Highlights:
- Many approaches to women and family issues worsen the crisis, shifting them from being beneficial to harmful.
- Our enemies have occupied minds before land, spreading dependency, division and distraction.
- Youth fascination with imported trends threatens identity and values.
- Drugs and electronic games are draining young people and destroying families.
Report:
Shaykh Dr Abbas Shoman, President of the World Organisation for Al-Azhar Graduates and Secretary-General of Al-Azhar’s Council of Senior Scholars, delivered a keynote address at the ‘Youth and Challenges of the Age Forum’ on Monday, 14 July 2025. The forum, organised by the Islamic Research Academy in collaboration with the Egyptian Youth Council for Development, featured a session titled ‘Contemporary Deviations Related to Women and Family Issues and Their Threat to Society.’
During his speech on the second day of the forum, Dr Shoman said that many of the solutions currently proposed in relation to issues concerning women and family do not address the problems in a genuine, thoughtful manner. Rather, they may further complicate them and harm women more than they benefit them. Dr Shoman added that some people propose solutions while being biased toward their own desires and inclinations, seeking to achieve the greatest possible gains for their group, even if these gains ultimately harm women.
He emphasised that some of the arguments that call for women’s rights take them out of the realm of benefit and into the realm of harm. Take for example the controversies over inheritance or the issue of Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men. He explained that these issues, although promoted under the pretext of being fair to women, violate Islamic Sacred Law (shari‘ah) and ultimately oppress them. He stated: “Anyone who contemplates over these arguments will find that claims of absolute equality in inheritance, for example, gives women more than their legal right in only two cases, but harms them in more than thirty situations. Attempts to stray away from what God has revealed, as a mercy to the worlds, is the cause that results in these discrepancies.”
Dr Shoman pointed out that the problem is that many of the entities concerned with women issues do not take the time to study the reality and do not study its legal and social dimensions. Instead of providing a proper remedy, they exacerbate the problem. He moved on to discuss contemporary behavioural deviations that threaten family and societal values, warning of the manifestations of blind imitation in young people’s clothing, which are torn and patchy but sold at exorbitant prices after having been the clothing of the poor in the past. He asked: “Are we seeking poverty and then willingly returning to it?”
He continued warning against the destructive preoccupation with video games that drains young people’s money and wastes their time by saying: “Unfortunately, we see some of them reaching the point of addiction, borrowing or stealing to pay off their gaming debts, even placing their families in embarrassment and continual debt. Some parents unwittingly participate in this destruction when they pay for their children’s debts instead of letting them bear the responsibility and learn from their mistakes.”
Dr Shoman called on young people to work hard, strive and accept honourable work, no matter how simple it may be by explaining: “There is no shame in honourable work. Rather, it is shameful for a young man to refuse to work and sleep until noon, waiting for his mother to clean the house and feed him. This is not dignity, but humiliation. As for those who work with their own hands in any profession, they are generous and noble. Some young people tend to refuse any simple job, thinking they will suddenly become a manager or a minister without effort or qualification. This is a deadly illusion.”
In this context, Dr Shoman cited the story of Al-Asma‘i, the renowned scholar of the Arabic language. As the story goes, Al-Asma‘i once passed by a young man working as a bathhouse cleaner and heard him reciting a line of eloquent poetry: “They have forsaken me. And what a fine young man they have forsaken.” Al-Asma‘i asked him: “What have they forsaken you from?” The young man replied: “From the day of hardship and the defence of the frontier.” Al-Asma‘i then asked: “If your soul is so dear to you, could you not find a better place than this?” The young man answered: “Yes, I did find something lower than this: the need for you and those like you.” Dr Shoman explained that the moral of this story is that honourable work, even if humble, spares a person from having to ask others and preserves one’s dignity. In contrast, those who refuse to work and live off their families are stripped of pride and self-respect.
Dr Shoman pointed to the need to restore morals and religious values in the upbringing of youth. He warned against detachment from religion and sufficing with formal worship in mosques without reflecting on behaviour in public life. He said: “Religion is not only in the mosque, but also in honesty, contentment, satisfaction and seeking what is permissible at work, on the street and at home.” He also warned against the dangers of drugs, which he described as ‘pure evil with no benefit whatsoever.’ He also mentioned that they ‘destroy health and wealth and are a burden on the state and its people.’
Dr Shoman emphasised that the adversaries of the ummah (community) realised that occupying minds is more dangerous than occupying land. They sought to spread dependency and division amongst the ummah, preoccupying them with luxury and entertainment, and dismantling their unity. This was to the point that we (the ummah) began to kill each other with our money, and we now finance our wars with our own hands. He called for caution against these schemes that seek to empty the nation of its youth and wealth, obscure the awareness of its people and distance us from work, endeavour and progress.
Dr Shoman concluded by saying: “You, the youth, are the ones who can put society back on the right path, but that requires sincere awareness, effort, strive and a commitment to values. Nothing can be achieved by wishful thinking alone, but rather by seriousness, diligence and assuming responsibility.” At the end of his speech, he prayed to Allah Almighty to protect Egypt and all Muslim countries, to guide the youth to righteous deeds, to make them a beneficial addition to their homeland and nation, and to protect them from the plots of plotters and the scheming of schemers. Amin.”
