By Cyril Anderson

Part 1 of 4

 The idea of this document is to provide some recommendations for youth for careers and professions that would be useful for helping to build the Muslim community.  Traditionally, many parents have pushed their children into particular fields, such as engineering and medicine.  Such fields are useful, but a broader focus is needed to truly build the community.

 Youth thinking about their future career should remember that, Islamically speaking, one’s work is an extremely important thing.  It is a means of contributing to the society through useful effort, and a way of providing for the needs of oneself and one’s family.  The choice of a career is not something that should be taken lightly, and one should try to see some sort of higher purpose than just money in the job that one is doing.  Careers can contribute to the community in a number of ways:

• By providing a needed service to the community
• By enabling the spread of religious knowledge or awareness of the religion
• By being positively and visibly  involved in society, helping to give Muslims a good name and reputation
• By raising the overall status of the community

 A discussion of a number of careers follows.

 Social and Psychological Services: Social Work/Counselling Psychologist/Psychiatrist

 Despite Islamic principles of conduct and way of life that are designed to lead to a healthy and sound mind and healthy social relations, we must keep a few things in mind which produce a need within the community for professionals who can address social and psychological problems within members of the community

 First, not all Muslims are well educated on how to apply the Islamic principles in so as to be able to have healthy psychology and social relations.  Some are aware of such principles, yet choose not to follow them

 In this society, we live in conditions that are often not completely within our control which have an often dramatic negative influence on people living within it, producing social and psychological problems that need addressing.  We live under conditions of considerable stress, and in a society where many social illnesses are rampant.

 There exist psychological and mental disorders that are suffered by a certain portion of the population and that can be attributed largely to hereditary factors that would express themselves regardless of social circumstances, although especially so in the difficult and stressing conditions we live under. 

There is a genuine need within our community for services of professionals such as social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.  The problem is that many of the non-Muslim practitioners do not have a strong understanding of Muslims and their practices.  This can cause them to misconstrue something which is normal within the Muslim context as pathological.  For example, if a Muslim woman were being treated by psychiatrists for a psychological breakdown, part of the observations would be regarding social interactions with fellow patients.  If this woman avoided excessive social contact or physical contact like handshakes with male individuals, this would be held against her unless the doctor were aware that this was simply her normal following of her religious duties.  Social workers might be unaware of social norms within Muslim families, and therefore have trouble distinguishing normal from pathological in that context.  As well, particularly with psychiatrists, there seems to be a systematic bias within practitioners in the field against people of faith so that many see religion almost as a mental illness.  For both these reasons, there is a need for practitioners of these fields who are practicing Muslims who understand the religion and its practices.

 We need professionals in social work to help with family and social related issues within the community to help deal with problems of domestic violence, problems with youth, etc.  Psychiatrists and psychologists are needed to deal with psychological problems amongst Muslim individuals.

 There is a need on two fronts.  First, to educate, through workshops or seminars, practitioners of these fields about relevant particulars of Islam as it impacts their practice and dealings with Muslim individuals.  But this is just a stopgap sort of approach.  Really, we need practicing Muslims to train in these fields.

 n      Education for social work: 4 year B.S.W. to start practice, plus 2 year M.S.W. usually recommended to improve career prospects.

n      Education for Psychiatry: 4 year bachelors, 4 year M.D. + 4 years Psychiatric residence

n      Counseling psychology: 4 year B.A./B.Sc. in Psychology + 2 years M.A. in Counseling Psychology + Ph.D. (recommended) in Counseling Psychology.

Medical Services - Nurses/Some specialties of Medical Doctors

 There is a need for us to have representatives in the health services profession who will deal on the front lines with Muslim patients and who will understand Muslim concerns.  Doctors are already seen as a valued profession by the community, but the fact is that nurses are the ones who have some of the closest contact with patients, including very intimate sort of contact with patients.  Particularly for nursing, there is a need for Muslim women to be represented in nursing so as to better serve the needs of Muslim women in hospitals

 As well, there is a need for Muslim women to be represented in some particular fields, namely Obstetrics and Gynecology.  As our community’s elders grow older, there is also a need for Muslims to be involved in Geriatrics, again so that for elders who are not able to be cared for by their children, as the Islamic ideal recommends, can be cared for by people who understand the particular concerns of their region.

n      Education for Nurses: 4 year B.N.

                Part One    Part Two     Part Three     Part Four