Convincing people I'm pakhtoon in Pakistan

SHAYKH POWER © – RIGHTEOUS LEADERS, SUPERHEROES, SHALLOW CELEBRITIES OR HUNGRY WOLVES?

“With great power, comes great responsibility.” -Uncle Ben.

Clergy -or shayukh-  in Muslim communities hold sacred power in that their positions symbolize a representation of character and religious authority in their community.

The role of a shaykh is complex in that community members can turn to their him for financial advice, marital counseling, matchmaking, conflict resolution, religious classes, youth engagement, and pretty much anything else a community needs. You name it and a shaykh is approached for it. In most communities, the shaykh is a critical component of a healthy community, but in some cases – the great power is used to facilitate great abuse instead.

Understanding Shaykh Power©:

Shaykh Power© doesn’t mean the ability to bless or forgive,  it simply means the effect a shaykh can have on the general public for the very reason that he preaches about religion.

People subconsciously associate their spiritual growth with the shaykh, building a bond of love, respect and trust. It’s perfectly natural – someone who has helped you, taught you, or supported you through a difficult time is likely to become dear to you regardless of their position. As a result it’s natural for people to:

Look up to a shaykh
Become attached to the shaykh whose da’wah or lecture may have helped them find, or re-find Islam
Trust a shaykh and hold him in honor
Be influenced, which is a consequence of being held in honor
Giving him a place of authority in their lives
Again, it is natural for people to attach themselves to a shaykh, and it is completely okay for a shaykh to be respected and trusted to that level. It is a relationship built on faith, in which the shaykh earns trusts by demonstrating trustworthiness, fearing Allah in the relationship with his congregants, and maintaining a consciousness of his actions and consequences with God.

There is no conflict in this trust when viewed alongside human fallibility. No one is sin-free, not even a shaykh. They are humans and humans are weak. A healthy community is not one with a sin-free shaykh. However, the line is between fallibility and abuse is crossed when the shaykh’s sins or inherent weakness start hurting others, and the authority they hold is abused to give into those weaknesses.

WHAT IS ABUSE OF “SHAYKH-POWER©”
The abuse of a shaykh’s power happens if a shaykh uses his position, authority, or religious knowledge to manipulate people into compliance or obedience to his sin.

A very simple example of a shaykh using all three – position, authority, and knowledge – to manipulate someone into compliance came from a woman who covers her face. During a Skype call related to business -and not marriage at all- a well-known shaykh diverted from the agenda to convince her to remove her face-veil as he was a “shaykh” and it was okay for him to see her face. The shaykh tried to establish a religious basis for his exception to the rule and made his female student believe that as a shaykh he had “special privileges”.

There are common patterns of “special privileges” that emerge.

THE SECRET MARRIAGE
Secret marriages occur where the shaykh uses his authority to wrongly legitimize a marriage without witnesses. Please be aware, there is no marriage valid without 2 witnesses, and in majority of the fiqhs, marriage is not valid without a woman’s wali (representative guardian) present.

While the term “marriage” is used, what happens in secret marriage is not what Islam recognizes as marriage. Rather than entering a serious, long-term commitment in which each party agrees to honor the rights and terms decreed by Allah, a secret marriage is usually the culmination of grooming and manipulation. The victim is led to believe that the shaykh is sincere in his pursuit of their marriage and future together, but cannot go public for whatever reason. He convinces the victim that their secret marriage is valid by manipulating Islamic information is his favor, and the result is that the victim consents to what is an otherwise shady arrangement.

After the “marriage” is consummated, the women are divorced – also in secret and without due Islamic process. They have no legal recourse – since they were not legally married. They don’t even have Islamic recourse since oftentimes there are no witnesses to the secret marriage.  Some shayukh misinform the women that they don’t need witnesses because as a person of knowledge, a shaykh is sufficient as a witness to finalize his own marriage contract.

