Summary:

2017 has seen the further capitalization of Islam in America, at the cost of community, character, integrity, and faith.

10-The Struggle to Remain Optimistic, is Real.

Of the many things I have written — and we seek from the Divine to reward us according to the best of what we have done, and forgive us for all else — this whole post may be the most jaded.

I am one of the Community’s janitors. I am one of the people who gets called into to clean messes caused by other people, repair broken pipes that have worn out from excessive use, and replace fused light bulbs to help people see light. Thus, in the process of community cleaning, I have been complicit in the shattering of Iman of many people, yet I wish I had a better way to address the community problems I have been pulled in to clean up. Community cleanup, community protection, and community justice often require that we choose from all bad options because there are no good options, except to clean up. Every choice you make will result in other difficult expected and unintended consequences. It is as though you know that the only chemicals you have for cleaning a bathroom will require everyone in the house to inhale unhealthy fumes, but you have to clean the bathroom or else the sewage will cause even more problems.

Thus, as more of our Community heroes fall, so to do many lay believers lose hope. Many young people have shed tears from the pain of seeking something to have hope in. The problem is that if we base our hope on people and do not permit them to be human, then we are basing our Iman on a myth that will soon be broken.

But, Iman does not come from people, it comes from God. Most of the people who have this specific struggle with Iman were raised in privilege, and are not able to see the sheer volume of gifts placed in their life, and do see the privilege others have been blessed with. They also see the suffering others have been hit with, as a sign of an absence of God. This is not a criticism of their character as much as it is a description of spiritual symptoms, and the foundational treatment is the deliberated development of gratitude. “I am grateful” is not a treatment; I am speaking of specific exercises focused on the cultivation of gratitude.

In my case, why am I so jaded? I am full of hope, as illustrated by the time it took to reflect upon and write this piece, having written it with the hope that it will inspire further reflection.

But I am jaded because I think more and more about my own mortality and I get less patient with watching people who should know better, act like children. So, I sometimes have to be the adult in a room full of 40-year-old children. Which leads to the next point…

9- More on Moron Celebrity Preachers.

9a- Formations of the Legion of Doom.

We would like to think that people would see the error of their ways, apologize, reform, and move on. That is what people should do. We would like to think that people would recognize the reckoning of a sinner with the Divine is far, far worse than humiliation in the world, and likewise, the reckoning of a sinner-seeking-forgiveness with the Divine is far, far more hopeful than any humiliation in the world. Too bad in much of life, things do not operate that way, especially with Charlatans.

Perhaps it is fitting that the next Justice League movie will be about Lex Luthor bringing together all of the super villains to form the Legion of Doom. I knew some hypocrites who would call themselves “The Avengers,” but I do not know that we have a Muslim Justice League right now, except for the Ummah itself, especially all those people who strive to improve in their Iman and character.

I’m speaking about those preachers who have been outed for their misconduct, as well as the students of those preachers. These are people who would never acknowledge any approach to Islam other than their own, yet have begun to team up with each other. Now we see among the conservative among the Deobandi scholars — those who are so conservative that they mock other legitimate Deobandi scholars for the latter’s legitimate, practical opinions — teaming up with Qur’an preachers who do not give much credence to the Hadith sciences, Credal sciences, Law or Tasawwuf. Because of my respect for the madrasa at Deoband, because some of my teachers are its products, I would prefer to name names, rather than tarnish Deoband.

Let me put it more plainly: defenders of pedophiles are teaming up with sociopath pathological liars. These are not defenders of “accused” pedophiles and “accused” pathological liars.

Someone who is not familiar with true Islamic scholarship produced by the many genuine, brilliant, erudite scholars in our Community would take these Legion of Doom members as representative of all scholars. We must remember that the accursed Devil had the level of knowledge of a scholar. But, the accursed Devil is also so shortsighted that he has the maturity of a toddler. And the accursed Devil lost. Twice.

