What Is Required To Become An Imam?

This is a question that I have been really puzzling over in the last few years and much more so since the situation with Ali Hindy came to light. Consider the following excerpts from an article written by Mohammed Adam:

Mr. Hindy left Egypt for Canada 30 years ago and went on to enjoy a successful career here as an engineer…. Mr. Hindy’s life is a story of contradictions. When he lived in Egypt, a country of committed Muslims, Mr. Hindy was not overly religious; only when he came to Canada, a secularized western country, did he embrace fundamentalism. He never received the kind of formal religious training in the Muslim tradition that many other imams receive, yet he sees himself a defender of traditional Islam…. He still works as an engineering consultant part-time. He works at the mosque on Fridays and Sundays.

Aly Hindy came to Canada in 1975 with a degree in engineering from Cairo’s Ain Shams University. He prayed five times a day like other ordinary Muslims, but was not deeply religious. He was clean-shaven back then.

He enrolled at the University of Western Ontario and by 1979, four years after his arrival, completed both his masters and doctorate degrees in structural engineering.

Mr. Hindy got involved with Salaheddin “by chance.” The centre was set up in 1994 by an Egyptian immigrant and his two Iraqi friends. One or both of the Iraqis may have been Kurds, hence the name of the centre, Salaheddin, after the famed Kurdish Muslim general known in the West as Saladin, the man who defeated the Crusaders and won back Jerusalem in the Second Crusade.

In 1996, the centre, which was looking for a home, sought to buy a building on Eglinton and Kennedy. The Egyptian, who had then fallen out with his partners, asked Mr. Hindy for financial help. The centre had about $25,000, but the building was going for $600,000. Mr. Hindy said his friend arranged to pay for the building through monthly payments and asked him not only to be the guarantor, but for help with the deposit.

A little over a year later, the Egyptian died suddenly, leaving a surprised Mr. Hindy in charge. Faced with the unexpected responsibility, he embarked on self-education, reading voraciously to build on the foundation he already had. He attended international seminars on Islamic jurisprudence and traditions given by well-respected scholars, and studied one-on-one with others.

Today Mr. Hindy performs all the jobs of an imam — from delivering sermons and officiating at marriages and funerals, to offering counsel and making rulings according to Islamic law.

“I didn’t get formal training, but I feel I have good knowledge. If I don’t know anything, people will find out. You can’t deceive people all the time,” he said. 

“If somebody says I am not qualified, I’ll say ‘if I am not qualified, I can give you a list of a lot of people who are not qualified.”

Mr. Hindy’s lack of formal training is no impediment to being an imam. Islam has no formal process of ordaining imams and there are many examples of people who studied outside the formal structures, but became respected scholars.

Obviously, the imam has to possess some knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence in order to answer questions properly and adjudicate matters correctly. But in the end, it all comes down to community acceptance.

“If he gains recognition from the people he is serving as learned and religious-oriented, he can be imam,” says the Ottawa Mosque’s imam Gamal Solaiman.

Tarek Fatah, a Toronto television host and founding member of the secular Muslim Canadian Congress, says Mr. Hindy is not the kind of leader Canadian Muslims want or need. He says Mr. Hindy is “medieval” and quite out of touch with the 21st century. “His view of Islam is completely different from mine. It is narrow and he can’t even get along with other imams,” Mr. Fatah said.

This issue is not just about Ali Hindy. It is about the fact that ISlam has no clearly deisgnated formal hieracrchy (which in many ways is very appealing) of a “priesthood” who are divinely guided, and yet, Muslims allow their religious leaders and the “scholars” dictate so much of what they do without really investigating things for themselves.

I have been one of those people, too, in a sense. I cannot read classical Arabic and so I read a translation of the Quran. It seems pretty straightforward to me but even that translation is provided with Tafsir — which is supposed to explain the true meaning of the Word. Now if I read the translation and believe its message is one thing but the tafsir states another, then my opinion is considered invalid because I do not understand the Classical Arabic. This provides the argument for why only a so-called scholar can really understand Islam and interpret it for everyone else. Then throw in the so-called “Science of Hadith” (the chain of transmission) and compare that with what we understand as empirical scientific evidence and you have the potential for one massive misunderstanding of God’s Word. I think this is the greatest dilemma many Muslims have facing them — one I share.