Consider the difference between marriage as a communal celebration, a public declaration, and a legal protection of the rights of both spouses – and compare it to a verbal agreement with one man in a hotel room. Consummation followed by divorce, with no intention to sign a marriage-contract or honor the woman as a wife, is not a valid marriage.

Some argue that women who are legally adults and gave their consent to the secret marriage have no claim to victimhood. It is true that secret marriage and serial marriage are not rape, but secret marriage is an abuse of the trust that our community places in a shaykh.

Women are deceived into marrying by means of the shaykh’s authority. The shaykh – a person of religious credibility with community trust – implies that something halal, lasting, and keeping with the Islamic sanctity of the family will happen. What happens instead is a woman falling victim to the shaykh’s pattern of marrying a variety of women to satisfy carnal curiosity, and then divorcing women once the desires are satisfied.

The abuse of women goes beyond just the women- the entire community is deceived when a shaykh abuses their religious credibility. They trust that the man committed to the spiritual betterment of their families will act in keeping with that trust. There is no way to legitimize the secret wooing, secret wedding, and immediate, premeditated divorcing of anyone in the community.

Divorce can happen under completely normal circumstances, just because a man is a shaykh doesn’t mean he has to stay in a bad marriage. However, when a pattern is developed to frequently marry and divorce, sometimes after a week or less, and a shaykh does so knowing that the position and reputation will help him replace the wife soon enough-  then this is not what either marriage or divorce is for. This is abuse.

A man on the podium, delivering the Message of God and helping people connect with their Lord holds enormous spiritual power over his community. Unfortunately, some shaykhs can and do use that power to satisfy their desires in religiously inexcusable ways.

MISUSE OF POLYGAMY THROUGH “SHAYKH POWER”:
Polygamy itself is not the issue here. Polygamy itself becomes abused when it is used to justify secret marriage and divorce of multiple women, without having any sincere intention or giving any marriage or divorce it’s due Islamic rights or process.

Shayukh who abuse polygamy paint a glamorous picture of polygamy, making it a special mission to “revive the sunnah”, and practicing polygamy almost a measure of a woman’s level of iman.

The delusional idea of becoming more religious under the wings of a shaykh as his wife is also used to entice women seeking closeness to Allah. A more intimate relationship to the shaykh is directly conflated with a more intimate relationship with Allah.

What the shayukh are luring women into is not a revival of polygamous marriage, as much as it is a revival of temporary marriage – without the decency of telling the women up front what they are consenting to. The woman believes she will be the shaykh’s second wife. Instead, she is third, or fourth, or fifth ex-wife.

DO WE HAVE A SOLUTION?
The first step towards resolving an issue is to acknowledge that problem exists. As a community, we have tried to conceal our dirty laundry in the name of gheerah and satr, only to suppress ‘adl instead. As an ummah, we need to address the harmful behavior of shayukh who abuse their our religion and their power to manipulate and use women – leaving them emotionally and spiritually broken in the name of a religion that is mean to protect them.

Stopping sisters-only sessions with shaykhs or banning sisters from contacting shayukh for personal or Islamic questions is not a foundational solution. Women have to consult knowledgeable men for a variety of issues: spiritual and marital counseling, for Islamic rulings on life matters etc.

Stricter segregation between shayukh and women, or building physical barriers in the masajid is a suggested preventative measure but not a solution either. Frankly, many shayukh have the dignity to respect their boundaries with women without a barrier in their masjid, while many have crossed all lines despite physical barriers.

It is women’s religious right to have access to a religious scholarship for knowledge and seeking verdicts, and the mistakes of few cannot outweigh the virtues of many.

1400 years ago, we– Muslim women — were given protection from a society that sold their daughters in exchange of money and loaned out their wives to other men.  Our Prophet ?allallahu 'alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught and showed us how to treat women with honor, and he then entrusted the knowledge of Islam to his inheritors– the shayukh.

Consider the gravity of that abuse, when our scholars are trusted to carry forward the Prophet’s legacy, and instead weaponize the Prophet’s words to abuse us instead.

