanding Muslims, writing books and making documentaries is not the way to go about it.  It's by having human ambassadors of what an American-Muslim looks like, and acts like, and what they stand for, and the absolute best ambassadors are your children.  Raise them to be that way.  This means that many of the previous stigmas of the first generation Muslims like talking to the opposite gender and having friends outside of the Muslim faith need to be re-thought because we are living in a place where Islam needs to be fitted to its new vernacular finally.  We need to be bold enough, and forward thinking enough to see that.  There I plant my foot.

Samar

Musings on Mom

When I was four, I used to imitate my mom on business calls on my pretend phone in my pretend office.  I'd rush around frantically talking to imaginary people whose names were remarkably similar to the real life people that my mom worked with.  I too, was a business woman.  When I was seven I'd sit in the bathroom when my mom wasn't home and play with her makeup.  I never dared put it on my own face though because that would be waking the beast.  But I'd smush around the lipstick on my fingers reverently, as if the magic that made her who she was was hidden deep somewhere within that tube of Bobbi Brown.  When I was nine, I'd watch my mom get ready (although she didn't know it) and wish that my hair wasn't quite so frizzy and that my glasses could become invisible so that I could be as pretty as her.  And at twelve, I'd always bury my face in her clothing so I could inhale that distinctly unique blend of facewash, perfume, and mom.  I'd smell it wafting down the hallway as she went to leave the house, and I'd stop and sniff for a moment, and wonder if that was ever something that my daughter would do.  Don't get me wrong, if you go through my diaries from my childhood, most of them are a comical soap opera about how my mom wouldn't let me do something or the other.  But it didn't change the fact that at every party, every family gathering, every public outing, I would find myself looking over at my mother after I said or did anything, looking for signs of approval or disapproval in her demure face.  When I was fifteen, I begrudgingly thanked my mom in my head as I found myself saying the same gems of wisdom to my friends that she had given to me.  I found myself repeating aphorisms about boys, and life, and self worth, and dreams that my own mother had passed on to me.  And at seventeen, my heart broke when I realized I could never be who she was.  I was headstrong, passionate, stubborn, a procrastinator, a dreamer, and for lack of better adjectives, an artsy fartsy hippie.  And believe me when I say those are nice qualities for a character in a book but not really a real human being.  Me to my mother's detail oriented, realistic, organized, steadily driven, consistent, mathematical and scientific mind, was a combination like fire and ice.  My poor father.

As a teen, in my mind, my mother was the cause for global warming, WWI as well as WWII, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the extinction of the dodo bird, the debt ceiling, and the fall of the US Postal Service.  Oh and last but certainly not least, the ruining of my life.  That's because my mom wasn't exactly a Pintrest mom that made me fresh baked cookies or told me to have a good day at school and if she ever used the word "sweetie" it usually was drenched in sarcasm and meant that I was in deep, deep trouble and she was trying not to kill me.  I learned to interpret her silence as approval and...well there was NO interpretation needed when there was disapproval.  She couldn't tolerate small talk (and if you have a teenage daughter you do a lot of that...you have to listen to who likes who and why Jennifer told Lauren that she was dramatic and like LAUREN isn't dramatic at ALL...you get the point).  If I wasn't going to talk about saving the world or getting married, my mom really didn't want to hear it.  

But as my life went on and I met girls who could only talk about other girls and hot guys and makeup, deep down I became sort of glad that I didn't have a Pintrest mom.  I had a mom that was a fighter, a warrior, a game changer.  I had expectations on me far greater than just graduating and having a job and a family.  My mom expected me to do something truly great for someone greater than myself because of all I had been given.  And while most days I could only focus on the lack of fresh baked cookies and smiles, and how hard she was on me, I was so thankful deep down that I had a challenge so seemingly insurmountable to face.  What's life if it's easy?

It's August now.  I'm packing up my whole life into boxes and staring at a terrifyingly blank new slate.  It's the beginning of the rest of my life.  And as I look around my room, I start to get choked up realizing all the unspoken acts of love my mother had done for me.  The room that she had decorated for me, the all white fairy furniture we'd picked out when I was in first grade, the poem she'd given me when my brother Zayn was born that talked about doing good even even in the face of disaster, the starfish she'd brought back for me from Mexico one summer, the calligraphy scrolls with my name on it that she'd brought back from China, and the purses she'd brought back for me from Dubai, the stack of classic novels she'd bought for me at seven and insisted I read.  It hits me then that there's never been a moment where I haven't been on my mother's mind.  I'm seared within every nucleus of every cell that makes up her body.  In every wrinkle, every smile, every tear, every drop of sweat.  I'm there.  And in that moment, I realize that often times the strongest love is the one that is unspoken.  I'd just been too immature before to understand that. My mom may not have always voiced her support for me in the typical cheerleader way, but looking back, she'd always been in my corner, even if it seemed like she had been against me.  That's because sometimes the best thing for your child, and the nice thing aren't always the same.    

