I was invited by the Muslim Council of Britain to the Leadership Dinner to speak about the best of the British Sport. Since I am not a sportsman and I used to play only marbles, I am not able to behave like a sportsman.
I gave my speech to the British Muslim community and Muslim communities everywhere. I was quite critical of the role, questioning why we should consider ourselves leaders. I challenged the audience to consider ourselves as servants. The community is the one who can decide to accept our services or not. The community is in fact the leader, because it can make you a leader.
I talked about a number of issues and challenges:
1. Who are our friends and enemies? Everyday men and women will say that Muslims are friends with Muslims and Christians are friends with Christians. That Non-Muslims are enemies to Muslims and Islam. Sheikh Mohammed al-Ghazali from Egypt used to say that the worst enemies of Islam are narrow-minded and ignorant Muslim scholars who give a wrong opinion to the wrong people at the wrong time, via the community. We have to struggle to change our enemies into good and close friends.
2. The second challenge for me revolves around my having been born in Egypt and come to study in Britain and become a citizen. I came from a glass house society controlled by an authoritarian regime to a very open, democratic society. I thought, as a young graduate, that such a democratic society doesn’t have ceilings or borders for innovation. I discovered after 35 years that I moved from a glass house to somewhere under a glass ceiling, with a hallway at the side, so you can leave if you don’t like it. This is why we should revisit our way of thinking and remove such a glass ceiling from our democratic society.
3. The third challenge was the relationship between Muslim leaders and technology, media and a newly growing culture. The challenge for Muslim organisations as well as for me is not to be locked inside a box, but to look out of the box, at the surroundings and become relevant in the context of what’s happening around us.
4. The fourth challenge is the issue of hafiz (the ones who memorise the Quran) and Aalem (scholar of Islam).
There is a trend among Muslim organisations and Mosques to have as many hafiz as possible. This is very good, but not good enough. Hafiz can memorise and recite the Quran. Aalem is the one who can navigate through the wealth of knowledge of the past, present and future, to find the right solution for a contemporary problem. One Aalem could educate millions of different generations. Thousands of hafiz will memorise and recite the Quran to their surroundings only in the time of their own generation.
5. The fifth challenge is our wrong application of the human interpretation of the Quran, which is affected by the philosophy of our village culture. When you bring such a culture into an open society and make judgements on multilateral complex issues, it is difficult to say the least. One of the vital subjects an Aalem needs to master before he/she can be called a scholar of Islam is the Arabic language as most of the original Islamic knowledge is kept in Arabic. Our wrong application of the human interpretation of the scholars of the past is creating differences, bringing divisions and fragmenting the young growing Muslim society in the West.
6. The sixth challenge is the issue of Zakat (alms due). As we understand, the Zakat must be spent within one year on 8 categories mentioned in the Holy Quran. Unfortunately, we find that some so-called scholars deny the spending of Zakat on non-Muslims, without aiming to convert them to Islam, but make them friends of Islam. They also deny spending Zakat on employing people the run the organisations, paying administrative costs, training people, educating generations, creating think tanks, research centres and other institutions that our society and community needs most. We still think traditionally, but we are living in a non-traditional world.
7. The challenge of ALLOW. The difference between “prevent” and “allow” is that “prevent” is the language of the weak, who wants to forbid people from doing things that could be right. The “allow” language is the language of the strong people, who empower others to be more responsible with the community, even if they may make mistakes. If the Muslim community had had policy-making institutions and pressure groups, it would have impacted on this kind of policy. The research and development policy is not a part of expenditure of Zakat at the back of the minds of Muslim leaders in society.
8. The role of women in Islam. Islam has liberated women 1400 years ago; however some opinions of certain individuals are reversing the time machine to before 1400 years ago, by not allowing women to become a part of Muslim leadership in most organisations, mosques and institutions. Not only that, but also denying the Muslim woman daily space for prayers inside the mosque. As the Prophet (PBUH) said: “Do not prevent the female slave of Allah from coming to the houses of Allah”. Who are we to prevent males or females to come to the house that Allah owns?
9. The role of youth. The Arab Spring has seen a wave of tsunami magnitude changes in many Arab countries, led by brave male and female youth, who went out to receive beatings, bullets and teargas with bare and open hearts. They became martyrs, not only for their communities, but for humanity. We shouldn’t think of youth as a scout club, a piece of furniture or a decoration. We should consider youth the current and future leaders of our community. I ask myself: what is the percentage of leaders over 60 and 70 running our organisations and how long have they been in office. The issue of governance has to be addressed.
10. History. Our history has been recorded wrongly. We only know of battles, conquests, plots etc. We hardly ever learn about the history of civil society who lived in Muslim countries for 1400 years and produced a magnificent civilisation. We need to know more about the social history which lead to the building of such a civilisation. It wasn’t the army who built Islamic science, technology and civilisation; it was the citizens of Muslim countries.
To conclude, we shouldn’t look at others for our mistakes. We should consider ourselves accountable. What we need is a positive social climate change in our society. My last comment is on the Sunna of the Prophet (PBUH). Sunna is about renewal, independence and reasoning (tajdid, ijtihad). The Prophet (PBUH) followed the policy of tajdid and ijtihad. If we do not, we cannot claim we are following the Sunna.
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| With Mohamed Sbihi, Rowing Champion and his father |
