INSTITUTE OF OBJECTIVE STUDIES & THE NEW COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)2 DAY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
“THE CHALLENGES BEFORE YOUTH IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD”
December 10 - 11, 2011
Erosion of moral values - My Speech at IOS international Seminar-Chennai
Challenges for Youth in the Global Context
Papers presented by JAMEEL AAHMED
Member : All India Milli Council – Karnataka
Erosion of moral values
In the name of Allah the most beneficent most merciful, I begin by praising Allah ‘azza wa jall, as He is ought to be praised.
The Modern English Dictionary defines youth as “the state or quality of being young, the period from childhood to maturity; young people of both sexes”. A youth is characterized by features such as youngness, restlessness, strength, independence, curiosity; search for greatness, dynamism, perseverance, good health etc. youth is the age of hope, of promise, of enthusiasm, of plans and of ideas. Youth does not want to give up in the face of difficulties… Youth believe in a better world and is determined to do something to help bring it about”.
Young people aged 15-24 years are a major force in the contemporary world. Today there are over 50,000 national, regional and world youth organizations, many of which are interconnected by global action networks. But unlike the women movements, the youth movement still has remained largely disenfranchised from the international political scene.
Coming to the spot of Erosion of moral values
I would like to start with the phrase which Bharath Ratna Dr Apj Abdul Kalam constantly says “Dream is not what you see in Sleep, it is the thing which does not let you Sleep’.
But as we go around looking and talking to youths, what we see is not all but a hefty fraction of youth indulging in such gear which takes them to nowhere, but can lead to miserable result and ill effect on their lives, they have their own philosophy, own phrase one of them goes like this “Na Fikar Na Faqa Aish Kar Kaka” (No tension. No Starving, just enjoy, Dear uncle)
Now, I will narrate to you a story surrounding the life of a great saint Sheikh Abdul Qadir Al-Gelani which occured about one thousand years ago. One day child Abdul Qadir heard a cow saying, “What are you doing here in the grazing fields, it is not for this you have been created”. He ran back to his house feeling utterly terrified and climbed on to the roof of his house. From there he saw a large group of people returning from Arafat Mountain, thousands of miles away from his place in the neighbourhood of Mecca after performing Haj. Bewildered Abdul Qadir went to his mother and asked her permission to make a journey to Baghdad in order to pursue a career in knowledge. Mother understood the divine call and promptly gave him the permission to go. She gave him 40 gold coins which was his share he had inherited from his father. She stitched these 40 gold coins inside the lining of his coat and gave him permission to leave. When she stepped out of the door to bid him a farewell, she said, “Oh, my son! You are going! I have detached myself from you for the sake of Allah knowing that I shall not see your face again until the day of last judgement. But take one advice from me. My son, you should always feel the truth, speak the truth and propagate the truth even when your life is at stake”.
Abdul Qadir travelled with a small caravan headed for Baghdad. During the journey, when the caravan was passing through tough terrains, a group of robbers on horses suddenly attacked the caravan and started looting. None of them however took the slightest notice of Abdul Qadir, until one of the looters turned to him and said. “You are here poor boy! Do you have anything with you? Abdul Qadir replied, “I have got 40 gold coins which are stitched by my mother in the lining of my coat underneath my armpit.” The looter smiled and thought that Abdul Qadir was just joking. He left him alone and moved elsewhere. When their leader came and the looters took this boy to their leader and said to him, “A poor boy claims that he is in possession of 40 gold coins. We looted everybody but we have not touched him because we hardly believed that he has got gold coins with him”. Then the leader put the same question but Abdul Qadir replied the same. Then the leader ripped through his coat and discovered that he indeed got 40 gold coins inside the lining of his coat.
The astonished leader asked Abdul Qadir, what prompted him to make this confession? Abdul Qadir replied. “My mother made me promise to always be truthful even at the cost of my life. Here, it was a matter of only 40 Gold coins. I promised her and never betrayed her trust, so I told the truth”. The looters started crying and said, you have adhered to the advice of your great mother but we have been betraying the trust of our parents and the covenant of our Creator for many years. From now onwards, you would become our leader in our repentance and they all decided to give up robbery and from that day, became righteous persons. Here the world saw the birth of a great saint, Shiekh Abdul Qadir Al-Gilani out of a message of truth a mother gave to her child. Truthfulness is one of the main qualities of a true leader.
Today’s youth is indeed lucky to be born in this society of the 21st century is a Society of Knowledge, and as they say Knowledge is power lets grab the power in maximum, and let’s not get divided into Civil or Uncivil society, I mean to say if someone is “civil society” who the rest are? “Uncivil Society” No we are all citizens and should act like one, in this society of knowledge lets grab the knowledge in order to become “UNIQUE’’ a unique personality, As the famous poet Allama Iqbal Says Sabak phir padh sadaqat ka adalat ka shuja'at ka / Liya jaega tujse kaam dunya ki imamat ka (Learn over the lesson of truthfulness, righteousness &courageousness/ thou shall be made to lead the world)
The fourth caliph of Islam Hazrat Ali says the intellect is better than desire, for the intellect makes you a king over your destiny, and desire makes you a slave of your destiny.
Here I have a question for you specially the youth, answer this – Are you willing to become unique personality?
If you are willing to become unique personality there are big challenges, and the challenge is you have to struggle hard, fight the hardest battle which any human being can imagine to fight and never stop fighting until you arrive at the destine point that is UNIQUE YOU , the fire within you should be kept alive. Knowledge should become your strength.
Now, I would like to place a example before you, in which you can summarize how restless you should be in order to reach your destine UNIQUE YOU, Imagine a poor handicapped person who have lost both hands & legs is sleeping with his family in his small hut, in the middle of night suddenly his eyes open, to his utter shock his small hut is on fire, imagine what will be the level of restlessness , imagine the level of agitation, he will feel at that moment, that same level of restlessness should be produced within you to reach UNIQUE YOU.
Important is that with how much passion and dedication we have done the effort to win.
Coming to another asset which youth of this society should posses that is perseverance, I would like to say you should never be afraid of the problems which you face, Problems should not be our captain, we should be the captain of our problems defeat the problems and we are deemed to succeed, we need enthusiasm and courage to face failures and courage to learn from failures in order to achieve success in any mission, challenges are always there. But it depends on us how we transform these challenges into opportunities of development, world is not run by great orators but by great active persons who are go-getters. so be a doer not simply speaker, when you do that you are deemed to success as Allama Iqbal says Uth ke Ab Bazm-e-Jahan Ka Aur hi Andaaz Hai / Mashriq-O-Maghrib Main Tere Daur Ka Aghaz Hai (Arise, the trend of the world has transformed, East & west has started towards your Era). My dear friend’s excellence is nothing but recognising mistakes before you commit it, if there were no failures, no defeat then there would be no scope of experiencing joy for success and wins. Defeat is not when you fall down. It is when you refuse to get up. Everyone is born with unlimited potential, Need of the hour is to convert it into realistic.
While concluding, I would like to share with you one inspirational call from Prophet Hazrat Mohammad’s Hadith (peace be upon him).
"When you speak, speak the truth.
Perform what you promise.
Discharge your trust.
Withhold your hand from striking and taking,
that which is unlawful and bad."
Let us follow this path and lead a noble life.
My best wishes to all the members of IOS for success in their noble mission,
I thank you all for the patience hearing. Thank you Very much
Jameel Aahmed.
Member All India Milli Council –Karnataka
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