Needless to say, not every shaykh is abusive of his congregants. Alhamdulillah, the abuse is the exception and trust fulfilled is the norm. However, that doesn’t mean that silence should be the norm as well. As a community, we are responsible for each other, in standing up to our oppressors and standing up for our oppressed.

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Dear Community,

I’m sorry to say this, but we have a huge problem. Well not just here–everywhere in our culture. I know the world seems a bit upside-down right now as we focus on Trump and the status of Muslims, civil rights, and so much more that is important to our lives, but can we discuss something that I find really important for a minute?

I’ve been looking for a roommate since moving to Chicago a couple of weeks ago. Many of the women responding to my roommate requests are Arab like me. Each and every single one I have talked to has a story–a sad one. Here is a real example of the majority of stories I have heard:
The husband left them or threw them out with nothing. They have nothing but their children with them. Now they are to fend for themselves.
Now tell me something. We teach women to stay at home to cook and clean. We tell them that some man is supposed to come give them this $59,000 wedding and take care of them all of their lives. But we don’t tell them what happens next.
Listen, I’m included in this, too. We live in this dream that we won’t have to work and we can shop all day. Here’s the catch. Your husband has now given you three or more children and now he’s done with you.

Oh, but wait! You’ve never had to work before. Now you have to go make minimum wage working 40 plus hours a week, find a home, and raise your children–ALONE!
I have met with several of these girls. It’s heartbreaking to watch them cry. The only thing I can do is comfort them and tell them inshallah khair and that I’ll try my best to help them find jobs or homes. Meanwhile, I’m looking for jobs and a home for myself.
This is old news, people. We need to teach our children to be independent, to be strong and not weak. We need to tell our girls to go to school finish their education. We need to help them learn to save money in case of emergencies. Stop feeding your daughters fairytales. Stop allowing them to marry so young to the first guy that comes and asks for their hand. We are throwing out daughters out to these men just to have them come back to us 10 years later with five kids and no job or source of income.

Men, please… for the love of God, treat a woman with the highest respect. Just because you want a divorce doesn’t mean you don’t still have a responsibility. How can some of you just throw your kids away like that? Although I don’t know the actual number, it appears to me that the divorce rate in our culture is increasing lately. Why? Is it a matter of respect? Men, find patience–bite your tongue. We will respect you as you respect us. We will follow your lead if you follow ours. We will stand beside you if you stand beside us. Do you get it? We are equal. Be our partner, not our enemy.
Before anyone starts getting defensive and saying it’s not all Arab…yes I know, but it’s a problem in our community that needs immediate attention. We should be proud of who we are and stand together and help our people. We have way too many battered women who need people to step up for them.
Also ladies, our men work hard–very hard. You have no idea what most of them go through to throw you these lavash weddings. Keep these things in mind. Most of them get credit for these weddings which start your marriage off wrong. Have a heart…our parents need to stop asking for so much in the beginning. We have lost the true meaning of marriage, our religion, and many other things. What happened to marrying for love?

To my beautiful ladies, whatever culture you hail from…be strong, work hard, study, finish school!
I also want to make it very very clear…just because a woman has been divorced once or twice, or even more times than that, it does not mean we aren’t good enough or it was our fault. I was once wanting to get engaged a man and his sister called me and said, “Well, I don’t know why my brother would want to marry a woman who has been divorced twice and isn’t a virgin.” Listen, I am worthy of a man, a good marriage, and a chance at life with a partner. I’m not trash.
The sad part is that this came from another woman. We are suppose to help each other not push each other away. Ideally, this lady would have told me, “Insha’allah, you and my brother are the right ones for each other and he makes you the happiest woman alive.”
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s try and work on ourselves and the betterment of the women in our community.
Link

India's Love Commandos: Saviours from honour killings

India's Cheraman mosque: A symbol of religious harmony

On India's western coast, facing the Arabian Sea, there once lived a Hindu king who had a vision of the Moon splitting into two halves. Concerned that the dream was a warning, he immediately asked his court astrologers to interpret what he had seen.

