Feeling Lost as a Young Muslim

Despite being a Muslim in a country with the largest Muslim population in the world, I still feel like a minority.

butter pancakes 🥞
Counter Arts
6 min readNov 15, 2023

--

Airplane monitor — Photo by Author

I was sixteen when I started wearing the hijab for the first time on a random day at a semi-international school.

I went to the same school all my life; I grew up with the same people since pre-kindergarten. My family had always raised us to pray five times a day and fast, but they never really stressed the necessity of wearing a hijab, nor did they care if I was reciting the Qur’an regularly or not. At one point, they even made fun of Muslim men who had thick and long beards and wore pants above their ankles — little did they know that in a matter of years, my dad would become one of those Muslim men.

Most international schools have very few students wearing the hijab. In contrast, many public schools that implement an ‘Islamic-oriented’ curriculum enforce the Arabic language as a mandatory subject and wearing the hijab every day (or specific days of the week) as an obligatory rule, even if most students take them off after school hours. There’s a term called psychological reactance, where we naturally tend to rebel when told what to do as it threatens our freedom.

The rigid structure in Indonesian public schools confines students to believe in something they didn’t have the freedom to explore themselves in the first place. Unfortunately, this curriculum fails to introduce Islam in a loving, friendly, and calming light. It unconsciously narrates Islam as a restrictive and boring religion, and once they have graduated from these schools, they do not see the reason to believe in Islam. This culture became more apparent when I entered university as well. I went to a public university where most girls wore the hijab. To my surprise, it was easy for them to take them off.

On the other side of the city, I enrolled in an Arabic language course outside my school on a weekend. My classmates came from Islamic boarding schools, and they spent most of their lives there, too. These girls had probably never been in the same class as boys. With this lack of experience, it was understandable that this curiosity may have caused them to react differently whenever they saw boys. I was embarrassed to mention what school I attended because it had a negative reputation in their community, where it was known for kids whose parents were either celebrities or wealthy.

The environment in international schools has always been very diverse and fluid. After thirteen years at a semi-international school, most course materials were not fixed to a specific textbook. We were encouraged to research through credible online resources and were free to choose our classes as long as they fulfilled the required credits. The power distance wasn’t as strong compared to public schools. It was common for students to sneak into the classes of their favorite teachers to share, laugh, and cry about their days.

We were always taught to be tolerant amidst diversity. I’ve had classmates who were openly agnostic, atheist, and from different communities, where we just coexisted without any severe discrimination. Some of the most interesting experiences in that school would be being assessed on a debate we had about the theory of evolution, where we could bring religion into it, and an open discussion with a professional about our private and mental health matters, where no teachers were allowed to be present.

I believe that the difference in the academic and social structure — with public and Islamic schools being more rigid — projects a difference in how these people view religion. When you consciously follow the rules of your religion by choice (as in, you do it because you want to and not because you have to), it’s more likely that you’d hold onto it regardless of the people you’re surrounded with.

Masjid Al-Nabawi — Photo by Author

It came to a point in my life when my family and I thought we knew enough about Islam; we realized that we had barely scratched the surface.

Everything changed when we went to ‘Umrah, the Islamic pilgrimage. Everyone else on our tour was far more knowledgeable. When they noticed we weren’t doing the prayers or behaving as what was taught by the Prophet ﷺ, they would teach us in a really calming, loving, and overall very genuine manner. Looking back, despite knowing that my family was obviously the odd one out, they never made us feel degraded or treated us like outsiders.

As I learned more about Islam, I started to develop a love-hate relationship with the entertainment industry. In Islam, it’s discouraged to be consumed with music and movies because it pulls you out of reality and it’s a temporary fix to your problems. As someone who used to stay up all night to watch live streams, pre-order new albums, and queue at 5 AM to get behind the barricade for her favorite Australian pop-rock band, I struggled a lot with unlearning this escape.

I was also used to having good grades in my main school. But in my Arabic classes outside school, I was one of the few students who really struggled to keep up. We had a native teacher from the Middle East, and I had never learned the Arabic language before. Sometimes, I still get the letters mixed up or read the wrong vowels (especially when I get nervous!). My classmates were diverse — there were women in their late 40s and 50s and a group of teenage girls from Islamic boarding schools, but none from international schools.

I thought I could balance my focus between worldly affairs and the afterlife. I would listen to music at school by day and Qur’an recitations by night, practice with my band on the weekdays and take Islamic lessons with my family on the weekends. It took me years to learn that it didn’t work that way. Islam taught me to prioritize worship in moderation, and worldly affairs would follow.

Going home after the pilgrimage has always opened new paths for my spiritual journey. To people outside my core family, the change appeared drastic.

I observed that, ironically, most of the looks of concern didn’t come from non-Muslims. Instead, it came from other Muslims who perceived us as unconventional.

I vividly remember my teacher, a Muslim, ‘warning’ me that I should be afraid of my own sister because she might get recruited by extremist organizations just because she just started wearing a long, black hijab that covered most of her body. I felt that some people from my extended family saw us differently. A family member told me to dress more ‘modern’ or no men would want to marry me, and they did not seem fully accepting if someone wore the niqab. It took some time, but my family and I got used to the looks whenever we went out in public.

“When there are three (persons), two should not converse secretly within themselves to the exclusion of the (third) one.”

Sahih Muslim 2183a, Book 39, Hadith 48

The thing about religion is that people often see it as following an ancient tradition or mindset, and its regulations no longer apply in this modern era. I used to think it was merely about reading Arabic scriptures that I could not understand, but I was wrong. Islam teaches us to follow the lifestyle of the Prophet ﷺ, and what fascinated me was the little details that mattered in our daily lives, such as how we’re encouraged to sit while we drink — which was scientifically proven to be healthier, and the hadith above, which taught me a lot about manners. It was simply the things that I always had hunches of, but reading it as something we were already encouraged to just gave me a stronger sense of purpose.

The more different perspectives we are exposed to, the more open we are to understanding differences in beliefs. I’ve always enjoyed listening to stories from my diverse friend group, even though they would mostly talk about things that I chose not to experience because of my faith. In the end, we can still hold onto our beliefs and co-exist with different people; it’s a matter of understanding and tolerance.

I don’t know where I belong.

I’ve been in both places where I can understand the struggles of being ‘too’ religious and ‘not religious enough’ at the same time.

My friends at school and university may perceive me as too much, but my knowledge is still far behind in the Islamic community.

Where do I fit in?

Allahumma baarik

اللّهُـمَّ بارِكْ

--

--