The world of the Internet or the World Wide Web means the infrastructure that transmits most of the shared information across continents… It is a world that captured the imagination of many people and has attracted their interest and became of immense value to people’s lives, and perhaps the most attracted group to it is the youth, which became “addicted” to its use, especially through social media sites.
This virtual world captivated its users, especially young people, who spend long hours in front of the computer or the tablet ; they get cut off from the real world except for some of what reaches them from the news.
It became a tool of communication between them to share all their concerns, ideas and opinions. But what is striking is the conversational language that is invented and became rife among young people and became the used language, which includes a new type of letters to communicate with for its ease and speed of writing – they claim – this language that they called “the language of the Facebook” became the language of the youth, they write and correspond with it. While the Arabic language – the mother tongue – became difficult to communicate with among the young people, and they find it embarrassing! But many avoid using it and considers it as slow and as an impedement, in light of their rapid life style and scientific and technical advancements witnessed by the world!!
So what are the reasons behind the abandonment of young Muslims to the language of the Deen? And why have they lost confidence in it? What are the solutions needed to address this crisis of confidence? And how should we remove the gap between Muslim youth and their mother tongue?
To find out the causes, we must search the facts and fundamentals, that are followed by the universe since its creation. There is no doubt that the conflict between Iman and Kufr is an eternal conflict – the battle between Haq (truth) and Batil (falsehood) is continuous until the Day of Judgement. So a civilization constantly endeavours to spread its concepts and destroy the concepts of other civilizations, in order to ensure its sovereignty and its leadership of the world without the emergence of civilizations that compete with it and fight it, to win the leadership of this world. The West have long sought over the centuries to discredit Islam, to defeat it, and make it weak especially in the hearts of its own people.
Allah Almighty says:
ولن ترضى عنك اليهود ولا النصارى حتى تتّبع ملتهم
“And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion’’
(Al-Baqara: 120)
And He سبحانه وتعالى says:
وَلَا يَزَالُونَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ حَتَّىٰ يَرُدُّوكُمْ عَن دِينِكُمْ إِنِ اسْتَطَاعُوا وَمَن يَرْتَدِدْ مِنكُمْ عَن دِينِهِ فَيَمُتْ وَهُوَ كَافِرٌ فَأُولَٰئِكَ حَبِطَتْ أَعْمَالُهُمْ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ وَأُولَٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ
“And they will continue to fight you until they turn you back from your religion if they are able. And whoever of you reverts from his religion [to disbelief] and dies while he is a disbeliever – for those, their deeds have become worthless in this world and the Hereafter, and those are the companions of the Fire, they will abide therein eternally’’
(Al Baqara: 217)
And He سبحانه وتعالى says:
ودّوا لو تكفرون كما كفروا
“They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved’’
(An-Nisa: 89)
After the fall of the Islamic state, the Deen of Islam has become a set of rituals not Shariah rules observed and followed by Muslims; the West deviated the Ummah of Islam, especially its youth, whom in them lies hope and the work to serve this great Deen. Therefore you find the Muslim youth drink alcohol and harass his Muslim sisters, without referring back to the Shariah rules; because it was removed from his life and sought to be separated from his reality and the reality of the Ummah, by the destructive rulers.
The Muslim youth were given Islam as a set of rituals and they did not understand that it is a Deen for life and must be implemented, and that it has rules which spread peace and security among the people. And so a huge gap developed between them, which led our youth further away from Islam.
From the challenges that face the Muslims youth, is the issue of identity, including the Arabic language, no doubt it is one of the pressing issues and dangerously critical one, because the language is the pot of thought and are two sides of the same coin, and as Ibn Taymiyyah says, “Every nation has a slogan and slogan of the people of Islam for their own language.” He also said: “I know that the Arabic language affects the mind and character and the Deen strongly and its knowledge is an obligation, the understanding of the Quran and Sunnah is not possible without understanding the Arabic language, and whatever leads to a Wajib is itself a Wajib“.
