I look my grandparents and parents’ generation and see comparatively chill Muslims. Its not that they are libertine (not in the least) so much as reasonable and sometimes less apt to proliferate potentially damaging outlooks that force people in the same stark dichotomies, either among Muslims, regions, cultures and the like. People often look to older generations and say that the problem is that culture is too infused with them and we have to cleanse the religion of some of that. I disagree. There are perceptions among older Muslims that can and should be improved upon, but its certainly not universal to older people. Strangely, perhaps because of what societies (many of them) they lived in, they seem to have less of a need to over compensate to demonstrate that Islam is in harmony with their lives. Ironically, I don’t think that culture is any less present among us today, if anything perhaps our efforts to reconcile it with our beliefs and vice versa is all the more striking. We live in an era where everything is optimal if it is streamlined and standardized, but this cannot be to the extent that a person’s relationship with their deen and God is taxing. 

I may be wrong about all of these sentiments, I could have broken it down more and I’m apparently generalizing because there are many young people who don’t fall into such categories and they exist here and I’ve met them, but this is the greater vibe that I sometimes pick up through my narrow, personal scope. Allahu a’lam.

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  1. cynicallyjaded said: I think you’re right. I think anyone that thinks that they’ll be able to implement Islam into their lives independent of culture is woefully naive and risks being unjustifiably judgemental in the process.But this is a natural progression of arrogance
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