They couldn't provide an explanation that would satisfy the king so the problem remained unsolved until a group of Arab traders arrived at his port, in what is now India's southern state of Kerala. The traders explained that the king's vision was most likely a reference to one of the miracles performed by the Prophet Muhammed.

Convinced, the king converted to Islam and set off to Mecca, Islam's holiest site. He died before he could return to his kingdom, but left instructions to build what would become India's first mosque.

That at least, is how the myth goes.

The actual history of the Cheraman mosque in the town of Kodungallur is murkier. According to a foundation stone on its premises, the mosque was built in AD629, but the evidence is conflicting.

Historian Rajan Gurukkal, who is originally from Kerala, says that the mosque was probably built closer to the 11th or 12th centuries. But Mohamed Sayeed, the president of the mosque's managing committee, says tradition maintains that it was the first in India.

Kodungallur is about an hour north of Kochi city, a popular tourist destination, but few foreign visitors come here. The state government, however, hopes that will change as it embarks on an ambitious project that will highlight the area's history.

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Three Ways We Can Protect Our Children From Jimmy Saville Imams

“Surah Adiyat,” my friend says. “I still remember the surah [chapter of the Quran] I was reading when he touched me. I was 8 years old.”

I ask my friend to identify the paedophile who abused him but my friend is reluctant to do so as his abuser is now dead.

However, I manage to find out from him that it was someone prominent in the Wimbledon area in south west London, possibly connected to Wimbledon Mosque, who “taught” Quran to children some 40 years ago.

For those of who you don’t know, Sir Jimmy Saville was a children’s presenter on the BBC for almost 20 years from the 1970s to the 1990s.

He used to have a children’s show called “Jim’ll Fix It” in which young children would write in to him and he would fulfill their dreams.

At the time, Jimmy Saville was every child’s hero, an angel who would make their dreams come true. I remember writing to him as a young boy, asking him to “fix” a trip to Disneyland for me.

The Queen honoured him with a knighthood (the “Sir” title) and he won dozens of other awards and accolades.

After he died in October 2011, over 450 people came forward to testify that he had sexually abused them. It appeared that Saville wasn’t just fulfilling the dreams of the children, he was fulfilling his own dreams.

For years the BBC was aware of these allegations but they refused to take them seriously. They thought that by brushing the matter under the carpet it would disappear.

And it’s just as well that Saville never replied to my letter. Instead of Disneyland I might well have ended up in Thailand if Jim had agreed to “fix” my dreams.

So the subject of this week’s blog post is to warn against Jimmy Saville imams (or Jameel Savilles if you like). By this mean I mean paedophiles disguised as imams.

Before I continue I just want to add that a few readers feel uncomfortable when I talk about taboo subjects on my blog.

Some fear that talking about such things “gives a bad name to Islam infront of non-Muslims.”

I think it is important that we remember that Islam is not an anti-aging beauty cream which we have to “sell” and “beg” people to buy from us. Islam is sufficiently robust to protect itself from image or reputation problems.

People who mock the Quran or the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) have been doing it for centuries, it isn’t something new. Yet it has still not prevented Islam from remaining the fastest growing religion in the world, especially in Western countries.

We should be careful to distinguish between criticism of un-Islamic practices of Muslims, and Islam.

We should be confident to talk about taboo subjects and problems that exist within the Muslim community because the first step in solving a problem is to admit that it exists.

If we brush these issues under the carpet and pretend that they do not exist, we prevent our community from growing and progressing.

During the years I was in prison in the UK there were many outwardly “devout” Muslim prisoners in the “VP” wings (living quarters).

Among them were Muslim clerics in prison for abusing children they were supposedly teaching the Quran.

“VP” is a prison acronym for “vulnerable prisoner”, which means paedophiles, rapists, rats and other prisoners who are vulnerable to being attacked by other prisoners because of the nature of what they have done.