A mother daughter relationship is probably one of the most complex things on the face of the planet.  It's frustrating on both ends, it's painful, and you come out of it with about 20 pounds you can't get rid of and stretch marks that don't seem to fade and a sassy little monster that resides in your home.  But I promise you, that there will be a moment where things click into place.  Where you are no longer seen as the enemy, but as the demanding ally instead.  Where we can see the good in what you did and not merely our petty frustrations.  It's a process, it takes time.  But I promise it'll happen.  Whether it be at 15, 17, 25, or 50, it will happen.  But there is a moment in everyone's life where you learn to zoom out of the tree you were looking at, and choose to see the forest instead.  

So to my Benito Mussolini, to my Stalin, to my jail master, my warden, to my teacher in sarcasm, in strength, in wit, and most importantly, resilience, thank you. You were my Mussolini, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.  I'm pretty sure I would be in jail and with some drug problem if I had a Martha Stewart as a mom because I wasn't always exactly Red Riding Hood myself.  I love you. 

My Desert Epiphany

Sometimes I'll be sitting in school in the middle of listening to a lecture on atomic bonding, or discussing idomatic expressions in Spanish, and my mind will wander off always to the same spot.  I'll close my eyes for a second, and suddenly I'll be back on the dusty streets of Cairo, listening to cars fly by, incessant honking, and the unique smell of exhaust, gasoline, and shawarma all combined together.  I'll smile as I remember being warmed up by the care of strangers on the street and the sound of Athan in the air as much as I'll remember being warmed up by the hot Egyptian sun.  And I'll open my eyes again and wonder in confusion how a place so unlike home managed to steal my heart so thoroughly.

The college search is over.  And as I sit in my car (yes it finally happened, the world's biggest clutz now can legally operate a two ton vehicle) on a bleak "spring" day, the familiar panic hits me.  What if I mess up?  What if I don't make it?  What if I realize that I'm not good at anything or that I don't have the real world skills and I end up living in my parents' basement forever and ever and have to unload the dishwasher seventeen times a day for the rest of my life?

So I start scrolling thorugh my phone aimlessly, trying to avoid the fear and stress about my future that weighs on me heavy like a boulder.  And I come across a journal entry Egypt Samar had written on her phone.  I say Egypt Samar because Egypt Samar had a lot of time to sit and look out at the Cairo sights and the Red Sea and just contemplate.  Egypt Samar saw the world in a completely different light once she was immersed in a land where poverty and wealth lived side by side.  Where she was reminded every day that she owed something to the world.  Darien Samar gets caught up in her everyday life back home and sometimes forgets just how extremely privileged she is.  She opens her extremely full fridge and complains about there being no food because no junk food is there.  Darien Samar can on occasion be heard whining about how she has no clothes to wear or how life is so unfair because she has to take three tests in one day. 

July 24th, 2012

My entire teenage life I've been preoccupied with what I now realize as the very western concept of "finding myself". When my parents announced during the middle of my junior year that we would be spending a month of summer break in Egypt, I wasn't too pleased. It was supposed to be MY summer with MY friends and MY idea of fun. Looking back, I now realize how small-minded and suburban of me that was. But finally I accepted the trip for what it was, and decided to use it as a way to figure out who I was supposed to be and to find out what it was exactly that I was meant for.

Needless to say, I was slightly irked when after a week in Egypt, I had seen no burning bushes or messages written in the sky for me. I was stuck with the same old confusion and that sense of timidness when being faced with a completely blank slate. Staring at the pyramids, and swimming with a sea of fish in the red sea merely reminded me of my insignificance to the world.

Two weeks later, on a dusty jeep ride through the desert, I started to notice the drastic difference between the quality of my life and the quality of the people's lives around me. I had no doubt that were they to see my home, or come to my school, they would be held speechless. As I stared at the thin, middle aged Egyptian man driving the jeep on a blazing day while fasting, I realized that for me this was a cute adventure. But that for this man, it was his life. This was what he had done, does, and probably will do for the rest of his life. It made me feel like God had put more responsibility on my shoulders since he had given me considerably so much more.

