[Todilrdc]

I am your regular Muslim teenage girl,originally from Libanon, located in Sweden and 18 years of age. I was raised up in a conservative and strict family. I had no problems with it either. I cherished the family moments where we sat down and memorized the Quran or had a family prayer together. Heck even the hijab was OK. But then again, I was a child, not aware of what it all really was about.

, then you've felt the impact of reciting Quran on your heart. What can be compared to that, right?

This year I turned 18. It marked the climax of what has been a turbulent couple of years for me. Suddenly, the cosy, loving yet religious family was exchanged by a totalitarian monster. My dad first and furmost. One day, a year ago or so, he called my name. He wanted to talk to me. He said that I by now was old enough to destroy the honour of my family. My whole life would by now depend on my modesty, he said. This occured, when I started to demand independency and some breathing space from my family. The pressure from my fam, to become a modest, homestaying girl and my ambitions as an independent woman had constant struggles and it climaxed a couple of months ago. I had this argument with my dad after I came home from my friends house (and she is almost my neighbour). He told me that I was a disgrace towards the family and that I was for him a "western stranger" and not his Muslim daughter. In his opinion, I was too free.

Too free, I asked myself. My whole life was about going to school, keeping my grades up, staying away from boys and relationships and spend some time with my friends when I had the chance. And that was too free?

sister,
Parents sometime try to 'package' their experience and the mistakes they did in a simple 'instructions'. Their over protective measures was to ensure that you didn't have to go through what they've experienced and to repeat the same mistakes as they did. Sometimes the 'packaging' was too 'simple' that without further explanations, that can be seen as a mere instruction to be taken as 'yes' or 'no'. As a human, we tend to verify ourselves what others relate to us as their experience. More over when we started gathering more information about life and our surroundings. We thought that our observations and data we collected from it were enough to help us in navigating this life. But we are wrong in many ways. Our 'bird's eye view' were not comprehensive enough and we'll make mistakes by thinking that our choices were right.

This is where we should take a step back, and return to Quran and sunnah. Listen to the wisdom taught to us by our Beloved Prophet , and inshaAllah we won't slip into making bigger mistakes in thinking that we are 'adult enough' and have all the wisdoms to decide by ourselves. The definition of 'adult enough', intelligence and maturity are all relative in nature. inshaAllah I shall explain that in the example below.

Try to allocate some time to discuss anything that concerns you in this forum. inshaAllah you'll find many other Muslims will try to help you out.

And then, I started reading about the sexism of middle eastern cultures and the role of women in Islam. What I learned was shocking. I had this picture in my head, of the Quran being a book of wisdom and guidance, void of immorality and injustice. Prophet Muhammed was a barometer of perfection and moral values. That did not rhyme with the concepts of heritage and witness accouting in Islam. It was so sexist, so unjust. How could an Almighty God really be so hateful and discriminating towards one gender, I thought to myself. But even then I was fine. It was minor doubts, I thought. Everyone go through them, they'll eventually fade away. Then I learned about Muhammeds relationship with Aisha and it crumbled my world. The man I've been raised to love and respect, had a relationship with a 9 year old? My research went on and on and for every single day, I discovered immorality, injustice, violence in the religion I loved.

You'll find much more shocking 'news' as you go about and read 'history' as written from a non-muslim point of view. Rest assure, those 'allegations' have been refuted soundly many times already. Your faith most probably will be attacked from from two fronts, one is humanism aspect - slanders against the character of the Prophet , secondly most probably from 'science' point of view.

Critic will often paint tribalism culture as Islamic teachings. But since you're a Muslim yourself, inshaAllah you know better of what is cultural and what is true Islamic teaching.

First point - The character of the Prophet
All of the slanders against the Prophet were taken out of context and not being honestly portrayed by the authors of the articles. You can find all the refutations against the slander here inshaAllah. Just ask your question and inshaAllah someone will point you to the event as happened complete with reference and context.

Second point - science
Science as you know is based on observation. Meaning that all the data you gather to make your hypothesis is heavily influenced by the scope of your observation equipments. As an example of that, in the last 100 years, everyone agreed that there's no speed greater than speed of light. But now new equipments proved that those speed of light 'law' isn't true as there are other elements that could travel faster than light.

And since we know that science framework itself is a moving target, then it's impossible for us to accept science as the absolute truth. Also, it's impossible for us to conclude that we can derive our findings from our observations about the absoluteness of the science framework within our lifetime. Hence, we shouldn't take science as our reference in validating faith and value system.

Another aspect about science that we should be aware of is the disciplines of science itself. Some sciences are known as speculative sciences (credit goes to brother Usama2 for highlighting this). Example of these are anthropology, psychology, paleotology and paleoanthropology. These sciences are most often not reproducible in labs and most often data pattern taken from a set of samples within some controlled variables are used to derive any hypothesis. But the hypothesis is way too incomplete to present anything truly conclusive. Example, the previous studies in the last 20 years on vitamin consumptions concluded that the vitamin intakes help to prevent some diseases, yet that was refuted in a study which was published in a medical journal just 2-3 months back. Evolution is also one of the 'speculative science' branches.

So what's the best way to safeguard our eeman and at the same time to earn success in this life? There's a very good analysis regarding to what actions should we take during this time from surah kahf. You may google 'the secret of surah kahf' and download the kahf.pdf.

From the pdf, the four stories within the surah are as the following;

The people of the Cave - Trial of religion.
The owner of the Two Gardens - Trial of wealth and children.
Musa and Khidr - Trial of knowledge.
Dhulqarnayn - Trial of authority.

And approximately at the middle of the surah, there's a story about iblis
Quran Kahf :50 'Behold! We said to the angels, "Bow down to Adam": They bowed down except Iblis. He was one of the Jinns, and he broke the Command of his Lord. Will ye then take him and his progeny as protectors rather than Me? And they are enemies to you! Evil would be the exchange for the wrong-doers!'

And some advise given to help with the above mentioned trials are as the following;

Trial of religion -> get good companions.
Trial of wealth -> knowing the reality of life (do not be obsessed with this temporary life).
Trial of knowledge -> be humble.
Trial of authority -> sincerity in doing the 'amanah'.

As per sexism claims, that also have been refuted many times.

Lastly, don't be depressed about what you 'read' in your school or from newspapers. Double check the 'stories' you've read from other sources too. And you're welcome at anytime to ask any question here.