I wish these preachers would stop claiming that they hold the Iman of people in their hands because it is God who holds it.

9b- The Celebrity Preacher problem is far worse than you think.

First, before proceeding, I should comment that there are quite a few Celebrity Preachers whom I trust deeply. Further, an accusation of a crime is not evidence of a crime. As for those cases where there are substantial accusations, they are being addressed. Having said that:

Chances are that you are familiar with a few of the cases I have worked in involving the outing of Celebrity Preachers and Scholars for their serious misconduct. You might be aware of the number of other preachers/scholars that have stood in defense of the exposed preachers, even when evidence was brought forth.

And, you are probably not aware of the various crimes being committed by others; I am not speaking of accusations, but evidences. We are familiar with the problem of secret marriages. There are male celebrity preachers who do not limit their inappropriate conduct with women to secret marriages. Some do not wait for marriage. We are now familiar with celebrity preachers who file lawsuits to silence dissent. There are celebrity preachers who withhold salaries as a means to coerce others into allegiance. And, there are celebrity preachers whose tempers are so fierce, that you wonder if they are studying anything that they teach.

Once again: if they are not your intimate friend, then the further away from your home a preacher’s home is, the less they have anything to offer you except inspiration. The further away from you a preacher’s home is, then the more likely you will be elevating a preacher above their status as a human being. The study of knowledge is slow and deliberate, without the fireworks and costumes, and involves a much more personal connection between teacher and student.

8 — Toxic Feminism.

The blight of toxic masculinity does not permit us to turn our heads away from the problems of toxic feminism. There is healthy masculinity. There is healthy feminism. Of course, Feminism is a lifeline for many because of this generations-long scourge of toxic masculinity.

When we face the misconduct of a male preacher with a female student/fan, a response found in conservative circles is that women also do wrong. This is point that is correct in content but often incorrect in context.

It would be akin to saying that when male politicians are exposed for inappropriate conduct with women, that women also do wrong. It would also be akin to saying that when Police Officers are caught committing violence against Black American civilians, that Black Americans also commit crimes. If you were to complain to your neighbor that their dog is barking all night, they would respond by saying that car engines make noise too.

All of these points are correct in content, but evade the context: in the case of Muslim preachers, men in authority are doing wrong, and that wrong is wrong even if women were to “throw” themselves at them (as is often stated). Otherwise, we are saying that men are excused because other stronger forces — women, libido — compel them to misbehave. The other problem here is that in most of the cases I have been involved with, the women were already previously victims of trauma or were not given fair disclosure about the relationship they were entering. Meaning, even if the women thought that they were entering in sound mind, they were being exploited.

In its most basic conceptualization, Feminism is the demand that women have full agency, that they have full rights. Various waves of Feminism have taken various directions that many Muslims may dislike, but any Muslim should be able to support the most basic concept of Feminism. Otherwise, we do not regard A’isha, the Mother of the Believers, as a source for half of our religion, whose quoted narrations reveal someone that any teacher should recognize as a brilliant mind, or someone who had such esteem among the new generation of Muslims (who were raised in the most patriarchal of societies), to fight under her command in battle. Rather, we would reduce A’isha, may the Divine be pleased with her, to a child.

Now, consider this scenario: one of the most respected Muslim women writers on feminism is married and has an affair with a married man, himself a Muslim writer on Islam. Meaning, she is taking another woman’s husband. I explained this case to numerous people, and was surprised by how many blamed the man. Meaning, they took away the woman’s agency.

Now, make the problem even worse: the woman not only concocts a bogus narrative that her husband is a megalomaniac and abusive — as though that would justify an affair — but would tell people that her lover’s wife supports the affair.

Now, make the problem even worse: the adulterer husband is abandoning and abusing his wife, and the mistress is encouraging it, leaving the wife in financial and emotional struggle.