It is painful to see the youth abandon this language, the language of the Quran! Allah سبحانه وتعالى says:
قرآنًا عربيًا غيرَ ذي عوج لعلهم يتقون
“[It is] an Arabic Qur’an, without any deviance that they might become righteous’’
(Az-Zumar: 28)
إنا أنزلناه قرآنًا عربيًا لعلكم تعقلون
“Indeed, We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’an that you might understand’’
(Yusuf: 2)
It is strange to read the Quran without understanding it. When you ask the youth about the meaning of the word in the Quran, they answer by saying they do not know!! So how will they comprehend the Book of their Lord and how they will comply to its laws, while they are ignorant of the language it was revealed?! And how can there be communication between the addressee and the addressed while the communication channel is not understood? And what is the way to please the Creator, without knowing what pleases Him?!!
The West’s focus is on diluting the Arabic language and obscuring its landmarks and distorting it. This is a thought out matter, and is among the broad items put as part of its schemes and conspiracies to undermine Islam. The West is aware of the Arabic language’s importance in understanding the rules of Islam, if the language is weakened the understanding of the rules will be affected, this ensures that it will not be implemented. The West used all its means to distort this language and make it a hybrid despised by the Ummah’s youth, so it spread that it is the language of backwardness, and it is difficult to keep up with the rapid development witnessed by the world and with those who want to follow on and not to fall behind, so one must leave it and learn the language of the times and try to understand it and live by it: and as for the language of the times, of course is the language of the West, which it imposes in every way!!.
Writing and speaking in Arabic became a stain and shunned by most youth, you find them exerting effort to pronounce some English or French phrases expressing that they are following the times… What have become of the youth of the best Nation brought to mankind? Why is Arabic abandoned, when it is the most honourable of languages and chosen by Lord and Creator of man and the universe, to be the language of the great Quran which is favoured over all human languages, yet our youth are panting behind the language of a strange world that makes them live without an identity nor civilization nor roots, wandering around and lost!??
A quick peek at the world of the Internet and more specifically in the social media sites, make us lost in incomprehensible language that is neither English nor Arabic…. but a hybrid combination, it is the language they call the language of the Internet or the language of the times. The language that does not recognize the rules of writing letters or grammar. The language that is liberated from all the rules to reflect the reality of its users: a reality that works to liberate the youth and make them free of any controls for their actions and free of restrictions…
If you ask one of them why do you use of this language, why don’t you write in Arabic, he will recklessly answer in arrogance and confidence: this is faster and easier, and the Arabic language is difficult and I do not know its grammar!! How strange are the youth of this Ummah! How strange are the youth who have a wealth, envied by the enemies of the Ummah, and yet are foresaking it!! How strange are the youth of Islam who say that Arabic is hard, when George Sarton said, who was a Belgian: “The Arabic language is the easiest language of the world and most clear, it is absurd to stress one’s self in creating a new way to facilitate the easy and to clear what is clear, if you open any letter you will not find it difficult to read the worst handwriting in that language and this is the nature of the Arabic writing characterized by ease and clarity.” So why is this abandonment of the Arabic language by the Ummah’s youth?
Who is responsible for this state of the youth’s relationship with the language of their Deen, in which the Shariah rules were revealed and without it, can not be understood?
The departure of young Muslims from the Arabic language means they have lost their identity and civilization, one which made them unique and made them leaders of humanity being in the forefront for centuries. One of the most important elements of the Muslim Ummah is the Arabic language, and it is dangerous to abandon it, since ancient times it was the language of civilization, science and progress of literary arts, and for centuries the beacon of Sciences and the predominant language in the world. Arabic is a rich inexhaustible language of a sea of beautiful vocabularies!!
The media played a major role in deepening the gap between the Muslim youth and the language of the Deen; the television satellite and radio channels and depending on colloqiual language in their programs and their shunning away from the use of classical Arabic, except in some soap operas and historical films, suggesting that Arabic is an obsolete and old language that does not keep pace with the progress of society and its development, as some foreign words were deliberatly added to the language to reflect development, progress, and science, and those wanting to keep up with the times to learn them and just deal with it.
