This document discusses Islamic identity and some of the challenges to maintaining a strong Islamic identity. It defines Islamic identity as complete submission to Allah, with one's relationship to the Creator defining and establishing this identity. It discusses core elements of Islamic identity like the Shahadah and concept of Ummah. It also addresses some challenges like secular education systems, peer pressure, entertainment industries, Islamophobia, and identity crises. It provides guidance on positively dealing with these challenges through faith, patience, perseverance, and trusting in Allah.

2. Identity given by The Quran
And strive in His cause as ye ought to strive (with sincerity and under
discipline): He has chosen you and has imposed no difficulties on you in
religion; it is the cult of your father Abraham. It is He Who has named you
Muslims both before and in this (Revelation); that the Apostle may be a
witness for you and ye be witnesses for mankind! So establish regular Prayer
give regular Charity and hold fast to Allah! He is your Protector the Best to
protect and the Best to help! (Hajj, 22:78)

3. What is identity?

4. Factors determining Identity

5. 3 Main Kinds of identities recognized

6. What constitutes Islamic Identity?

7. Relation to Allah defines Muslim identity
• The Islamic Way of Life gives Muslims their sense
of identity.
• This identity is of being a Muslim
• It means complete submission to Allah
• Relationship to the Creator defines, establishes
and maintains this identity
• Allah’s Guidance is the source of knowledge of :
1.What is right and wrong,
2. How we came to be?
3.Who and what we are?
4.What is the purpose of our life here on this
planet ?

9. Islam - The Global
Culture of Humanity

10. No conflict between Islamic
Identity and Nationality
• If your nationality is American, then USA is your
home, and you follow the rules of the land.
• Rule of the land does not force you to commit sins,
cheat, lie, or use interest.
• It does not obstruct your right to carry out your
religious obligations, nor prevent you from being a
good Muslim
• Many people have different paper identifications:
passports, driver licenses, voting registrations
• Islamic identity does not have paper identification,
but it has action identification.

11. Core elements of Islamic Identity

12. Surah Ale-Imran
102-O ye who believe! fear Allah as He should be feared and die not
except in a state of Islam.
103-And hold fast all together by the rope which Allah (stretches out for
you) and be not divided among yourselves
Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good
enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong; they are the ones to
attain felicity.

13. Core Elements of Islamic Identity
• 1-Shahadah (testimony of faith).
• It forms and informs Muslim identity
• It regulates not only the spiritual, but also the
social aspects of the believer’s life,
• Muslim identity at the central pivot is… faith,
practice and spirituality

14. 2-Concept of Ummah
• Ummah literally means a group, a community, or
a set of belief within a group.
• It refers to an ideological community that shares
religious beliefs and ethical values as their
primary frames of reference.
• Ideally, the concept of Ummah presents a
connection that goes beyond ethnicity, race, or
national boundaries without eliminating these
other markers.

15. Global Ummah
• Ummah is not bound by geographical location,
historical chapter or ethnic attachment
• Sense of Ummah has been accentuated by a number
of reasons, including improved worldwide
communications, major international incidents in
and around the ‘Muslim world’ and an overall
disillusionment with post colonial national states
• Muslims strive to strengthen their ties to the larger
Muslim communities around the world
• Muslims are endeavoring to belong to global
Ummah while cultivating a healthy relationship
with the local context.

16. Benefits of belonging
to Ummah
• Ummah has its foundations in the Islamic
sources (the Qur’an and the Sunnah)
• Concept is often employed in response to both
internal and external pressures, which face
Muslim communities.
• To combat prejudice, stereotypes and other
forms of maltreatments against the Muslim
individuals and communities
• To overcome internal conflicts within the Muslim
community.

17. 3- Multicultural
global civilization
• Islam offers a common vocabulary and collective
practice
• It is not and has never been a culture of its own, but
it has fostered and given rise to a range of cultures
• Sustained cultural relevance to distinct peoples,
diverse places and different times underlay Islam’s
long success as a global civilization
• Adaptability to changing times and places enabled
Islam to preserve principles while still showing
flexibility to the ever-changing contexts

18. Example of river
• Islam’s fundamental principles are likened to a
crystal clear river with pure, life-giving waters
that have no color of their own, but reflect the
bedrocks over which they flow.
• The flowing waters connect different parts of the
land (the Ummah).
• The (waters) also provide sustenance (spiritual
and ethical guidelines).
• The flowing waters may change certain aspects
of the landscape, but will never eliminate the
basic foundation of the land.

19. Cultures filtered but never banished
• Islam has spread and still spreads across the
globe.
• However, the culture of the first generation of
Muslim has not.
• Rather than exporting a particular culture, Islam
provided “a process by which cultures were
filtered or adjusted but never entirely banished
by Islam
• Islam paves the way for integrated cultures and
identities that are governed by its principles but
rooted in the indigenous ways of doing things.

