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Articles
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> The Generation Gap [Part 1 of 5] by
Naseer Ahmad Faruqui Sahib
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The
Generation Gap -- Part 1 of 5:
by Naseer
Ahmad Faruqui Sahib
The Light (May 1, 1976)
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This
article was originally written in Urdu for the
weekly Paigham-e-Sulh. It is now being
translated into English on the request of some of
our London readers.
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In the daily "Sun" of Lahore, dated 22
September 1975, there appeared a report from New York
captioned: "Family Blamed in Youth Suicide Rise." Excerpts
from that article are reproduced herewith:
During the
last twenty years, the suicide rate among Americans
between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four has risen by
more than 250 percent…. More than 4,000 of the
25,000 suicides in USA each year are now in this
group…. In his book, "Age
of Sensation," published this month, Dr. Herbert Hendin,
a psychoanalyst who has researched, dealt with and
written extensively on this and related problems,
expressed his belief that the soaring suicide rate for
young Americans is due to a psychosocial revolution that
has been in progress for many years. If something is to
be done about it, he says, man will have to attach as
much importance to saving the "emotional environment" as
the physical environment.
A pioneer in the application of
psychoanalysis to social problems, Dr. Hendin is the
director of psychosocial studies in the Center for Policy
Research in New York. He is also on the faculty of the
department of psychiatry at Columbia University and is a
practising psychoanalyst. For the last 6 years he has
studied the emotional problems of university
students.
"What we have seen in the culture
in the last fifteen to twenty years," Dr. Hendin said in
an interview, "is that it is harder to grow up. A lot of
people have very severe disappointments in their lives
with their families…. Parents want children who
could get along with them…. A lot of kids I see
sense they were a source of their parents’
unhappiness…. Today much more than twenty years ago,
people are much more egocentric, more absorbed into their
own gratification and satisfactions. They don’t want
to sacrifice…. More and more parents are not finding
their children a source of joy and pleasure.
"The family emerges through the
eyes of many students as a jail in which everyone is in
solitary confinement, trapped within their own particular
suffering. The frequent absence of intimacy, affection,
warmth or shared concern, the prevalence of families in
which no one had found what he wanted or needed, has had
a profound impact on this generation."
Dr. Hendin’s thinking also
turned to "the desire of modern women both to have
careers and to be good mothers presents a dilemma that
neither psychiatry nor the women’s movement has
found an answer to." Finding it impracticable to ask the
present-day women to go back to their home-life of thirty
or forty years ago, Dr. Hendin can find no solution
except to say: "We are going to have to look at families
with understanding and see what we can do to make family
life work in the seventies and eighties."
Is there no
Solution?
Professor Hendin, in spite of
being an outstanding psycho-analyst and psychiatrist and in
spite of his long research and practical experience at
handling social problems, has merely stated the problem but
not found, nor suggested, any solution to the problem facing
not only USA, but also Europe and all societies following
the western way of living. But he is not alone in failing to
suggest a solution. The sociologists, psychologists,
psychiatrists and social workers of Europe, America and in
fact the whole world have failed to find a solution. That is
why the so-called generation
gap is a world-wide problem.
Children are alienated from, and hostile to, their parents.
Juvenile delinquency is on the increase. Drug addiction is
common among even the teenagers. A lot of otherwise sensible
young men and girls have turned "hippies", left their
comfortable homes and even jobs, and are drifting round the
world looking for something they do not know what. And
finally they commit suicide in despair, as reported in the
press and book quoted above. The age group mentioned (15 to
24 years) is surprising, as normally one is full of hope and
courage in those years.
If the prospects for the youth are so
gloomy in countries where knowledge and science have
progressed as never before in human history, and where there
is no dearth of the expertise in every subject man is faced
with, and their thinkers and experts have confessed their
failure to solve the problem of the future of the younger
generation and thus of mankind, then who can save
humanity?
Divine
Guidance:
Who can that be except God!
The revealed books He sent down to various nations from time
to time are lost because of interpolations, corruption, and
loss of the original books. The form in which such books are
to be found nowadays is so unsatisfactory, incomplete, and
opposed to human reason and nature that no person using his
common sense can accept them. Even if there is any trace of
the original Divine guidance left in these books, their
overall condition is such that no enlightened person can
make them the guiding light of his lifetime. There is only
one Book that is admitted even by its critics to be
completely preserved. And that is the only Book to have
claimed that it was a complete guidance. That Book is the
Holy Qur’an. It does not fail to give guidance even for
the baffling problem of the generation gap.
Holy
Qur’an Quoted:
This sublime book provides
guidance on the subject in a number of places. So to a
serious student I would refer to the English
translation and commentary of the Holy Qur’an by
Maulana Muhammad Ali. For
the purpose of this article, let me quote from one place in
the Holy Qur’an:
And thy Rabb has
decreed that you obey none but Him, and do good to
parents. If either of them or both reach old age with
thee, say not ‘Fie’ to them, nor chide them,
and speak to them a generous word.
And lower to them the wing of
humility out of mercy, and say: My Lord have mercy on
them as they brought me up (when I was)
little.
Your Lord knows best what is in
your minds. If you are self-correcting, He is surely
Forgiving to those who turn (to Him). (17: 23, 24,
25).
