At some point, a small group of wealthy Muslims came to understand that they could buy a piece of heaven (Jannah) for themselves by building Islamic centers and mosques in America. The funding individuals also found influence in their position, and with their new buildings an opportunity to tell the rest of the community how to practice our faith.
The Power of Money
Each group of individuals that built a center or a mosque brought in paid imam from their home countries, and with these imams came their cultural values too.
Saudis did not like the imam from Pakistan so they went ahead and built a mosque of their own. The Pakistanis did not like the imam from Middle East and so they went ahead and built a mosque of their own. The Sunni Imam did not understand Shia Islam and pretty soon the Shias moved ahead and build their own and the rest is history. The line between faith and culture began to blur.
In the midst of all of these mosques being built, we were raising our children and we wanted them to understand Islam, our faith in One God and in the goodness of our common humanity as God had intended, not cultural or sectarian Islam. But because of the presence of all these imams, and organized, formal spaces for prayer, the need, at least on the superficial surface, for professional Muslims began to disappear. Gone are the days of meeting and praying as part of a social engagement without regards to dress code or sectarian divide.
Sunday schools were organized, people volunteered to teach, imams came in to stake out their territory of religious doctrine and pretty soon what we were teaching our children was root memorization of the Qur’an, ritual prayers, and cultural nuances as major tenets of our faith.
Where did the meaningful discourse on the core foundations of Islam such as truth, justice and religious plurality and their relevance as citizens and as human beings in our contemporary world go?
The Consequence of Easy
It is easy to allow these new, paid Imam to take over the teaching of our faith in our shiny new funded mosques and centers. But as we have probably all learned in so many ways, the easy answer is not necessarily the right answer.
The failure of professional Muslims to take ownership of their faith in this new country and exert themselves, instead of deepening reliance on imams and sheikhs trained in overseas madrassas and other so-called Islamic universities, most of which have lost the rigor of academic institutions and have become subservient to the corrupt practices and politics of their home countries, have had serious consequences.
The majority of our children—young men and women, especially women—are leaving the mosque as soon as they can. Once they finish high school they are gone and they are unwilling to come back to a place that does not foster free thinking, imposes undue restrictions for women and is male dominated, and are led by imams who do not understand religious pluralism and led by the large donors and hyper active members to whom the imams are beholden.
What Now?
The time has come to build a different community model, a model that is participatory and calls for serious and intelligent discourse on our faith and our responsibility as citizens. Here religious scholarship is encouraged, but no fatwas are needed. Here no imam (if anyone is needed) should be on pay, and leadership has to come from the community of professional Muslims who have demonstrated leadership competency in their respective professions. Here large donors have the humility to let things evolve and not control, and professional Muslims have the courage and confidence to educate themselves in a professional manner of their faith and its relevance to our lives. Religious scholars will have a voice, but not control of the organization, and no undue respect will be demanded or rendered.
This can only happen if each one of us takes our faith seriously, and is willing to actively participate in this new model. Let’s create a new working model that can demonstrate a better alternative to “traditional” Islamic centers that have not served the larger community well.
Time has come to change course. Are you in?