20. 4-Unity within Diversity
• Muslims are highly diverse individuals and groups
that sometimes appear to be very different in all
aspects of their beliefs and behavior.
• In addition to their racial, national and ethnic
differences, Muslims also belong to different
theological schools.
• Even if they identify themselves as belonging to one
school (i.e. Sunnah or Shi’ah), followers within that
sect may differ in the jurisprudential school
of thought that they follow.

21. Three conceptual tendencies in Muslims

22. Three tendencies amongst Muslims
• 1- The fundamental approach
• Attempts to keep Islam in its purest form.
• Protect Islamic teachings from external
corruptions and internal corruptions (such as
introducing new acts of worship or performance
of Islamic rituals in a new way) by eliminating all
alien or innovative practices in Islamic rituals.
• Their goal is to ensure that Islam is taught and
lived in its purest form

23. 2-The traditionalist approach
• Allows a slow process of change and adaptation.
• Process is generally guided by Islamic principles, but
tends to mix Islam with ethnic, national, or traditional
cultures.
• It is ethnic based, colored by Islam from ‘back home’.
• Its focus is on basic rituals such as prayer and fasting &
Islamic practices brought from places of origin.
• Some communities are connected to their original
homeland more than they are connected to the Muslim
community of US/Canada.
• They often send their children back home, and import
religious leaders and religious learning resources from
their countries of origin.

24. 3- Modernists
• Adopts a loose interpretation of Islam.
• Their goal is to establish indigenous Islam within the
secular multicultural society.
• While loyal to the basic tenets of the faith,
modernists give themselves a large margin of
freedom to reinterpret certain aspects of Islam.
• They are not often attached to a particular school of
thought, theological group, or any transnational
Islamic movement .
• In general, they do not subscribe to the notion that
Islam is a comprehensive way of life.
• Rather, they view Islam as a spiritual and ethical
source that provides guidance in how one should
relate to Allah and His creation.

25. One identity in spite of differences
• These tendencies do not constitute theological sects or
jurisprudential schools of thought.
• In fact, a “Muslim may hold all three types of attitude,
depending on different situations in life.
• Further, the internal diversity among Muslim
communities may negatively affect but it does not
eliminate the unified Islamic identity.
• Whether Muslims identify themselves as Wahabis,
Tablighis or Salafis or reformists, they all are part of a
process to recast Muslim identity in a different light, one
that is not attached necessarily to a particular culture or
territory.
• Therefore, despite their variations or tendencies, they all
have a claim to the Islamic identity in their own ways.

26. Challenges to Islamic Identity

27. Challenges to Islamic identity
• 1- Secular Education system-
• The children are placed in an environment where
mixing of sexes is the norm through the placement
of children in multi-gender classes and sporting
teams.
• After years in such an environment, it is no
surprise that we see so many young Muslims with
'boyfriends', and 'girlfriends'.
• As early as in elementary schools, boys and girls
drink alcohol, use drugs, and practice premarital
sex.

28. Secular Education System
• In Sex Education teaches that promiscuity is a 'natural
part of growing up'.
• Contraceptives are supplied with tacit approval to
commit adultery.
• Homosexuality is told to be in genes and as such is a
perfectly 'normal' kind of behavior.
• Great scientific contribution made to the world by
Muslims are rarely mentioned.
• Only achievements of the Western scientists are told.
• It is no wonder that many Muslim children end up with a
sense of shame in being Muslim.
• This shame is often shown in their refusal to use their
'Muslim names', e.g. suddenly Mohammad becomes
known as 'Mike'.

29. Steps for facing public schools challenge
• Islamic education to counter the misconceptions about
Islam
• Islamic history to offset the falsehood taught in History,
• Islamic law to offset the lies taught in legal studies.
• Parents must teach children with correct belief and
sound knowledge and practices to defend themselves
from the decline of the Islamic identity.
• Encourage kids to memorize the Quran or part of
Quran. Being Hafiz is an important part of the Islamic
Identity.
• Helping children to memorize Quran and teach them
Islamic education at home shall pay off in the long run,

30. 2-Peer Pressure:
• A- Negative Peer pressure is responsible to a
large extent for smoking cigarettes, going to
nightclubs, using drugs or alcohol.
• B- Positive peer pressure is the influence of good
Muslim friends who help strengthen our Iman
(faith) and protect from committing sins.
• Peer pressure is a two way street.
• Someone may encourage you to a bad manner,
and you counter back by positive peer pressure to
resist getting evolved in bad or evil behavior, and
encourage good Islamic behavior

31. Positive peer pressure is important
• The more we give into negative peer pressure,
the weaker our Iman becomes.
• Staying alone, we would have no one to blame
but the evil whispering of our own souls.
• Prophet Muhammad (SAW) teaches us that in
being alone we are like sheep, easy prey for
hungry wolves.
• We are encouraged to develop brotherhood and
sisterhood, and most of all, to be surrounded by
those who submit wholeheartedly to Allah (SWT).
• “O ye who believe! Be careful of your duty to
Allah, and be with the truthful.” (Tawba, 9:119).