Now, make the problem even worse: the adultering woman has gotten her friends to defend her and attack the victim spouses. Now, make the problem even worse: one of these friends runs an organization focused on educating women, pretending to be a Muslim woman who defends survivors. She defends herself by attacking the victim husband for doxxing his adulterous wife.

So, what we have is rampant, toxic feminism. It is its own disease.

7- The Rise of Adultery.

Last year, I wrote about the breakdown of the Muslim American family, listing out dozens of the most ridiculous reasons that people gave for ending their marriages. What I did not notice at the time — even though it was so present — was the rise not merely of emotional affairs but of outright adultery: married people having affairs. When I am performing a marriage, I require the bride and groom to sit with me, in addition to partaking of pre-marital counseling with a professional. In one of the meetings with me, we get into the bare bones of marriage. This problem of emotional affairs and adultery has become so common that I have had to include a discussion on it.

In any case, the patterns in all the cases I have been pulled into have been the same:

1- Emotional affair begins on social media. There is not any consistent motivation for the emotional affair. It is *not* necessarily a lack of support from the spouse, nor the lack of intimacy, nor the incompatibility with the spouse. In some cases, the affairs are with people who are *identical* to the spouse. The emotional affairs happen because they can. They happen because people are trying to make them happen. You have an appetite, the appetite will call you, at the very least through curiosity, and you might answer. The emotional affairs happen on Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp.

2- Logical justification. Before the emotional affair shifts to sexual infidelity, the perpetrator starts developing a nonsensical logical to pursue the affair. All of us commit sins. When we were children, we did wrong and used nonsensical logic to justify our wrongs. The intellectual level of logic that these perpetrators use is something we would imagine from the mind of a 2nd grader.

3- Consummation and Exhilaration. You know the sick twisted exhilaration that comes with sin.

4- Self Protection:

4a- Rewriting Islam, history, and the present. It is almost always impossible to maintain a sin without resorting to other sins: usually fraud. The entire narrative of the marriage, affair, and period afterward gets rewritten and rewritten with lies upon lies. If the adultery is not bad enough, this fraud makes everything worse because enough fibbing will get someone locked as an irredeemable pathological liar. Meaning, some sins may not be driven by pathology, yet they become pathologies. If that is not bad enough, the perpetrators will convince themselves that God sanctions their behaviors; in so many cases, the perpetrators convinced themselves that God approves of their behaviors, thus making their actual spouses, “the Devil.”

In almost every case I have been pulled in, the perpetrators literally seemed like they lost their minds, as though they had become possessed by three-year-olds.

Speaking of crazy:

4b- Gaslighting and abusing the spouse. Gaslighting is the process of abusing your spouse enough to get the spouse to question their own sanity.

In 100% of the cases, not only did the perpetrator blame the spouse, the perpetrator went on a terrorizing process of convincing the spouse of their own insanity. In most of the cases, the unfaithful husband would physically, emotionally, and financially abandon the wife, convinced that they found their real soulmate, not knowing that they only found a narcissist mirror. Likewise, the unfaithful wife would claim every accusation against her husband.

4c- Recruiting accomplices to hide the affair. The next oppression is that some friends of the perpetrator help defend the perpetrator. In more cases than not, the perp is lying to their own friends. In some cases, the perp and friends may know all the facts, yet convince themselves that no wrongdoing has happened.

4d- Increased piety. I don’t know what to make of adulterers who justify their adultery by expressing joy that they have increased in making their daily prayers. Meaning, I don’t know how someone could have such polluted logic. But, the prayers fizzle away anyways.

5- Silence of the witnesses. Witnesses witness the behaviors, and pretend they saw nothing. Silence is not verbal silence. Silence here is inaction and hot air. That is consent.

In classical Islamic law, the punishment for unlawful fornication is 100 strikes from a whip if the perpetrator is not married, and stoning to death if the perpetrator is married. The punishment for a false accusation — one in which 4 witnesses are not provided — is 80 strikes. The most fascinating part of these passages is that we are prescribed *against* compassion. Meaning, because this crime is a crime against community, forgiveness and leniency are not options. It is easy to identify the misconduct of a preacher as an abuse of power. Adultery here is also an abuse of power, in which the victim is the Community.