That night, laying out in the middle of the White Desert, out under the open stars and absolute silence, I realized that "finding myself" was a pretty stupid concept. I had known who I was going to be all along. It was as innate to me as the ability to breathe. The person I was supposed to be was already in the making. I had just been looking for an easier shortcut the whole time. You see, the person you are, the kind of life you want, the kind of relationships you desire, they don't just have some magical switch to turn on at age 25. Finding yourself isn't like a mining project where you just happen to come across the mother load, it's like a construction project-- built by a series of life decisions and life experiences. From my choice in breakfast food, to the things I chose to let myself say, moment by moment and day by day, I had been determining who I'd be all along.

As Americans, we look for the shortcut for everything. From frozen meals and prepackaged masala mixes, to shake weights and Jenny Craig programs, the American philosophy that time is money could not be more apparent. But talk to the man down the street from me who spends hours cooking fresh bread, or the woman who brings us home cooked meals, and I'm sure they'll tell you that time is much much more than money. It's an investment. After being in a Muslim county, I have fallen in love with the often neglected Muslim traits of generosity, ethicality, humility, conversation, and of course, sly humor. If I've learned anything else besides my broken Arabic, it's that attaining character is a long and arduous process. Having a quality life is much harder than having a quantity life. But it's these things that give a Muslim country its flavor and rich, memorable culture and vibe.

By the time the sun had risen, hiding away the stars and casting its bright rays on the rock formations around me, I knew that I had a lot of work ahead of me. But I also knew that I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.


I take a deep breath and face the music.  If I truly want to be a person of character, a person that is a doer, that changes things, no day is acceptable to slack.  It won't always be fun, it'll be really painful and hard sometimes, and yes, I will most certainly fail a few times along the way.  Character is the result of doing all those seemingly inglorious and boring things first like praying all your prayers, eating healthy, trying not to say mean or bad things even when you want to, and always curbing your desires and your nafs even when you don't want to.  It's these things that get you to the glorious, cool aspects of being a doer like volunteering in war zones and protesting and starting foundations and projects for the service of others.  You can't take shortcuts.  College isn't any different.  It's all in what I make of it moment by moment that will determine who I become.  There is no snap moment of failure, failure is only when you take the backseat in your own life.

There you have it, my desert epiphany.








 

To all you lonely teens

All you lonely girls and boys out there, I thought you should know, you deserve a round of applause.

To all you lonely girls,
I am no different.  I drown my solitude in Snow Patrol lyrics and cry my heart out to Coldplay
I too, foolishly hope that someone will write me 365 letters for a year professing their love.  Instead I get spam college brochures from College of Dupage.
I too dance in the rain and stare at the stars on a cloudless night.
I'm a dreamer, just like you.
But girls, lets all just keep this in mind:

Beauty isn't something some guy gives you by telling you you're beautiful,
Beauty is in your soul; the way you carry yourself, the grace with which you deal with the curves life throws at you.
And your importance to this word is intrinsic to who you are, and distinctly unique to you.
It's not defined by how many guys want you, or how many friends you have, it's defined specifically in your own strange way.
Girls, you're the strongest thing this world has.  You embody resilience.  Don't barter what makes you beautiful in exchange for a more conspicuous way of life.

To all you lonely girls, that sit at home watching reruns of Drake and Josh and Fresh Prince of Bellaire on the nights of Homecoming, Turnabout, and Prom, I too, will be sitting there with you.
I will be dancing around to Lupe Fiasco in my pjs, like the loser I am, and proud of it.
Because I for one, will never have to deal with the pain of being ditched by my date, or trying not to wipe my makeup off, or the all too painful and self esteem lowering rounds of dress shopping.
Because I for one, will be able to say that I respected myself every single moment of my existence,
Because I for one, will never have been defined by a man.

And to all you lonely boys out there, that walk down the hallways with no small hand clasping your own,
To all you lonely boys that play X-box on prom night instead of getting dressed up in your best suit and buying a corsage,
Don't listen to what society tells you.
You are men.
Quite possibly the best ones out there.  You will be the ones that can love, cherish, and respect your wives, that can raise equally strong, ethical, and genuine children.
It's hard I know,
Believe me I can empathize.
But it's worth it.

No girl will ever break your heart,
No girl will ever impede your ability to trust,
Your friends will respect you even if they don't say it,
Because in your steadfastness to the path, you will exude a confidence that will awe them.  And leave them trying to unlock your secret.
To all you boys out there, who follow rules that seem to be incredibly outdated, just remember, it's all for a reason that you may not just yet have the capacity to understand.

