Should Teenagers And Young Adults Be Infantilized?
By
Junaid Jahangir, New Age Islam
2 June 2022
Muslim Values
Rest On Meezan (Balance) Where Aisha’s Honour Is Protected By The Qur’an Just
As Joseph’s Honour Is Protected By Allah Against The Advances Of Potiphar’s
Wife (Zulekha).
Main
Points:
1. The history
of genocide shows that many horrific crimes have been perpetrated by teenagers,
be they in Rwanda or in Nazi Germany.
2. Whether
power always lies with the older male in a sugar daddy-sugar baby
“relationship”.
3. While
teenagers remain accountable for their egregious actions, this accountability
is greater for those who should know better.
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Jade Fox: Ten years I devoted to you, but you
deceived me! You hid the manual's true meaning. I never improved but your
progress was limitless. You know what poison is? An eight-year-old girl full of
deceit. That's poison! ~ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Syeda Dania
Shah, who was reportedly 18 at the time of her marriage to an almost
50-year-old televangelist, Aamir Liaquat Hussain, has recently claimed that she
was 15 at the time of her marriage. This has allowed some to refer to her as a
“child” in a bid to remove any agency from her actions. Despite the fact that
she has asked for Rs. 115 million in marriage settlement and Rs. 100,000 in
monthly expenditures, some are projecting her as a brave “child” in a conservative
society that is rigged against her. This allows one to question when does
agency or accountability start and whether the male or the older person always
has power in an age-asymmetrical relationship?
The reason
that agency is pertinent is because Malala Yousafzai was also infantilized.
Some conservative Pakistanis questioned whether her father wrote her speeches
for her, as she bravely defied the Taliban at the age of 13. On the other hand,
some liberal (left leaning) Pakistanis also critiqued her as a pawn or puppet
in the hands of those who wanted to “use” her for their western narrative.
Either way, agency was stripped from a teenager. It was as if she didn’t have a
mind of her own to project a narrative that offended the sensibilities of those
on both the left and the right of the political spectrum.
Then there
is the case of Shamima Begum, who was 15 when she left the U.K. to join ISIS, a
group that has been categorically condemned by Muslims across the globe. She
was not alone in joining ISIS, as hundreds of western Muslims and Muslim
converts, born and brought up in the West voluntarily joined that group despite
its atrocities. Many young men and women below the age of 25, the age by which
the rational brain is supposed to fully develop, made their decisions out of
free will and against the wishes of their parents and community elders.
Generally, the history of genocide shows that many horrific crimes have been
perpetrated by teenagers, be they in Rwanda or in Nazi Germany. Are all of them
to be exculpated based on their age?
This takes
us back to Jinnah’s defence of Ilam Din when he was held accountable for murder
and executed. Jinnah argued to commute the death sentence to life imprisonment
based on his being 19 or 20 years of age. Jinnah was operating in a system that
was rigged by a colonial power against the citizens of the Indian subcontinent.
Though, he did not seek inculpability but commutation of the sentence. In other
words, he upheld accountability but sought to temper the disproportionate
punishment. This is consistent with Islamic ethics where accountability of the
learned person is much greater than of the one who does not know.
Traditionally,
in Islamic discourse, children as young as 7 are nudged to pray and by 10 they
are admonished for not praying. Accountability for good and bad deeds begins at
15. Should this be raised to 25? Similarly, Aisha is projected as a teenager or
young adult when she married the Prophet, at least based on the narrative
espoused by Javed Ahmad Ghamidi and other dissidents of the mainstream Muslim
viewpoint that places her age at 9. Should she be considered a “child” to strip
away her agency?
Teenagers
have sometimes exaggerated their age to join the army for heroism. Islamic lore
has Muaz and Muawiz battle Abu Jahl in Badr, and both are projected as young
boys. In contemporary times, youth make life decisions to convert to other
faiths, as in the case of several white western converts to Islam. Often, such
teenagers are projected favourably by Muslims, and they are not viewed as
“children” without agency of their own.
This brings us to the next question of whether
power always lies with the older male in a sugar daddy-sugar baby “relationship”.
Such arrangements, while consensual, can easily turn exploitative, where
exploitation can come from either partner. If the older person exploits the
younger person’s impressionability for sexual gratification, the younger person
also exploits the older person’s loneliness for wealth. And this is as true for
straight couples, as it is true in the case of gay sexual encounters. Indeed,
Muslim history has examples of rent boys who were graphically described as
those who “take from
the basin to spend on the pitcher”, that is, those who sold their bodies to men for money to spend on the
women they desired.
To
recapitulate, Islamic discourse is distinct from contemporary notions on
accountability. Muslim values rest on Meezan (balance) where Aisha’s honour is
protected by the Qur’an just as Joseph’s honour is protected by Allah against
the advances of Potiphar’s wife (Zulekha). In essence, Islamic discourse views
both men and women as equally vulnerable to libel. This warrants a balanced
approach instead of the echo chambers that are created on social media. Thus,
neither is the older person always in a position of power in age-asymmetrical
transactions, nor is a youth inculpable like a child. Although, while teenagers
remain accountable for their egregious actions, this accountability is greater
for those who should know better.
------
Junaid
Jahangir is an Assistant Professor of Economics at MacEwan University. He is
the co-author of Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions. With Dr. Hussein
Abdullatif, a paediatric endocrinologist in Alabama, he has co-authored several
academic papers on the issue of same-sex unions in Islam. He contributed this
article to NewAgeIslam.com.
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-west/teenagers-young-adults-infantilized/d/127154
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