32. 3- Entertainment industry: TV, internet,
movies, and music:
• What is the purpose of entertainment?
1.Source of amusement
2.Helps people rest and relax
3.Source of distraction from the worrisome routine
of daily life.
4.Heart to find some rest.
Allah states, Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do
hearts find rest.” (Sura Ra’d, 13:28).

33. Influence of TV
• TV serve as a window to the outside world
• For many parents it also serves as a full time baby-
sitter for kids.
• TV subject kids to scenes with violence, indecent
acts or straight out fantasies TV shows Kids that fun
is always associated with sins.
• The moral bankruptcy of most shows on TV is
evident
• Muslims should use their understanding of Islam as
a benchmark for determining the truth from
falsehood.

34. TV defining social norms
• TV serves to convince the Muslim viewer that what
they are seeing is the social norm.
• It paints the picture in some sort of sick way that
sex equates with love and is a natural behavior.
• Many shows also focus heavily on parent-child
conflict. Typically, the solution to this conflict is
either to fight back or to run away
• TV shows expensive big houses, lavishly decorated
with all the accessories of this world, pushed onto
us as the success ideal

35. 4- Islamophobia

37. WHAT IS ISLAMOPHOBIA?
• The term "Islamophobia" was first introduced as a
concept in a 1991 Runnymede Trust Report
• It is defined as "unfounded hostility towards
Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or
most Muslims."
• The term was coined in the context of Muslims in
the UK in particular and Europe in general, and
formulated based on the more common
"xenophobia" framework.

38. Manifestations of Islamophobia
• Physical or verbal attacks on property, places of worship, and
people—especially those who display a visible manifestation of
their religious identity such as women wearing the hijab or niqab
• Verbal or online threats of violence, vilification, and abuse.
• Policies or legislation that indirectly target or disproportionately
affect Muslims, and unduly restrict their freedom of religion, such
as bans on wearing visible religious and cultural symbols, laws
against facial concealment, and bans on building mosques with
minarets
• Discrimination in education, employment, housing, or access to
goods and services
• Ethnic and religious profiling and police abuse
• Public pronouncements by some journalists and politicians—that
stigmatize Muslims as a group and disregard their positive
contributions to the communities and countries in which they live

40. Effects on Muslim psyche and identity
• In a 2011 study on Muslim-Americans,
researchers found that the vast majority of
participants said they felt extremely safe prior to
9/11.
• Following the attack, 82 percent of them felt
“extremely unsafe.”
• The researchers later found many of those
studied developed Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder from this constant anxiety and abuse.

41. Study of Muslim Women victims of
attack
• 2013 study of Muslim women in the United
Kingdom who had been the victims of an
Islamophobia attack found the following:
• Nearly all of the women “expressed feelings
of humiliation, anger, sadness, isolation,
and disgust.”
• Some of them said they became afraid to
leave their home because of this.

42. Fear as a result of Islamophobia
• Muslims really feel unsafe in face of Islamophobia
• Muslim cab driver gets shot after being asked about
where he’s from
• Muslim women have been assaulted in public
• Vandalism incidences against mosques are increasing
• Blogs for Muslim women have to put out resources like "a
self-defense manual" or "what to do to be safe" is really
sad.
• The Chapel Hill shooting back in February, 2015 was the
most high-profile example of attacks against Muslims
• Discussion online about women who are considering
taking off the hijab because of experiences they’ve had.

43. What should be Muslim response to
Islamophobia?
• Faith in Allah SWT
• ُSabr- Patience or withstanding with patience
And be patient. Indeed, Allah is with the patient. (8:46)
• Tasabbur” ‫التصبر‬or perseverance on the path of
peace, forgivenes‫ا‬s , dua and reaching out
sharing true Islamic teachings with social service.
• Tawakkul – or complete trust in Allah (SWT) for
His Help and protection

44. 5-Identity Crisis
 Youth have no model identity to look at.
–What Category do I fall in?
–Who do I belong to?
–How should I dress?
–How should I talk? What language?
 The identity crisis is also very prevalent in
the adult Muslim community

45. Why do youth/adults change Identity?

47. Inferiority Complexes

48. Effects of Losing Identity

49. Factors contributing to the dilemma
facing the Muslim youth

50. Do’s and Don’ts

51. Do’s

52. Do’s

53. Do’s

54. Don’ts

55. Don’ts

56. Don’ts

57. Don’ts

58. Who do we blame?
Who do you blame, the wolf for attacking the
sheep? Or the shepherd who went to sleep?

59. Dua