Crisis of Faith 4： Is Justin Bieber Your Idol？ ｜ Nouman Ali Khan
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00:00We're flying to the ICNA convention. I usually take my whole family, all 28 of them. I have
00:10six children. I lose count sometimes. But anyway, so we're flying together. My kids
00:14are little, so you know they're short so they can't really see over the seat in the plane.
00:19So they're little, they're sitting there. And my wife and I, we're taller so we can
00:24see the TV screen when it drops. So there's a movie playing. We don't want to see it,
00:30but it's in your face right here. And of course, alhamdulillah, we don't have headphones so
00:35it's a silent film at that point. And it was the Justin Bieber documentary. Yeah. Imagine
00:42that. Well, thankfully it was a silent film, right? So this documentary that is playing,
00:50I'm trying to avoid looking at it, but I can't help myself. I can't help myself because
00:55they're showing this kid come and start singing his songs and girls in the audience are crying.
01:01Like you could tell they're just like, we love you so much, I'll die for you. And mothers
01:05bringing their daughters to concerts. And then somebody's handed a voucher that says
01:10you get to meet him backstage. You should see the family, how they're jumping up and
01:14down in joy. And in the course of that video, I was like, oh man, these people have nothing
01:19to look up to. This is all they have to look up to. They're so happy at this. They're so
01:24happy at this. How sad a life can it be? And next clip, there's a Muslim girl. She's wearing
01:29a hijab. She's handed a voucher. You're going to get to meet Justin Bieber. And she's going
01:34around a tree, hugging it and going crazy. And she's not the only Muslim girl that would
01:41do that. She's not. Don't say astaghfirullah. What kind of Muslim? That's the average Muslim
01:46girl. That's normal. Okay? So now, we have a crisis, not just of faith, but some of the
01:57fruits of faith. What are some of the fruits of faith? The faith itself is you're convinced
02:01Islam is true, right? But beyond that, a step above that is, you take pride in it. And a
02:09consequence of that is, everything that is not Islam, no longer appeals to you. So you
02:16take pride in it. Everything that contradicts Islam, not only are you not attracted to it,
02:21you feel sad for people who are. You look at it as something beneath you. Let me tell
02:28you what a great thing for Muslims would be, a point of pride for Muslims would be. Instead
02:33of a young Muslim man thinking, I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't do the other,
02:37everything is haram. Look at my friends, they get to do this and that and the other. Instead
02:41of a Muslim girl who's going to high school and she's wearing hijab and everybody makes
02:45comments at her and pokes fun at her and says weird things to her. Or girls tell her,
02:50you look so ugly because of that thing on your head, etc, etc. And she's thinking in
02:54her head, you know, I wish I could be like those other girls. They get to do whatever
02:57they want. I can't do anything. I can't have any fun in life. The only thing that's keeping
03:02me from being happy is Islam. Our youth are not confident, not proud, not in love with
03:10Islam. They're not confident in the Qur'an. They're not confident that the messenger of
03:17Allah ﷺ is the absolute best role model. No one deserves to be loved more. No one deserves
03:25to be followed more. No one. How do you address the crisis of faith? It's easy to talk about
03:31a problem. It's hard to talk about solutions. We have to create a culture around strong
03:38friendship. Identity itself, it revolves around who you hang out with, who you spend most
03:43of your time with, who you identify with. When you spend most of your time on a computer,
03:48you know, you start taking on some of the qualities of the stuff you're reading and
03:52the stuff you're watching. It starts invading your thoughts. The kinds of people you spend
03:57time with, if they're studying Islam all the time, you'll want to study Islam too. If they're
04:01playing basketball all the time, you'll develop a habit for playing basketball also. If they're
04:04gonna watch movies all the time, you're gonna want to go to the movies too. Your environment
04:08has an effect on you. The people you surround yourself with has an effect on you. Starting
04:13with the Muslim family and then evolving to the Muslim community needs to actually have
04:17a campaign to ensure our young children are in the company of good role model older kids,
04:24like a big brother, big sister type thing. So when our girls are 12, 13, 14, when they're
04:30coming up in their ages, some of the more leading Muslim girls in our community that
04:34are 17, 18, 19, they're going to college, they're holding on to their religion, they're
04:38learning their deen. These girls are role models, they don't even know it. And our younger
04:43girls need to be spending time with these older girls. It's really important that they
04:47have someone to look up to that is strong in their deen and they aspire to want to be
04:53like them. That's really important. The same goes for the guys. At a younger age, what
05:00we do is we keep the little kids by themselves, we keep the big kids by themselves, and it
05:04doesn't work out. There needs to be a kind of mentorship happening at the community level.
05:09So that our younger boys are spending time with some of the older boys, especially the
05:13ones that are mature in their religion. And we have, masha'Allah, even though we don't
05:16have a lot of those, we have enough of those. We have enough young people that are mature
05:20in their religion, they really want to learn more about it, and they're good role models.
05:25They have youth, they have energy, they have health, they have good looks, they could go
05:29on any number of ways in their life, and they chose to submit themselves to Islam.
05:33That in and of itself is huge. That already makes them a role model, whether they're ever
05:37grabbing a mic and speaking publicly, it doesn't matter, they're still role models. And we
05:41need to put them in that position. It does two things. One, it gives young people someone
05:45to look up to. And two, it gives older kids a sense of responsibility. It makes them realize
05:51that others have eyes on them, that they have to answer to a higher standard, because they
05:57set the tone for others. It gives them a sense of responsibility too. And that kind
06:02of mentorship thing needs to start happening when families start doing that, and utilizing
06:06the community as a place where that kind of mentorship can happen.