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.