This is a General-level course for youth that highlights what it was like to be young in the Prophetic times. This course inspires and empowers the youth by drawing on the examples of young people of the past.
This course analyzes 40 hadiths in which the word “youth” has been mentioned. According to the established tradition in Islamic knowledge of compiling collections of 40 hadiths on various topics, this course will use the “Arba’un al-Shababiyya”, or Forty Hadiths on Youth, a compilation of authentic hadiths by Shaykh Muhammad Khair Ramadan Yusuf, as the basis for an original analysis on the role and potential of youth from prophetic times to now. The compiler is a contemporary Syrian scholar and editor of Islamic texts.
As a contemporary compilation following the tradition of 40 Hadith compilations (the most famous being Imam Nawawi’s Arb’een), the topic of looking at how normal youth appear in hadith literature has perhaps never been done before, making this a welcome contribution to Islamic literature. The collection spans the authentic sources and does not limit itself to any one topic nor even hadiths addressed to youth specifically - they are just hadiths where youth appear, often nameless, to show what it was like to be a young person in the Prophetic Era.
This course will address a wide range of issues affecting youth including social activism, sexuality, coming of age, and more.
- Teacher: Shaykh Abdullah Anik Misra
The text “al-Arba’un al-Shababiyya” - the 40 Youthful Hadiths - spans many topics and draws hadiths across various primary sources (Bukhari, Muslim, etc), with the only requirement being that the word “youth” or “young person” has to be mentioned explicitly. The text does highlight some word usage and meaning but otherwise refrains from commenting on the point of the hadith, leaving a teacher or student to draw conclusions and explore the meanings and benefits for themselves. The compiler, Shaykh Muhammad Khair Ramadan Yusuf, has said that the hadiths do tie into one another in theme and meaning. The purpose of using this compilation - although it is not common to use modern collections of ancient authentic hadiths - is to address contemporary issues and concerns for youth through the lens of the hadith. What was it like to be a young adult in the early era? What can it tell us about today? These questions and more will be explored using the text as a springboard.
- This course is for teenagers and young adults.
- This course can also be taken by anyone who is interested in learning what it was like to be young in the Prophetic times.
- It is a General-level course. There are no prerequisites required to successfully complete this course.
- Understand what life was like for youth both in ancient Arabia and also Prophetic early society.
- Understand how Islam applies to young people and their role in society.
- Analyze hadiths and learn to extract meanings from them.
- Reflect on how this can help us today and what we need to change or address for youth.
- Appreciate how hadiths contain gems of information on various topics even indirectly.