To all you lonely teens,
Just remember, that just when you think you're all alone,
You've got a friend up above, watching, caring, and loving.
And you've also got me.  

To my own personal superman

A few weeks ago, when I had finally climbed into bed after a long night of homework, I heard a noise downstairs and started to tense up.  But then I remembered--like I always have for the past twelve years--that my dad was right down the hall.  So I turned on my side and went to sleep. 

I am only just beginning to realize that I am one of the few girls who still sees her dad as the strongest guy in the whole world.  For the longest time, I thought that was every little girl.  But the older I got, the more I saw that most girls didn't see their dad as superman the way I did and still do.  It wasn't just in the sense of brute strength (anyone who has seen my dad knows he's not exactly 6'10 or 300 pounds), but my dad has always been an unconquearble tower in my eyes because of his character, because of the way he walked the walk in a manner that I could only hope to mimic one day.  You see, although I myself am not a man (I know my muscles may make it seem otherwise), my dad taught me what it meant to be one.  A man isn't someone with giant muscles and a macho, overly confident attitude.  A man is someone who will take in a daughter that isn't his own and love her better than if she was.  A man is someone that isn't afraid to stand up for what is right, regardless of the consequences.  A man is someone that isn't afraid to show that he has a heart, emotions, and can be caring and kind.  A man is someone that loves God.  My father is the best testament to manhood that I have ever come across. 

My dad is silent and strong.  I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever heard him complain once.  There are so many times when I have made him late for work because I am slower than a turtle in the morning (but somehow I can still be awake enough to talk his ear off on the short five minute drive to work) and never once has he lost his temper at me for it.  And I'll be the first to admit, I am a difficult daughter.  I am stubborn, scatterbrained, messy, opinionated, and at times, completely irrational.  But my father's patience astounds me.  He listens to my petty dilemmas and treats them as seriously as he would a client whose life was falling apart.  Sometimes I will have said something and look over at my dad who is completely silent, and I think he's tuning me out, only to have him give his take on the situation five minutes later.  That's my dad.  He's patient, cautious, and thorough.

I remember one day in the middle of my junior year, I was hysterical because my grades weren't where I wanted them to be and it seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it.  And my dad looked over at me and said "Samar, you're doing it.  You're doing it right now."  And he probably didn't realize it, but it meant the world to me to know that he was my biggest supporter, that he would be cheering for me no matter what the event was.  My whole life he's protected me wholeheartedly and determinedly, and he's managed to somehow let me stumble and learn my own lessons all while he was still guiding me.  Sometimes I'll say something, or relate my opinion on something and he'll press his lips together and stay silent.  And in his unspoken language, I know that means that I wasn't being benevolent or open-minded enough in my perspective or actions.  My father has never once told me what to believe or who to be, but I've picked up invaluable lessons on character from just watching him be him.  There are no attempts to teach or "be a role model" in the way my father has lived his life.  It's always been just him simply trying to be the best he can be, and that is probably what inspires me the most every single day.

In all of the thousands of yellings and groundings from my mom, it was the calm patience of my dad's that made me feel the guiltiest.  My dad has yelled at me probably like five times in my entire life, but everyday he teaches me something new in his own silent language.  It's his unspoken acts of love like pulling into Jewel to let me buy BBQ chips after I tell him I've had the worst week ever, or tolerating my out of tune, offbeat singing along to the radio every time we are in the car together.  It's the way he comes home after a long day of work and still manages to be energetic and wrestle and talk football with my brother and listen to my mom talk about her day or help her around the house.  If my family is a bed of flowers, my father is the soil that holds us all rooted together.  And I hope that one day I will be lucky enough to find someone just like him (minus the ever growing belly and love for fishing and lame jokes preferably). 

So to the man who is my best friend, my number one fan, my inspiration, and my hero, happy father's day.  I love you.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that fatherhood isn't just changing diapers and walking your daughter down the aisle.  It's all the moments in between.  And as obvious as it seems, that means that when you're really tired and all you want to do is watch the game on T.V., you sit down and talk to your daughter instead.  Or when you're in a really bad mood and the last thing you want to do is give your daughter a ride somewhere, do it anyways and do it with patience and love and understanding.  As John Mayer says: "Fathers be good to your daughters, for daughters will love like you do."

