Muslim Youth and Contemporary Challenges

Abstract

This chapter examines the social and cultural repercussions of delayed adulthood for Muslim youth, by focusing on contemporary patterns of education and employment; courtship and marriage; and related discourses and debates surrounding youth sexuality and morality. The chapter devotes particular attention to the situation of youth in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Iran, and Indonesia. These cases confirm that across the Muslim world youth have eagerly taken advantage of the social and educational opportunities open to them, but many continue to struggle in the context of limited possibilities for employment and stalled economic and political transformations. While they are increasingly part of a globalizing youth culture that emphasizes self-actualization and personal fulfillment, most have not embraced an ethics that elevates individual desires over family or group interests. Instead, the majority remain keenly aware of and responsive to the role of their families and the broader community in monitoring and evaluating their behaviors and achievements – and granting or denying the recognition of their status as a “good” or “proper” man or woman (cf. (see Ghannam F, Live and die like a man: gender dynamics in urban Egypt. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2013)). Within the current socio-political context, however, achieving that status has become increasingly difficult for youth in many parts of the Muslim world.