In UK prisons, VPs live, exercise, work and associate completely separate to mainstream prisoners. When VPs move within the prison, they are cordoned off from mainstream prisoners. There is no contact between the two groups.

Rats (informants, grasses, snitches, etc.) are definitely bottom of the prison food chain because even paedophiles look down at rats and frequently attack rats in their wings.

While in prison I met a Muslim prisoner who told me that when his younger sister was 12, his mum used to send her for Quranic lessons with a man at a shop.

It turned out that the teacher had been touching her inappropriately.

When her brother (the prisoner telling me this story) found out he wanted to go to the man’s shop and smash his face in, but his mother prevented him because it would bring “be-izzati” (dishonour) upon their family.

And then some Muslim prisoners from Slough told me about the “mawlwi on a bike” – a man in Slough who used to go round to the houses of families on a bicycle to teach their children the Quran

It turned out that he was also inappropriately touching the children, inside their own homes when the parents were not looking.

In this case, the families were brave enough to believe their children and take action. This paedophile went to prison.

These are real stories about real people that happened to people that I know.

The reason I am unashamedly writing about this topic is because there is no room for paedophiles in our community. We should not be afraid to confront and stand up to paedophiles, whether they are prominent people in the community or not.

A minority of Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis are paedophiles and rapists, so that means that the majority are not.

Likewise, thankfully the majority of Muslim imams, clerics and Quranic teachers are also not paedophiles and rapists.

Paedophiles and rapists are most certainly not “men of God” so we have to protect our children from these monsters at all costs.

Here are three ways that might help to protect our children from these Jimmy Saville Imams.

1.Don’t live in denial and pretend that these things do not exist in the Muslim community.

In other words, don’t wait before it is too late and you psychologically damage your child for the rest of his or her life.

2.Prevention is better than cure

If you have young girls, send them to a female teacher to learn the Quran.

If you have to send them to a male teacher, make sure it is in a communal place where the children are never left alone with the teacher.

If the male teacher comes to your house, keep your child in your sight at all times. If he is genuine, he will not mind you keeping an eye on him.

If you cannot find a suitable teacher, consider online lessons via Skype or Facetime. Many families who successfully use this method.

3. Believe your child and do not be afraid to take action

Just like you can spot their lies about whether they pinched the biscuits or not, you can easily ascertain whether your child is making up a story as an excuse not to go to lessons, or whether it really happened.

If it turns out that something has happened, do not be afraid to take action to help protect other children from the monster.

Of course, sexual abuse is most certainly not a “Muslim” problem.

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Side Entrance: Why Mosques Are Still Getting It Wrong

Do some people not like it? Every once in a while someone new will come and say this is haram. But you know what? This is closest to the Sunnah. Oh people are not as at the time of the Prophet ﷺ. Really? From my understanding, men used to go to the back rows at the time of the Prophet ﷺ and try to see the women through their legs when in prostration. That is when the Prophet ﷺ said that the best lines for men are at the front and the best lines for women are at the back. He didn’t say to build a wall or stick the women on another floor. The Quran says to lower your gaze and guard your modesty. Lower your gaze is stated first. You are responsible for your own actions. These are principles taught 1400+ years ago but which we have been practicing since, Insha Allah.

Are people uncomfortable with this? Of course there are women who are uncomfortable praying in there same room as men as it is foreign to them, so in order to make everyone comfortable and not infringe on the rights of any of the women, when we expanded the sisters area we expanded sideways in order to create a space with more privacy for those sisters who do not want to be in the same visible space as the men but still keeping the structure of the main prayer hall. Note, it wasn’t done in response to the men who complained. A mere bookshelf separates the area so there is free flow from the private part to the main sisters area. That is their preference and everyone is free to worship in the main area or in the more private areas, which is also very useful if nursing

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Mexico: Chiapas' Muslim population begin Ramadan observation