~Samar 

A Positive Slope

Two years ago, on the way home from school I asked my dad what he thought the best years of your life were.  "Like, would you say that college was the best time of your life?", I asked.  "Well," he said, "The average American sees life like this," and he held his hand in the shape of an upside down parabola.  He pointed to the peak and said "right here is your college years and mid twenties.  After that, in the Western perspective, it's all downhill."  "But in Islam," he said, "we see our lives like this" and he slanted his hand indefinitely towards the sky, "in our eyes, every day, every stage is better than the last." 

That conversation came crashing back to me after a discussion with my biology teacher a few weeks ago.  I had asked him if he thought I should go to a six year medical program or not, and he responded to me "well, I mean you're going to not have any vacation time, be extremely stressed out, and squander away the best years of you life.  I wouldn't recommend it."  At the time, I completely agreed with him and started to really wonder what exactly it was that I wanted out of my young adult life.  And then I realized that my life, was going to be different than the average American.  For me, my prime years were not going to be spent "living it up" because for me, my entire life would be moment by moment "living it up".  For me, every moment would be a moment to seize, to make the most of, and to enact change.  There wasn't going to be some cap or some limit to my being able to enjoy life.  In my mom's words, we'd be "partying it up until we died".  Not in the literal sense of the word, but more so that we would be traveling, living, experiencing, laughing, and worshipping all the way until we were six feet under.  That's because the Western fear of old age and esteem for youth has no place in Islam; the older I get, the cooler I'll be-minus the gray hair, of course. 

The part about Islam that most people can't really get a grip on (even me most days) is that it's a faith of extreme moderation.  For the average American, moderation doesn't mean much more than being careful about one's brownie intake at a party.  But for us as American Muslims, moderation means that we curb the desire to always be instantaneously gratified.  That we don't stop for that Mcflurry the moment we crave it, that we don't buy that new iPad the moment we hear about its supposedly amazing screen capabilities.  Abstinence makes the soul stronger, and more capable of handling the temptations that life throws its way.  Sometimes I see pictures of my friends having the time of their lives at parties, bonfires, and the beach, living their lives seemingly so carefree like it's a beer commercial.  And I wish I was them because it looks like it's something so wonderfully unique to being young.  But what I (and I'm sure others too) often fail to remember is that a picture only captures one moment.  Not the day afterwards when they are humiliated and embarrassed at what they drunkenly did, nor the years later when the depression and feelings of not reaching self-actualization hit.  After living life in such an extreme fashion, lots of adults start families and wonder why they are so incredibly discontented with their lives.  It's because after killing their inner conscience with actions that went against their natural, God-given tempering, they've had to turn to materialistic forms of creating happiness.  But happiness derived from the materialistic things in life only lasts for a short amount of time, so you see people ten, twenty years into a marriage or career, feeling unsatisfied, unhappy, and looking for anything at all to save them from themselves.

True moderation means so much more than watching what you eat and working out enough.  It means that instead of having moments of extreme joy and extreme sadness, you even it out to be a steady amount of normalcy.  Which in turn, if done correctly, can feel just like a lifetime of euphoria.  Moderation means paying attention to every aspect of yourself and developing yourself holistically.  That way, you can enjoy every singly moment that life throws your way.  And the older and wiser you get, the better you become at that balancing act, making life that much better.  As my dad always tells me, life is all just how you look at it.

So whenever my friends go on the standard rant of "well, I mean, like if you don't go crazy and have fun now and like in college, you're going to be missing out on like an entire experience! Like dude, you've never been kissed? Are you seriously going to just like get married without that experience? What about prom, and like homecoming, and like dude, your parents expect you to go party and have a little fun. You're going to be a runaway housewife that goes crazy because you've followed the rules your whole life, Samar", I always feel a little pang of sympathy for the way they see life.  And I wish so hard that I could put what I've learned in their minds too, but I know that I'm fighting a battle against a lifetime's exposure to media and stores like Victoria's Secret that advocate the exact opposite, and know I don't have a fighting chance at ever winning. 

