Imam or No Imam Part 2: The Emergence of Cultural Islam

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?

Imam or No Imam Part 1: Where are the Professional Muslims?

First, the definition of a Professional Muslim in America—someone who is a citizen or a permanent resident with a college education, who has demonstrated competency and leadership, and has been accepted by their peers as a person of integrity, intellect and thoughtfulness. In addition, a professional Muslim demonstrates a deep interest in advancing his or her faith and serving the Muslim community as well as the larger community in which he or she lives.

Though this person would not fall into the category of an imam or religious scholar, I believe such a person should be given and should claim equal opportunity to serve and to lead any professional, civic or religious activities or organizations in the US based on talent, interest and a transparent selection process.

A Brief Personal History

Before we had mosques to go to in this country, we would meet at a party room in an apartment complex or in a hotel meeting room and one of the community organizers would step in and lead the prayers.  There was no question of layman vs. clergy, finding someone within the community to lead prayers was not a problem.

I also remember during my days as a student at MIT, before the days of organized Muslim Student Associations and Muslim Chaplaincy, we would offer our Friday Prayers at a graduate housing complex and one of the graduate students would lead the prayer. 

Maybe whoever would lead the prayers did not have perfect Arabic, but there was a sense of understanding and forgiveness for each other based on mutual respect and a deeps sense of humility—the focus was on the prayer.  We did not even worry about dress code or Hijab or a Shia/Sunni divide at prayer gathering. How, as an American Muslim society today have we become horrified at the imperfect Arabic, so concerned with the dress code and justify divisions along sectarian, ethnic and racial lines, as if our prayers can not be heard by God because of these?

A Second Definition of the Professional Muslim
There has been another shift as well, a second definition we can see in the community where a “professional Muslim” is someone whose priorities have changed from their faith to their professional careers. This is understandably a quite necessary priority to have when it comes to financial stability, but at the same time, the consequence is that we are losing these same professional Muslims as leaders within our community of faith.

The Question Emerges

I remember the day when we built our mosque in Pittsburgh, the question came up who will lead prayers each day and whether we will need a paid imam or not to lead the prayer.  A simple question to which many Muslims today may immediately answer “Yes.” The professional Muslims who used to lead prayers have slowly been replaced by imams. But how this came to be is a more complex and consequential explanation. We’ll explore more in our next blog.