I hereby call Muslims to wrest away the institution of Islam from those who have hijacked its voice. Communities all over the world give some Muslim leaders more legitimacy than those leaders deserve.
In 2007, I went to a spiritual retreat hosted by the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) at the Ohio State University, where I was an undergraduate student. At one session, we were all seated in an auditorium when two women clad head to toe in black walked to the front of the auditorium and announced that all the women seated in the front had to get up and walk to the back of the auditorium. We were apparently taking up the men’s space, who, according to MSA leadership, have rights above women to sit in the front.
There was nothing I could say or do in response to these words and actions because I didn’t really have the logic or information to explain why they were wrong and not condoned by Islam. All I could do was bear witness. Disgusted, I left that auditorium and avoided MSA events from then on. This didn’t happen in some compound in Saudi Arabia. This happened in the American Midwest.
There are countless anecdotes involving Muslim women and men who have been maligned by the blatantly incorrect interpretation and enforcement of Islamic practices in the United States and all over the world. The criticism of Muslims and of Islam in recent years by politicians and by the media has caused the American Muslim community to become defensive and obstinate. We are so busy protecting ourselves from denigration from the outside that we haven’t really worked to fix what’s broken within.
There’s no one to petition for change, except ourselves.
No one person speaks for Islam. There’s no pope. There’s no church doors on which to nail a list of grievances like Martin Luther. There’s no tangible institution to rage against. And yet, Islam exists as a religious institution. Like other institutions, it has adherents that live by a code of conduct and a set of values. There are mosques and places of worship.
What makes the institution less tangible than other religions is the lack of hierarchy in authority. There are no cardinals, or bishops, or “regional” priests. Instead, Muslims are influenced by loosely connected religious clerics (and imams) who study Islam, lead prayer and disseminate opinions on Islamic rights and responsibilities.
If a Muslim wants to enact a policy change or contest a supposedly prohibited behavior in Islam, they can’t petition a specific person and have that policy be implemented. There are no individuals to whom Muslims can turn when they want to change the institution of Islam. There are only Muslim communities and Muslims who lead them.
Our leaders are who we make them. Why give power to a bunch of know-nothings?
People who enforce perceived Islamic behavioral rules include energetic and judgmental middle-aged women who confront the communities’ youths whenever the young people are caught in the act of wearing something immodest, or participating in a proscribed behavior (like dating). These ladies spread gossip and chastise the parents of these youths. In Muslim communities, they’re called “aunties.” They’re well-meaning, but seem to aggrandize their power over others by publicly shaming those who do not meet behavior norms.
I’ve known Muslims friends to duck behind bushes at the mall to hide the fact that they’re on a date, and I’ve seen them completely change their personality in front of aunties to avoid censure. I honor Muslim women who choose to wear a headscarf. But I’ve had aunties come up to me at social gatherings and berate me for not wearing one. I’m like, “With respect, back up, ladies!”
The only test for leadership in some Muslim communities is this: Do other Muslims value and follow your perspective? The more a Muslim leader gains a large following, the more legitimate his views seem to be to outsiders. The more he controls the dialogue in Muslims communities, the more he is viewed as credible by other Muslims.
Muslims give legitimacy to leaders for the wrong reasons.
In this modern era, there is no ultimate political organization or person who can give authority to other Muslims to lead and espouse religious edicts. Any random person, including zealous aunties, self-proclaimed experts, and totally ignorant individuals, can claim the stage. In the past, a Caliph, or the leader the Islamic empire had the weight of authority to disseminate and enforce religious edicts. Islamic “empires” no longer exist.
The absence of a controlling Islamic state in the world has created a vacuum that some Islamic nations have tried to fill. Many individuals give special credence to the religious opinions of Saudi clerics (the Wahhabis) because Saudi Arabia was where the Prophet (pbuh) disseminated his views on Islam. (It doesn’t hurt that Saudi Arabia uses its vast wealth to send Wahhabi clerics all over the world to persuade other adherents to join its particular brand of Islam). Other Muslims follow the views of religious leaders in Egypt or the Levant.
What can go awry is that many individuals who are not qualified to speak on Islam still manage to sway the actions of Muslims under the name of Islam. Clerics and self-proclaimed experts issue edicts about what is required and what is prohibited by Islam. Their teachings vary from the ridiculous to the outright dangerous.
Enter ISIS. ISIS is not a legitimate speaker of Islam, but the more people follow it, the more it hijacks the voice of Islam. They are simply one among many groups and individuals who are trying to wield the voice of Islam to influence Muslims. It matters less which Muslims condemn them, it matters how many. ISIS will exist for as long as people believe they’re legitimate. The best defense against ISIS is for Muslims to educate themselves and their community members on the true message of Islam. The San Bernardino shooters were vulnerable to a corrupted message, and we need to take some measure of responsibility in educating fellow Muslims and non-Muslims about the truth.
Our communities are prejudiced against Muslim leaders who don’t look the part.
When whole communities are under the influence of a particular cleric or imam, that person controls the voice of Islam for that community. What they say and do has sway on people. Education and training have little import in some spaces. The appearance of authenticity and legitimacy are the most important factors in determining who can control and influence a group of people. Sometimes appearance of credibility takes the form of an older man, who is Arab, or at the very least long-educated in the Middle East. They are Old Arab Males (OAMs).
