Teaching Social Media to Al Azhar University

Teaching social media to Egyptians seems a little silly. Remember, their entire revolution was not televised, it was instead broadcast through YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Al Jazeera did a little leg-work too, but not much.

Nonetheless, I was given the opportunity by Imam Mohammad Bashar Arafat and his organization, the Civilizations Exchange and Cooperation Foundation (CECF) to do just that: give a presentation about social media and its impact on Muslim Youth in America, and the world.

Imam Bashar receives a gift from a visiting Malaysian delegation. The Imam travels across the world to help promote dialogue and understanding between Muslims and America.

Earlier this year, I gave a social media seminar to a group of clerics visiting the U.S. from Morocco. Following a really positive response from the clerics, Imam Arafat asked me to give another presentation about social media in September, to a delegation of clerics and seminarians from the prestigious Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.

Al Azhar University is the oldest institution of Islamic learning in the world. It is also arguably the oldest continuous university in the world. In other words, it was a great honor to get to present to them!

Watch my slideshow presentation to the Al Azhar delegates here:  

Al Azhar Presentation

One of the big things I talked about in my presentation was the effect of social media on helping young Muslim American thinkers like me bond with other Muslims who think like me.  Connecting locally to like-thinking Muslims is usually exasperated by old-world battles and prejudices that our parents’ wage on each other, and us as their children. Social media creates a digital version of the Boys Town, allowing Muslim youth with great ideas and drive for civic engagement–not old-world us vs. them life narratives–could connect to each other and role models across the country.

I also talked about some young people making a huge difference in our society everyday thanks to social media. Al Azhar graduate Suhaib Webb’s social-media powered website suhaibwebb.com offers succinct Islamic religious counseling through informative blog posts and interesting articles targeted towards Muslim youth in America.   Saad Malik, Arif Kabir, and Javed Ali are amongst a few youth lay Muslims I spent time talking about also.

One of the Al Azhar University seminarians and I hang out in Crystal City

I also talked about that topic all Muslim parents dread: sexuality amongst youth. In a lot of the Arab world, liberal sexual attitudes have come to be normal with the rise of material wealth and economic prosperity. Social media in Indonesia has played a positive role in helping young people deal with their sexual issues, and get questions answered about sexuality that they just can’t get answered at home.

I ended the presentation with a call to action for Islamic clerics to use social media to talk about religious issues with young people. We went over strategies and tactics that can help make young people feel more comfortable reaching out to clerics online, and how the digital ‘wall of seperation’ can help make it easier for youth to reach out to clerics over Facebook or Twitter.

I am keeping in touch with my new friends over at Al Azhar University through a special Facebook group (shh! it’s secret!). Hopefully there will be great synergies between us in the future, insha’Allah (God willing).

What is Gen Y?

Just What is Generation Y?

Social scientists like to categorize people born within a 15-25 year period as a “generation“. 

Sociologists do this by looking at the major social and behavioral trends that were happening during the formative years of the lives of the people in the generation. 

Generation Y (also called Gen Y) is the generation of young adults born between the mid-1970′s through 1990 (though sometimes it’s extended through 1996 in research). This generation grew up with the development of the modern day computer, the internet, and most importantly social media. Generation Y therefore encompasses nearly all young Americans alive today.

Gen Y’ers, Social and New Media are the innovation of our generation. Almost all Gen Y’ers–especially those of us born in the late 80′s, have multiple social networks subscriptions. Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs are our versions of the printing press. We use them quickly, efficiently, and for free to disseminate research, news, gossip, and our personal feelings. 

Researchers predict that sometime in 2010, there will be more members of Facebook than citizens of the United States. That’s over 300 million people, “throwing sheep” at each other or “posting gifts” on their sweetheart’s Facebook accounts this Valentine’s Day. And for the most part, only Gen Y knows how it works. 


Gen Y’ers grew up with different ideals than our parents. Our first ‘defining’ national trauma was 9/11, and we’ve only gotten to know three Presidents: Clinton, Bush, and Obama (most of us were too young to remember much about Reagan or Bush Sr.). For the most part, Gen Y’ers support cultural diversity and tolerance, open communication, and social justice and entrepreneurship. 

A good example of a Gen Y company is Google. Google’s mission statement reads, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. (google.com) Almost all of Google’s products have scalable and reliable free or open source versions. This reflects the nature of Gen Y’s business culture: collaboration and open communication.

Another significant difference about Gen Y is our commitment to the public and social service. Between 2006 and 2009, nearly 1 in 5 of my most academically qualified and charismatic friends from college graduate with a Bachelors of Social Work. That alone speaks volumes about the practically-focused ideals of Gen Y’ers. 


Between 2004 and 2008, according to TIME Magazine, youth participation in the political process tripled (Click here for Citation). 


Many politicos (including myself) believe Generation Y won the presidential election for Barack Obama in 2008. Many also believe that in 2010, Gen Y will vote out the Democrats from Congress if they are dissatisfied with the message of “Change We Can Believe In” Obama campaigned on.

In short, Generation Y is the upcoming generation of leaders and professionals  of the coming three decades. Their defining value sets as a generation include focus on providing opportunities to others to excel, and the need for greater cooperation and “socially-responsible” institutions. They are best characterized as frontier-explorers of the coming “Net Age”, where the internet will be supreme as a mode of communication and sharing of information. Gen Y’ers are more politically aware and active than previous generations, and largely committed to practically promoting the attainment of their ideals both in the political arena and the workplace.


To me, and many in my generation, we will be the “fixers” of today’s world problems, as well as the best chance the world’s had yet to achieving world peace.




For more reading on Generation Y:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-generation-y.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-11-06-gen-y_x.htm

Today, there are (mainly) four generations of Americans alive:

The Greatest Generation

The Silent Generation

The Baby Boomers

Generation X

Generation Y