Muslim Teens

This is the second book on parenting by the husband-and-wife team of Dr.Ekram and Mohamed R. Beshir. Muslim Teens addresses an issue of deepconcern to all Muslim parents: how to keep one’s children on the “straightpath” when they reach the turbulent years of adolescence. The authors areprofessionals who have raised four daughters in Canada. Their daughters,now adults, have contributed to the book with insights from a teen’s pointof view, based upon their own experiences of growing up Muslim in NorthAmerica.The first two chapters draw a picture of teens and their environment.Drawing on Ekram’s background in medicine and child psychology, thesechapters describe the turbulent nature of puberty and the physical and emotionalgrowing pains experienced by teenagers. The second chapter alsogives an overview of North American teen culture, which should berequired reading for all immigrant parents raising children in a culture thatcan be viewed as largely antithetical to Islam.Chapters 3 to 6 provide a “road map” for raising teens and presents anoverview of the aims and stages of Islamic tarbiyah (education, upbringing).They advise parents to start early and state that both parents shouldshare a common vision of childrearing and set clear goals, such as spiritualconviction (not just knowledge of Islam) and enabling teens to developstrong and confident personalities. These chapters contain extensivequotations from the Qur’an and Sunnah to support what the authors say,thus enabling readers to gain a solid overview of parenting from an Islamicperspective. The authors also take some basic Islamic principles of social ...