“When you are right you cannot be too radical.” This was the true, profound view of Martin Luther King Jr. But the problem is how to know when you’re right, especially when you’re young and malleable.

In recent years, we in Canada have too often seen what happens when the young and malleable get it wrong. Who would’ve thought there would ever come a time in this country when the proverbial boy next door could end up a radicalized militant, headed for “jihad” overseas?

What made Damian Clairmont turn against his Canadian values toward radicalized militancy? What about Mohamed Hersi, the 28 year old living here since he was four, convicted of attempting to travel overseas for terrorist activities?

The common factor in these cases tends to be age and impressionability. Unstable youth, discontented with society and looking for a larger purpose — these are the natural prey for cunning ideological recruiters. And this is the recipe for radicalization.

There are two reasons we see this more and more at home among Muslims. The first is that recruiters are becoming ever more adept at exploiting vulnerable youth, and the second is the lack of a widespread, compelling counternarrative, one that effectively communicates to young Muslims what the religion is truly about.

Manipulative recruiters understand that young men who are drawn to Islam are often searching for answers and, in that search, can be sold a perverse and distorted form of the religion. Very often, people who become radicalized are good people who were just vulnerable and got manipulated.

Aaron Yoon, for example, one of the three young men from London, Ontario, thought to have gone to Algeria for jihad, was described as a nice boy by high school peers. When he became Muslim, his family was actually pleased with what, at first, they saw as a pleasant change for the better.

In a modern, multicultural, multi-faith society, we know better than to consider Islam a monolithic force for evil. In fact, Islam has countless good qualities that endear it to people looking for God and spirituality. The same is true of Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism and every major religion. That’s why so many people enter these faiths every year. They provide a means for spiritual uplift.

Thus, Muslim converts — and devout Muslim youth — are often tempted to become more and more religious in their search for inner peace. And it’s during this process that they become vulnerable to recruiters’ talk of a glorified, romanticized, violent jihad that, while wholly alien to Islam, appeals to these wide-eyed, impressionable youth who long for a greater cause.

But if these young Muslims only knew what a false picture of “jihad” recruiters portray, we could nip radicalization in the bud. Muslims in the west must make it known within their communities, especially among the youth, that what these radicals teach is not jihad. Not as the Qur’an teaches it; not as the Prophet lived it.

In reality, jihad means an ultimate struggle within oneself to purify the mind and soul and thereby elevate oneself to a higher spiritual status; the refinement of morals through good deeds, prayer and service to mankind. As the Prophet himself remarked, “the greater of those who carry out jihad is he who strives against himself most.”

As an Ahmadi Muslim who has worked with many Muslim youth for years, I can tell you that to stem the growing tide of radicalization, it is critical that we imbue Muslim youth with the correct concept of jihad, and with a spirit of serving mankind.

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As Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam, said: “Surely the heart of the youth is like the uncultivated ground — it will accept whatever you throw upon it.”