Relationship
between God and Man:
I have not tried to translate
the word Rabb in the above text as there is no
equivalent in English language. The nearest rendering of the
connotation of the Arabic word Rabb is One Who
creates and then evolves and fosters through gradual stages
to perfection or the goal of creation. This is an
illustration of the excellence of Arabic over other
languages. One simple word contains a whole world of
meaning. That is why Allah chose the Arabic language for the
final and complete Revelation of His own profound
wisdom.
Anyhow, the word Rabb expresses
pithily the relationship between Allah and His creation,
particularly man in whom the perfection of moral and
spiritual qualities begins to reflect the Divine beauties.
Allah’s fosterage of man is not only in the moral and
spiritual spheres, it also covers his physical creation from
dust through human seed created from what is evolved by
Allah out of dust (vegetation, meat, etc.) and then the
development of the embryo in the mother’s womb, human
birth, and finally physical and intellectual development
from a helpless baby to a fully grownup man. All these
stages of creation and evolution are not in man’s own
hand, but in that of Allah’s, all the physical factors,
which help in man’s growth, being also provided by
Allah. The parents play the most vital role in this Divine
scheme.
Parents’
Role:
Who but Allah put it into the
mother’s nature to suffer gladly the sickness and
burden of pregnancy? To go through almost death pangs during
the birth of her child? To produce milk when the baby needs
it? To serve her offspring as no one else can -- not
shirking the most obnoxious duties in the process? To
sacrifice everything she has for her children? To give them
unlimited love and affection -- all this and more without
any selfish motives?
Who but Allah has put it into the
father’s nature to work hard from morning till evening,
and sometimes into the nights? And then to spend most of
what he earns, if not all, (for parents go without their
needs, sometimes, even food) to provide for his
children’s physical, educational and social
needs?
Who but Allah has put it into the
nature of the parents to give, if necessary, their lives to
protect their young?
The parents are a reflection of
Allah’s basic attributes mentioned in Surah
Fatihah (the opening
chapter of the Holy Qur’an) namely Rabb (already
explained), Rahman
(Beneficent) and Rahim (Merciful), in the father the
first attribute being more prominent and in the mother the
other two.
Thus both the parents are the chief
Divine agents for Allah’s scheme for the physical and
mental development of man.
Moral and
Spiritual Development:
If the parents do their job
properly, they should also look after the moral and
spiritual development of their children in its initial
stages. But the parents may themselves be ignorant in this
respect. Or they may be remiss and negligent. And yet the
moral and spiritual development of man is so important that
it cannot be allowed to suffer by default. For it is moral
and spiritual values which distinguish man from the animals
and other creatures. So the Merciful Providence has not left
it to the parents to provide moral and spiritual guidance.
He provided it through revealed books and prophets.
Unfortunately that guidance is lost, as explained earlier,
except in the case of the Holy Qur’an and the Holy
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
whose teachings are fully preserved.
Moral and spiritual development of man
is important not only because without it man becomes worse
than animals (who never go against nature as man does, for
instance in the western sexual life today), but also because
it is man’s moral and spiritual self embedded in his
soul which will survive his physical death and go into the
Hereafter to live for ever. So man’s moral and
spiritual health and growth are of paramount importance. And
the Merciful Providence has taken it upon Himself to look
after it. He has not only provided the necessary guidance in
black and white in the Holy Qur’an, illustrated in the
life and example of the Holy Prophet whose sayings and
doings are also preserved, but also in the Islamic
practices, which benefit man and not Allah.
Islamic
Practices:
For instance the Islamic
prayer five times a day provides sustenance to man’s
soul in the same way as food does to his body (Holy
Qur’an 20:132). Fasting for one month purifies his soul
from all dross collected during eleven months of a year.
Jihad leads to moral and spiritual growth as much as
physical exertion develops the body, and so on.
Besides the Islamic practices, man is
made to pass through various states such as health and
sickness, happiness and sadness, affluence and financial
stringency and so on to develop his character in all
aspects. To come back to the first commandment in the
quotation from the Holy Qur’an given above, man must
humbly obey his Rabb throughout all phases of his
life, if he is to benefit fully from the fosterage of Allah,
Who is constantly associated with him to develop him
physically, morally and spiritually to perfection. The
Divine guidance is fully spelt out in the Holy Qur’an
and illustrated in the Holy Prophet’s example. But
Allah has graciously associated Himself with man all the
time so that man can turn to Him in prayer whenever in need
of guidance. Hence the all-important prayer in the opening
chapter of the Holy Qur’an: "Show us and guide us along
the straight path," in all problems that face man. This
prayer is uttered at least thirty-two times in the five
prayers a day, and can be uttered more often whenever
required. But it is preceded by the prayer: "Thee do we
humbly obey and Thee do we beseech for help." So man must
first put himself in complete obedience to his Creator and
Fosterer unto perfection and then beseech Him for
help.
With this brief explanation of the
first commandment in the text quoted earlier, namely, "And
thy Rabb has decreed that you should obey Him
humbly," I end this part of my article. I shall,
Insha-Allah, deal with the remaining part of text relating
to the relationship between the parents and the children in
the next part.
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Also
Read Parts:
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|| 4
|| 5
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> The Generation Gap [Part 1 of 5] by Naseer
Ahmad Faruqui Sahib
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