Nevertheless, there is an assumption in the implementation of Islamic law of a healthy society, which America is not. American society is so hyper-sexualized that it is almost surprising that there are not more such affairs.

But, in our American codes, there is legal precedent justifying invading your spouse’s online accounts, and shutting down their media. Go look it up. I am not encouraging that you have suspicion about your spouse, because that will destroy you. But if your spouse confirms an affair, and seeks to destroy you for it, or even invites you to have your own affair, then…

…get help. You will fall into deep darkness, and will probably spend much of it alone, but the sun will rise and light will enter your soul, Insha Allah, even though you may be alone when it happens.

There are two additional points to consider.

First, the Karma of Dunya: if you falsely accuse someone of a sin, you or your children will commit it.

Second, the Karma of Zina. If there are children involved, see if you can convince the participants (the adulterers and their protectors) to seek forgiveness of the Divine, because the child of a zani/zania will commit zina. Meaning, if you have an affair, you are also writing out your child’s damnation more than you realize. In half of the cases I was pulled into, the adulterer was the child of an adulterer. By the way, perpetrators are often repeat offenders.

So, in your social media interactions, assume that you are alone in the same room: that is your psychology. And, better than that, assume that all that is on the internet is public. All your communications will be exposed. And, better than that, control your social media interactions. My job involves ministering to women, and as many women (and for that matter, men) know, there are only a few cases where I will have live communications (phone, text, social media) after hours. The accursed Devil is relentless against all of us.

6a- The fall of monetized knowledge.

Knowledge is not monetized just because it may cost money to acquire it through a particular person or institution. Often teachers and institutions need to charge money to sustain their work because we have very few endowments in our communities to support the acquisition, development, and transmission of sacred knowledge.

Knowledge is monetized when either of three steps happen, though the third always includes the first two.

a- The focus shifts away from application toward consumption. Our knowledge is prescriptive and embodies. It is meant to be practiced. If, however, you are sharing or gaining knowledge and delaying its application without justification, then you have turned the acquisition of knowledge into a work of consumption. You attend a lecture, and feel satiety akin to the feeling of a eating a delicious meal. Or, you attend a lecture, not realizing that you just watched an example of Modern Theater, a one-actor show, with the preacher performing while you applaud.

b- Acts of worship are converted into advertisements. I have been guilty of this as well. You have an event in a particular town — a crash course or a conference — and you request that the local Islamic centers and campuses give you their Juma Khutba slot so that you can advertise. You rationalize it in your mind by thinking that you are doing the work of Deen by inviting people to an event focused on Deen. But, you ignore the fact that you are celebrating celebrity preachers because you are going to put your most popular, most charismatic speakers on the pulpit. It will not be a selection based on knowledge or perceived piety.

c. Courses or instructors are chosen because of their draw. So much of what looks like the process of sharing knowledge is nothing more than Theater, itself often involving microphone, camera, stage, and an actor. Meaning, you no longer teaching or learning knowledge; you are selling and buying charisma.

If you are doing the above, then you are not a school, but instead you are business or a theater troupe.

But, the fall of monetized knowledge happens often as the result of the above, but not exclusively. The fall of monetized knowledge happens when you consume mass quantities of knowledge and life hits you with a test, and the knowledge fails you. Actually, you failed and did not learn the knowledge to know you failed. To be fair, every one of us falls short from time to time — that is sin — but then we should remember to rise up again, through repentance.

I am again infamous in parts of the Community for outing the misconduct of men who use the pulpit as a device to seduce women or to abuse employees, and on that note, if I had better choices, I would have taken them. But, when students — rather, “fans” — of these preachers say that they have been studying under the preacher for years, yet use every form of abuse and threat, I have to wonder what their hero is teaching them. If someone is claiming to study the Qur’an, and resorts to profanities and violence, then their money has vanished into the pockets of the preacher, while their knowledge as evaporated away: the fall of monetized knowledge.

