My dear young Muslim friend,

You are in teen age, and like all teenagers, you too are very energetic, easily excitable, irritable, think what you think is the most correct view point and you don’t understand why the whole world seems to be up and against curtailing the spirits of teenagers.

Unfortunately, we are living in a period where antagonism towards Muslims seems to be on the increase across the globe. Whether it is right or wrong is a different issue. But as a Muslim teenager, I am afraid you are experiencing this feeling too.

I know, at this age, advice is one thing that you detest the most, but that’s what others heap on you in plenty! But since you think you are discriminating enough to pick and choose what is right and good for you, why not just give a patient reading to what I write here and then take your own decision about accepting or rejecting them?

(1) The first thing I would like to tell you is neither to take your religion too sentimentally nor to discard your religion as something that’s not going to do good for you. Take a mid path.

(2) By taking your religion too seriously and sentimentally (and obviously understanding too little about its central tenets and core teachings), never become a disgruntled element; never allow yourself to be misguided or brainwashed by anti-social elements who want you to believe that the whole world is up against Islam and it is your “holy duty” either to shed the bloods of those who oppose or criticize Islam or shed your own blood in the bargain.

(3) Though many in your religion will frown at what I am going to say just now, but what I am saying is a statement of a great Hindu master about Hindus scripture. He is Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who practiced and attained God by following other religious practices like Christianity and Islam too. He says religious scripture contain both sugar and sand mixed. A true seeker of God should discard the sand and consume only the sugar. I believe this statement is applicable to all holy books in all religions.

Holy books do contain lots of essential and great teachings that can elevate the religious followers in particular and the whole humanity in general. But Holy books contain things contrary to the above too. Generally those who cannot grasp the core and most essential teachings tend to consider whatever the holy books contain are holy in totality. In other words, they elevate the scripture to the highest pedestal and start blindly worshiping it, bothering neither to follow the core teachings nor in segregating the sand from the sugar.

As a teenager, if you can understand this fact, it will do lots of good to you. Yes. At this age, you may not be too inclined to read and grasp the essential teachings in your scripture. But do not succumb to the fact that mere memorizing the verses by itself will make you great and that whatever the holy book says must be accepted unquestioningly without bothering to understand or question them.

Elders may thrust upon you such a blind loyalty in you. If is for you to be awake and be clear in not getting brainwashed.

(4) Be a human being first and then be a Muslim. This advice of course is applicable to all youths irrespective of their religious affiliation. If you are in a locality where Muslims are in minority and there is a general atmosphere of overt or covert mental block in others towards Muslims, it is no doubt a daunting situation.

But once people get acquainted with you, it is your “human” face that brims with human values which decides your acceptance rather than your “Muslim” face.

The term human face includes tolerance, pleasantness, politeness, patience, forbearance, absence of a superiority complex, absence of over-sensitiveness about your religion and a capacity to respect other religions.

(5) At teen age, you have to be extremely careful about choosing your friends. It is the highly impressionable age when your emotions can be easily blackmailed by friends who lack character. In choosing your friends, make sure that they are predominantly persons of good conduct and character. By mingling with persons of good character from other religions, you will get exposed to new cultures and a better exposure in broadening your mindset about your religion.

(6) All said and done, things that elevate you to be a respectable person in the society at later years of your life are your education, your wisdom, your healthy sociability and your conduct and character. If you are sound in all these areas, any narrow minded and negative social reaction to your religious affiliation will fade away. Teen age is the period to concentrate on your education. Unfortunately teen age is also the period where the distractions to divert you from education are the strongest. It is up to you to be vigilant.

Take the example of Abdul Kalam in India. Right from his teen age, he was a possessor of all the aforesaid qualities in him. He could rise to the level of President of India and be loved by one and all in India, purely on account of his education, intellect, impeccable character and his sterling quality of accepting the Indian culture as a whole by not narrowing himself to his religious cocoon.

I have written whatever I have felt right to be told to you. Now, as I said in the beginning, it is for you to accept or reject whatever I have said.

With best wishes,

A Hindu friend from India.