OPEN YOUR EYES- SOCIAL PROBLEMS AMONG OUR TEENAGERS

Social problems or illness are rampant these days. They are now becoming part and parcel of the modern society. Nearly everywhere in the world, the number of social illness is amazingly increasing day by day at an alarming stage. It is more than enough to wake up the world to make movements. Involvement in one social ill will lead to another social ill, which will harm not only the individual causing it but also the society surrounding the individual. A deep analysis and reflection is needed to identify root causes and eventually lead up to solutions. Modern approaches with combination of scientific and Islamic knowledge will help to address the solutions. Sociological tools and social work techniques may be used to better understand the problems faced by the ones causing social ills. Besides that, Islam has clearly all the solutions to social ills that are increasingly happening in the modern world.

The new environment with the new disease requires institutions to remodel or to repackage the existing curriculum that will provide answers to this new problem in our country. As we get swept into change, we need to be realistic, open and honest in fitting the old fashion of teaching and learning processes in the education institutions.

She used to be Yang Di Pertua one of the residence colleges in a university for two years. She handled a lot of problematic students. There were many cases she caught and passed to administration like smoking, abortion, lesbian and commit suicide due to frustration with their couple. Even some of them were brought to the university court and there are rules and regulations to cater that problems, it seems like it does not work.

In her village, there were so many cases that female teenagers involved in the premarital sex and gave birth out of wedlock. Most of them were under the age of 17. In a year, it is more than one case. Could we imagine, it is only for one village? How about other villages and if we multiple the cases in one country, how much the number that we will get? It is not enough with the out of wedlock babies, the drugs addicts also increase. One of the grocery shops and “kedai kopi” in my village can sell the drugs freely and that is also a place for gambling. During Ramadhan, the shop is opened and teenagers can go and buy foods there. Parents made reports many times. However, no actions were taken until now. It was informed that, the police and Jabatan Agama who should responsible to this matter also involve in the business.

Besides that, since she is a minor counseling student, she has conducted and interview about out of wedlock baby. She went to a place that to help the teenagers who involved in the premarital sex to back to the basic of Islam in Klang. For all cases, only one person who was raped. The other teenagers, they involved in the sexual intercourse because of their social problems. They are between 17 to 24 years old.

In my opinion, our country is in the dangerous zone. Everyone must open their eyes and make changes or adjustments. We cannot stay in the same environment and we can not say that we are comfortable with our situation now. What will happen to our next generations if we leave them in this way? We are not safe anymore. Every mother worries about their children.

Relate to Some Findings and Statistics

One of the biggest problems that come along with development in this modern society is moral degradation of the youths. In US, a 1997 statistics show that the majority of adolescents had engaged in sexual intercourse by 17 years old (62% in -school females; 60% in-school males)1 while there were 99,342,000 juvenile arrests in 1997 for violent crime, which roughly corresponds to an arrest every .

Another example would be the intoxicant influence of alcohol or drugs on one to lead them into committing crime. Consider the following: In the US, 51.9 % of state prisoners had alcohol or drug use at the time of offense for violent offences. The numbers are 52.4% for murder, 56.0% for negligent manslaughter, 45.2% for sexual assault, 55.5% for robbery, 51.8% for assault.

Quoting the country report of Malaysia from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 15 Monitoring and Advocacy on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, she highlights a media survey by the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN), which showed that between 1994 and 1996, about 24% of 13- to 19-year-olds had engaged in sexual intercourse and 18.4% had their first intercourse between the ages of 15 and 18 years.

A study by the Malaysian Aids Council in 1999/2000 revealed that the youngest to have had sexual intercourse was nine years old. In its 2004 Malaysian Population and Family Survey (MPFS), LPPKN found that about 2.2% of the populations have had sexual intercourse out of wedlock.

Discover the Islamic Perspectives
Spirituality provides the clear unwavering direction that guides the values hence all decisions, actions, behaviors and characters. Individually, person will be bounded to basic principles and the lawful and prohibited things. Individuals also have to follow and obey the morals, habits and behaviors of the religions. Besides that, they also have to commit to ritual activities like praying, fasting, and so on so forth.
The true religions and spiritual believe, will guide and provide individuals the right path including managing family. Family is a small unit but it can bring big impacts to a community if families dysfunction. Therefore, in a religion we are taught to handle families as one of the most important thing. There are parents’ responsibilities, children’s responsibilities, and everyone in the family has his or her own roles.

Since spiritual intelligence is the centre of other intelligences, this affects the way we react to the wider community like neighborhood, educational institutions, economic institutions, political institutions as well as human rights. If we are not bound to any religions, we will react and lead this life only to fulfill our desire and therefore people will be so individualistic and selfish.

Islam offers hope to solve these problems. Its laws and teachings have taken into account the impact the social ills would bring to society at large. Proactive measures to avoid from these problems have been nicely given in Islamic teaching. Muslim youths nowadays are drifting further and further away from Islam. Far from being examples to non- Muslims, they themselves are committing these acts of social ills. Ways to attract them back to Islam needs to be carefully planned. The approach needs to be much focused to their needs. They must be interested to come and take part in learning and understanding Islam.

Actually, Rasulullah saw has shown us with the best curriculum in order to educate our generations through education. In the early time, in Mecca we called as Jahiliyyah time. Through education Rasulullah can build a country and he conquered 2/3 of the world. There is no country or community can be built unless they are able to educate their citizens. So that, education is the crucial thing to produce generations who are well behave and they can play their roles as khalifah.


Rasulullah install the believe in God, aqidah as the first thing in education. For example, Rasulullah taught about aqidah at Arqam bin Abi Arqam house. Rasulullah teach aqidah first because it is the basic or the foundation that everyone has to know and install it in our heart without any doubt. Then, Rasulullah taught them about syariah or the law. The law that they use are totally from ALLAH swt. Therefore, people were afraid to break it or to manipulate the constitution. For example, once Rasulullah says that alcoholic drinks are haram, no one questioned it and they break all the containers storing the alcoholic drinks.

In conclusion, Islam can be an effective and powerful interlocked solution to so many of these interlocked contemporary problems. Muslims need to be conversant with Islam, acquaint themselves with contemporary knowledge through education and further practicing it for the benefit of mankind. For Muslims, the solution is clear, the Qur'an exhorts the believers to enter Islam wholeheartedly.

“And so, set your face steadfastly towards the one ever the true faith, turning away from all that is false, in accordance with the natural disposition (fitrah) which God has instilled into man, (for) not to follow any change to corrupt what God has thus created –this is the purpose of the ever-true faith, but most people know it not.” (Quran, 30:30)