Otherwise, monetized knowledge is continuing to increase. It is still a very lucrative field.

6b- It is not just Trump and Russia.

Everyone sells their soul to someone. Allah offers to buy us, or to take our lives as a loan, in exchange for the gardens. There are preachers in our Community who are on the payrolls of universities, like myself. There are preachers who are on the payrolls of local and foreign governments, and NGOs. If you are a speaker or organizer on Islam, you must release your financial loyalties. One of my friends gives the example of physicians who have to reveal that they are paid by pharmaceutical companies.

Whatever your opinion is on a speaker who works for the government of the USA, KSA, Turkey, Israel, that is a separate conversation, also on ethics. But the speaker should disclose it. I was invited to speak overseas, sponsored by governments and I pulled out in the last minute because to me it seemed like deceit. Meaning, we should know who you are working for. We should not judge a person’s intentions, but should critique if there is a link between particular stances and particular allegiances.

I am not settled on whether a person should be obliged to list all of their memberships, except memberships that tie directly to a particular topic they are speaking about. The point is that I am a member of numerous organizations, including organizations that I forget I have membership in and never resigned. On the flip side, there should not be dishonesty: there is one highly influential charlatan who tells people that he is no longer part of a particular international service movement and even calls them a mafia, yet when he comes to Chicago, he spends his time with those “mafia” members and they do not know what he tells the rest of u.

This call should not be confused with any sorts of criticisms of celebrity preachers who are coming from wealthy families. Some of our greatest scholars had the privilege of dedicating their lives to scholarship because they had the privilege of being born into wealthy families. And, on a side note, there are some who were born into poverty, and some who were born into slavery.

I miss the days when visiting speakers would sleep in mosques or in the apartments of college students, and would get paid nothing (or only for transportation). Now, we get placed in nice hotels and might have a fine dining meal with a host. I have gone from being a person who shares some tidbits of knowledge and insights on life, meeting and learning from people, to a paid performer.

5- The Ossification of the Sect of Muslim Identity.

The goal of the board members of the mosque is clear: fill the rows at prayer time. Every mosque activity should be in the service of filling the rows at prayer time.

Much Muslim effort when measured, again in hours or dollars, as well as Retweets and Likes, places focus on giving Muslims positive public relations. These are well-intentioned efforts that are misdirected. We are an Ummah, but we are not an ethnicity or a race. But, it is as though we are seeking to be treated as a target market. Indeed, there are somethings that would be marketed specifically to us, and they relate to ritual: prayer rugs, pilgrim ihrams, zabihah/halal meat, etc.

In less than half a decade, the hijab will be a mainstream fashion accessory the same way the Sunnah beard is still fashionable. Just as we have been monetizing knowledge, we are also monetizing our identity.

The costs should be obvious: we are reducing ourselves to being just a fad, we are abandoning our relationship with God for the sake of corporate approval, and we are abandoning character.

4- No mentors. No apprentices. No perfection. Much mediocrity.

Over the past year, the grand failing of our Community can be summed up in one point: lack of mentors. Across our races and ethnicities, we have had enough generations of Muslims old enough to provide one-to-one mentorship to every single Muslim in America. If someone dedicated themselves to providing one-to-one mentorship to anyone, regardless of belief, then we would cover a large chunk of American society.

The mentorship does not have to be anything organized: simply you are giving time beyond your personal time with family and professional time with work, to someone who is not in your family or work.

It is said that there are 400,000–500,000 Muslims in Chicago. I regard that number as an exaggeration, and likewise I would exaggerate and say that 1000 of us are mentors. In reality, the number of mentors is probably much lower than 100. Of the major universities in Chicago, as many as 10,000 Muslims have graduated, and it is hard to find even 10 who come back and give time to the undergrads on a regular basis.