On the one hand, some Muslim adherents blindly follow the views of some credible-appearing individuals (like random OAMs or ISIS members). On the other hand, some Muslims reject the perspectives of those who have studied Islam and religious texts with dedication simply because they don’t look like a typical Muslim scholar or because they weren’t educated in an Arab country.
A cleric has obtained a high form of legitimacy if they’ve studied at Al-Azhar University in Egypt (such as Imam Suhaib Webb), or at a theological school in Jordan (such as Imam Yahya Hendi, a chaplain at Georgetown University).
Basically, many Muslims reject non-OAMs simply because they don’t seem credible. Individuals who are educated in non-Arabic-speaking countries such as in the U.S., Europe and South Asia are viewed as inherently less legitimate. Criticism of their opinions often take the form of: “These individuals are not properly trained,” or “These individuals have not had access to the proper sources.”
To these, my response is: Why is a Ph.D. or J.D. not training enough? What “sources” are you talking about? Is personal perusal of the dead sea scrolls necessary to make a strong argument? Without evaluating the merit of an argument or perspective, some views on Islamic thought and practice are discarded wholesale because of who is disseminating them.
We have incredible non-OAM Muslim thought leaders who are excluded from important discourse.
In the U.S. and abroad, areas of popular discourse on Islamic thought and practice exclude non-OAMs from panels, conferences, spiritual retreats, and places of worship. Rather than giving the stage to individuals that are highly trained and who spent years of their life learning about Islam, these arenas often feature individuals who have gained a cult of followers through their charm or appearance of legitimacy. These people sometimes have no real training or expertise whatsoever.
The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is one of the most well-known, and largest Islamic organizations in the U.S. At President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, Ingrid Mattson, then-president of ISNA, was invited to stand alongside Obama along with other national religious leaders. ISNA invites scholars form around the world come to speak at the conference and conference goers fill up massive conventions centers like the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. On June 30 of this year, thousands of Muslims will converge in Chicago to learn and discuss important topics related to the institution of Islam.
Issues of Muslim women’s rights, condemnation of violence, gender identity and homosexuality are hot topics that frequently appear in media and popular discourse. ISNA is the place to be for any scholar, writer, or activist who wants to influence and educate Muslims about these topics. Even renowned Oxford scholar Tarik Ramadan was a speaker in 2016 after publicly announcing just two years prior that he was boycotting ISNA conferences.
Yet the non-OAM scholars with extensive knowledge about the controversial topics are not panelists or speakers at ISNA. Dr. Kecia Ali wrote an entire book titled “Sexual Ethics and Islam,” and she is not an ISNA speaker. Dr. Amina Wadud is known for her extensive work on homosexuality and Islam, and she does not appear. In contrast, Dr. Wadud has been derided and excluded from important platforms despite the astuteness of her scholarship. She, like so many other legitimate female Muslim scholars, is not welcome in important places of discourse and teaching.
Other important missing scholars included Behnam Sadeghi, Wael B. Hallaq, Azizah al-Hibri, and Khaled Abou El Fadl.
Regional organizations such as Muslim American Society (MAS) or Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) do not offer better representation of non-OAM Islamic thought leaders; none of the above spoke at the annual ICNA-MAS conference in 2017.
Selected non-OAM speakers cannot speak authoritatively and, in effect, have no influence in controversial discourse.
Women speakers who appear on some panels have an aura of tokenism. Take Yasmin Mogahed for example. She is essentially a glorified storyteller. She sits on panels and shares narratives about the life of the Prophet (pbuh). There’s nothing wrong with sharing hadith. But she is the token woman speaker because she never rocks the boat or has any new ideas to share. You will find that she has no accreditation or expertise on Islamic law, history, anthropology, or any other pertinent subject. Her only claim to expertise is a master’s degree in communication and journalism.
Another popular panelist trope is the activist woman. An activist’s background does not lend itself to controversial opinions. Audience members can nod and agree anytime an activist discusses her cause such as protecting and caring for the poor. If an activist woman does put forward a controversial opinion, she typically has no training to support her views with text or scholarship, so her opinion is easily dismissed. Putting an activist woman on a panel is a convenient way to add the “woman’s voice” without actually giving women a voice.
It’s the ultimate sleight of hand. The only people who are speaking with authority on the controversial topics at these conferences are the OAMs. This needs to change.
The call to action is: make informed decisions about your life for this world and the next.
Muslim communities are filled with prejudice of every imaginable type. If we want to change how non-Muslims view and treat us, we have to start with ourselves. Let’s not shut out important voices because of how the speaker looks, where they’re from, and how old they are. Let’s not give credibility to leaders who don’t deserve it.
By blindly following those who claim the voice of Islam, we Muslims risk destroying the tenants of our own faith, which include justice, tolerance and peace. The power of groups like ISIS is actually the minor problem. The major problem lies in our own communities, where we are allowing people to oppress others using the name of our religion right here in America.
Noorjahan Rahman is a young attorney who graduated from Georgetown Law in 2016. She is currently working on a law review article regarding the development of Islamic feminist jurisprudence. She loves travel and recently trekked up to Everest Base Camp. For more on Noor’s travel and work, check out her website www.noorjahanrahman.com