Is This Really Too Much To Bear?

By Rob Crilly in Khartoum (Times Online):

It began with one student and an Arabic newspaper. He raised the front page, which carried a blurred, pixellated photograph of Gillian Gibbons, above his head and launched his tirade.

“In the name of Allah the most compassionate and merciful,” he shouted, “we invite all people in the world to take Islam and we need from our Government to dismiss this teacher from Sudan.” One by one members of the crowd at the Khartoum University campus began to join in, each in turn picking up the paper and shouting abuse.

If officials at the British Embassy and in the Sudanese Government had hoped that they could keep a lid on the public discontent and do a private deal to get Ms Gibbons home to Liverpool, their strategy seemed in peril.

With little public interest in the English primary school teacher and the teddy bear she had named Mohamed, Ms Gibbons’s colleagues had hoped that the matter would never reach court and that she might be freed without a fuss. Yesterday, however, Sudanese newspapers, radio and television woke to her story and Ms Gibbons was charged laster with insulting Islam.

In a fiery editorial, the pro-Government Akhir Lahza (Last Moment) newspaper demanded that one of Osama bin Laden’s associates give evidence at her trial. It said that Hassan al-Turabi, once seen as the Islamic brain behind the Government and the man who invited bin Laden to live in Sudan’s desert capital during the 1990s, should be called as an expert witness.

As the rhetoric was ratcheted up, fears rose of mass demonstrations against Ms Gibbons after Friday prayers. Members of a moderate Sufi sect spent the day leafleting Khartoum’s Arab market in front of the city’s Great Mosque, urging the faithful to protest.

“What has been done by this infidel lady is considered a matter of contempt and an insult to Muslims’ feelings and also the pollution of children’s mentality as an attempt to wipe their identity,” the leaflet said. It called on a million people to take to the streets after prayers tomorrow.

Ms Gibbons, a former deputy head teacher from Liverpool, spent yesterday locked in a cell at a police station in a suburb of Khartoum. Her toilet is a hole in the ground; her window a small, barred opening high in the wall. She looked tired and pale as she was escorted across the courtyard with a blanket across her shoulders to meet British consular officials.

Ms Gibbons was arrested on Sunday at Unity High School, an exclusive British-run school favoured by the Sudanese elite.

Colleagues insist that she was guilty only of an innocent mistake after allowing her class of six and seven-year-olds to name the class teddy bear Mohamed. They say that the toy was named after one of the most popular pupils, not Islam’s most revered prophet.

Professor Eltyeb Hag Ateya, the director of the Khartoum University Peace Research Institute, said that the notion of naming a bear was alien to most Sudanese.

“People are angry because the bear does not exist in Sudanese folklore,” he said. “It is not seen as a nice thing that children carry around. If you call someone a bear they will be angry, just as if you have called someone a camel in England.”

Ms Gibbon’s plight moves to Khartoum’s courts today when she is due to appear before a judge who will decide whether there is a case to answer. As the demonstration on the campus wound down, a group of young men huddled over a sheet of paper drafting an angry statement on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Elsheikh El Nour, a veterinary scientist, summed up their position. “If she made an innocent mistake and did not mean Muhammad the Prophet there is no problem,” he said, sipping sweet tea in the shade of a guava tree. But if she meant Muhammad the Prophet, this is a big problem for Muslims. She must die.”

Now let’s not worry about genocide and mass rapes in Darfur when their is a plush toy crises begging for our attention. Hmmmm…..I’m thinking this is the real problem:

Sheesh! You don’t see Art Historians screaming for blood over this sacrilege:

A fellow Muslim brought up an interesting point today. Here’s the scenario:

So many guys are names Mohammad after the Prophet (saw). