A conversation with my teenage friend (part 1)

Tina is your typical teenager. She has it all: the energy, ambition, confusion and sometimes frustration.

she lives in a world that grown ups - especially her parents - rarely understand.

And she has a love- hate relationship with Islam which she considers part of her identity yet more of a grandmother's tale.

Tina is usually - if not always - misunderstood by people who preach for religion, and sometimes she is rejected or deeply criticized.

The thing is: she is rarely heard, and when someone tries to hear her out it usually ends up with a lecture that says everything other than "i understand where

you are coming from and i respect you"

With Tina there is alot to talk about once you get her to open up, once you convince her that just because i am older or i am "religious" doesn't mean i will judge, ridicule or criticize you.

When Tina faces such people she develops an "attitude", to her she is reacting and conveying her frustration and anger, to other people she is being "rude".

Today i had a long conversation with Tina, i answered her many questions. Whether Tina was convinced or not is irrelevant, what's relevant is that we talked, laughed

and had one hell of a time.

I respect Tina, that's why i am writing this.

Of course our conversation revloved around religion and to be more accurate Islam.

Tina: I have to tell you first that i don't like Islam, i don't feel close to God, or to be more accurate i don't feel the presence of God in my life, and i hate

Muslims. And yes i have always wondered why do we even need religion at all?

Me: It's good that you started with this. First let's make a couple of things clear.

God, religion, Islam: are three tricky words, why is that? because if we had like a million Muslim in this room we will have a 3 million definitions of them.

So how i define GOD, Islam and religion is probably totally different than yours, having said that depending on your definition or understanding of what Islam is i might say: i don't like Islam as well.

Our experience interferes with our perception and understanding, I'll give you an example:

it's quiet normal to be attracted to the opposite sex, but there might be a case when a certain girl had been sexually abused as a child and thus fears the opposite sex and looses all interest.

So her definition of love and intimate relations is extremely different than one who had lead a normal life.

Of course this is just an example to clear things out.

It has become a fact, and a sad one indeed, that many Muslims have shaped the way we see Islam and God.

You and i know that religion changes people, but what about people changing religion?

For so many Muslims traditions have taken over and personal beliefs and opinions are being introduced and promoted as pure Islam.

One clear example would be the state of our Mosques today, women are never encouraged to head the mosque, and the ones who make it there pray in rooms that

are more like dungeons than a place of worship.

Today they consider this Islamically sound, and even fight for the notion of segregation in mosques. But going back to the time of the prophet, women used to pray in the same place as men, and they used to "see" and interact with the Imam and the rest of the Muslim congregation.

for some people this type of change makes no difference, but in a time when women take pride in their freedom, achievements and equal rights such a thing influences

considerably the way we perceive Islam, it's the difference between considering Islam a religion that believes in human dignity and women's rights and a chauvinist, sexist religion that ignores women.

This type of information, the ability to differentiate between what's Islamically authentic and sound and what has been manipulated by Muslims makes all the difference between me liking or disliking Islam as a whole.

To be continued