The satellite channels also seek to broadcast its programs in the colloquial accent of the country it is in, under the pretext of passing the message of the channel easily and smoothly to the viewers, and to speak from the heart to the heart! These programs were many and filled numerous channals. While the classical Arabic language is neglected, used only as the language of some documentaries or religious or news programs, and they focussed on colloquial accent to provide all matters that is important to children and the youth until they became accustomed to hearing it, and they mock words they hear in an episode or a name in a film, without understanding its meaning, or the reason it was mentioned.
And when scruitinising the educational programs and textbooks, we see how they strive to implement subversive agendas that creates from the sons and daughters of the Ummah generations separated from their roots who do not know their language to understand their culture, and grasp hold of it and protect it. What we see in terms of the introduction of the slang vocabulary or phrases from foreign languages which are written in Arabic script, make us have pity on these generations that live with weak confused personalities, between the reality that gathered all means to distract them from finding the right way for themselves and the Ummah’s revival, and leave them with a remeniscence of the creed. In addition to the deliberate publishing of newspapers and magazines in slang, that erased the mother tongue basics and caused the loss of its status.
The youth have grown accustomed to hearing the slang and forgot their mother tongue: they forgot the language of the rules of the Deen, which they need to understand and implement, and seeing in it weakness, disability and delay… It is dangerous that the youth try to elude from the Arabic language because it would then eliminate the Deen and its rules. How will they understand it and by which language if the language was revealed that contained those provisions is not comprehensible or able to read?
The youth’s dazzlement with the West and its progress today make them live a completely Western lifestyle so they hasten after to to aquire easy profit and does I’tikaaf not to know the Deen, and attain an explanation for its rulings, but rather to enter through social media sites and chat through their own language the language of their age, which is far from the classical Arabic language: the language that only finds ridicule and contempt from them!!
The solutions to these problems start from the need to change the corrupt concepts that are planted by the spiteful West and to have full conviction, but with certainty that this Ummah is the best Ummah brought to mankind.
Allah سبحانه وتعالى says:
كنتم خير أمة أخرجت للناس تأمرونَ بالمعروف وتنهونَ عن المنكر وتؤمنون بالله
“You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah.’’
(Al-i-Imran: 110)
And to hold on to the Arabic language, which means adhering to Islam and its rules, Allah praised it:
لسانُ الذي يلحدون إليه أعجميٌّ وهذا لسان عربيٌّ مبين
“The tongue of the one they refer to is foreign, and this Qur’an is [in] a clear Arabic language’’
(Al-Nahl: 103)
It is sad that the Muslim youth – who are the sons of this language – are the first to fight against it and abandon it and scorn the language of their Deen, not to mention what the thinkers said about it, those who have not, under valued its strength, beauty and values: “One of the strangest things occurred in human history is the spread of the Arabic language, which was unknown, suddenly it began in a very perfect, smooth, fully rich, it has no childhood or old age, that language that exceeded its sisters in its extensive vocabulary and accuracy of meanings, and good built structures.” (Ernest Renan)
Also the German Sigrid Hunke did not hide her amazement in this language, she said: “How can a man resist the beauty of this language and sound logic, and the unique charm? The neighbours of the Arabs themselves in countries they conquered have fallen for the charm of that language. ”
To you, the youth of my proud Ummah: The weakness of knowledge in Arabic means a weak link of the Ummah with the Book of its Lord and good recitation and following its rules, and in that is its weakness and loss, so do not be of help to its enemies against it, and let us work harder, men and women for our revival and the return of its glory. Enough standing on the ruins of the glories of the ancestors are rise up to your great role, O strong youth of the Ummah of Islam.
O Muslim youth I call you with a broken heart **** I cry the loss of my language with tears
They said sarcastically do not grieve over it be patient **** it is perished like uprooted palm tree trunks
O Ummah’s youth carry out the trust to you by the Lord of man **** Verily the clear victory is coming, does any one not recall
Bring back its glory and say, Allah willing, we will win **** Allah is the best to trust, and the Supreme Determiner
Zinat As-Samit
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