When are you old enough to be a mentor? When you have someone younger than you? What is the primary qualification you need? To be older than them. You are learning how to be your age, while they are learning how to be their age; make their journey a bit easier. Meanwhile, seek out your own mentors. The main qualification to be a mentee is that you listen.

There is something else lost in the loss of the mentor-apprentice relationships: a culture of excellence because you are focusing on perfecting particulars in the way you live life. We have long since been suffering from a culture of mediocrity, and some of that has to do with this erasure of the mentor-apprentice relationship.

I am begging the readers to become mentors.

3- The Burying of Muslim Character.

If you are making your prayers, you are benefiting yourself. If you have good character, you are benefitting others. Rather, both points are more accurate in the inverse, because your default nature is pious and upright. Meaning, if you are skipping your prayers, you are harming yourself. If you have bad character, you are harming others, and then by extension, yourself.

If you are making your prayers and have bad character, your prayers will hopefully improve your character. Or, your character will make your prayers hypocrisy. If you are missing your prayers but have good character, at least you are not a detriment to society.

But, count how much community work — either in terms of work hours or dollars — are dedicated to the development of character and how much of said hours and dollars are invested in stopping lousy behavior? Very, very little. I have been in the circles at all levels of the Community, and have commented so many times that we should be skeptical of anything involving a stage, microphone, camera. When something involves one or more of the you are seeing performance, you are watching an act.

2- The Rise of Suicide.

Last spring there was a surge of suicide ideation and attempts among Muslims and non-Muslims. In conversation with colleagues one explanation we were able to develop was the recent production of the TV Show “13 Reasons Why.” I do not believe that a show has the ability to convince someone to attempt suicide out of thin air, but a show does have the ability to bring someone closer to the edge.

Do not confuse this next point with cases close to my world that you are familiar with where suicide is a suspected cause: I have been hearing from reliable sources about numerous confirmed suicides in our community in the past few months. This is heartbreaking, no matter the age of the victims, for the victims are not exclusively teenagers and early twentysomethings. In fact, I know of as many suicides by people in their 50s as I do of people in their 20s.

How many people will we lose before we regard mental illness as serious as physical illness? A person may die as a victim of depression as often as another person may die as a victim of heart failure. The approach we are taking in the Community — that many parents take — is that the person suffering from anxiety and depression needs only to pray more and get active. That is violence.

1- Complacency before genocide.

It has been over a year since the incumbent in the White House was elected, and the march toward our genocide has moved forward more than a year’s worth of movement. He has been doing everything to undo the accomplishments of his predecessor. At the same time, the force that brought him into power has grown more organized. While the courts today have been defending us on matters related to immigration, they are only able to address constitutionality.

If the president succeeds in bringing American corporations back to American soil, reviving the Rust Belt, then there may be hope that our genocide has been averted. Still, that will not save the disintegrated families, who fuel the gangs (i.e., so-called paramilitary groups) not unlike the way that gangs become defacto families for members of other racial and ethnic groups. Yale historian Tim Snyder says that once the paramilitary groups form, it is too late. They have formed.

Start by looking at your Iman development as even more urgent, and master Tim Snyder’s “On Tyranny.”

Epilogue:

Almost all of the above points place blame not on the lay Community but the leaders, scholars, preachers, patrons, and activists. They represent the Community, and they are the catalysts for the Community. But, they are of the Community and are working with Community sponsorship or are working despite the lack of Community sponsorship. Thus, they also are a productive of and a representative sampling of the Community.

Community members in Chicago know that I have retreated from public life save for an occasional talk. I have found that the best use of my time, and the most fulfilling use of my time is extensive personal study, personal development, and comprehensive one-on-one interaction with people, primarily with my students. The applause of a room full of admirers distracts from all of this and contributes to the jadedness.

Still, I am at your service, Insha Allah.

And Allah knows best.

Omer M