So for all you parents out there, emphasize internal beauty to your daughters rather than external, because it's the internal beauty that lasts forever.  And teach your sons that the hot girls, nice cars, and money will fade and leave them feeling empty, but that sound character will get them to the moon and back.  Teach your children not to live their lives off of a check list, but to enjoy every single moment of their lives, and to laugh even when things aren't going their way.  After all, everything that is happening, is unfolding exactly the way it was meant to be. 
~Samar

The Best Roadmap

As teens, we are all just a step away from total collapse. One word, one rejection, one experience is enough to break us down and shatter our perceptions of who we are. It's scary knowing that we are so incredibly fragile and even scarier knowing that it's the people around us that wield the power to give us a blow that can bring us to our knees. That's why you have the tough guys that drive around and blast their music and refer to all girls as "chicks"-because then maybe people won't be able to see the confusion inside of them or the hurtful comments that they have to fight off of their seemingly unconquerable egos. It's why you meet girls who cocoon themselves in layers of personality, lip gloss, and laughter because then maybe no one can see the past in their eyes or the confusion that lies just beneath the Forever 21 clothes and Falsies mascara. We may all face it in different ways, but the bottom line is that being a teenager is scary.


As thorough products of the 21st century, my generation has grown up listening to Katy Perry sing about summer romances, and watched Drake and Josh wonder how they were going to get girlfriends. We've been wired to believe that promiscuity and needing sex-appeal is normal, and that for not doing it, we are the oddities. We grow up seeing our faith as a sort of fence restraining us from "fun" rather than an intricate roadmap that leads straight towards happiness. So when high school rolls around with its big promises, high hopes, and the beginnings of freedom, it's easy to lose sight of your grounding ethics and to relinquish them all in the pursuit of "fun".



When I was little, my mom always told me that "bad will glitter, and good won't". It wasn't until I entered high school that I fully understood the depth of that statement. The drunken pictures on Facebook, the funny stories by the kids who got high every day after school, they all made it seem like everyone was doing it, and like I was the only person actually following the rules. I was friends with all honors students, and in leadership roles within the school, and even they were beginning to doubt my way of life. My sophomore year was the first year I ever felt pressured, really pressured to do wrong. It was almost as if everyone was waiting for me to fall too, so they could validate their own decisions. I had friends tell me that I should buy tighter clothes or sneak out to Homecoming, or that I should date people behind my parents' back. I had friends dare me to take "a sip of the easy stuff" so that I could "see what it's like". I had to end a friendship with my best friend because she started making too many bad decisions and I knew it wouldn't be long before she dragged me down too. If you haven't tried to before, maintaining your coolness while still staying legal and halal (the Arabic word for legal) is pretty challenging.



Talking to some of my Muslim friends, I realized early on that I was in no means the only one struggling to keep with the lines of morality. The scary thing about doing one wrong thing is that it can turn everything else in sight gray. Lots of my Muslim friends had stories about being around friends that drank or frustrations with trying to fit in with their modest clothing in a world of yoga pants and leggings, and we all had the same sort of fear that we would be dragged down too. Because all it takes is one day, one day of being frustrated or angry and seeing what's glittery as actual "fun" and then you run the risk of turning everything in your sight gray forever.


As teens, there is a keen need for us to fit in. Despite what motivational speakers will come in and tell us, despite what that one weird hippie teacher in seventh grade preaches, within all of us lies the desperate need to be a part of some sort of an "in" crowd. That's what makes resisting peer pressure a whole lot harder than it seems. Because sometimes, fitting in requires sacrificing a part of who we are. It doesn't matter where you choose to put your child; public school or private school, Sunday school or a sports team, there will always be the forces of peer pressure around us. For me, I've learned that the best way to rise above it is to have a reason that plants itself within your heart for why you should follow the rules set down for you by God. A reason that is stronger than "it's wrong", and more substantive than "it's haram"(not permitted). Real, legitimate reasons like the effects of that negative choice on your soul, or the physical consequences, or the long term consequences that we would have been too otherwise naive to see when left to decide for ourselves.


In the lane next to you with our music blasting, we teens may seem like we don't have a care in the world. But beneath that lies a turmoil just as strong as unpaid bills or a faltering marriage. It's the turmoil within the soul: to be or not to be. The raging battle within us to find what exactly we even stand for, and who we want to be. Every day is a challenge. Because every day is the beginning of our lives. One mistake, one faulty choice can change the course of our lives forever. As a parent, you can snoop through your child's room, you can monitor their texts, you can even control who they hang out with. But there will always be places you forgot to check, texts that were deleted, and forbidden friends that they still hung out with. The best, most valuable thing that you can do as a parent is to instill within your child a firm belief in the necessity of their values. This belief will be reinforced eventually when they see the former high school partier still working at Jewel at 30, or when they see the girl that lived off of hookups be broken hearted and disrespected by the males in her life. Teach your child to love themselves and give them the best and most detailed roadmap possible.  Because there is only so long that you can be your child's moral compass- at some point, they have to become their own.


Samar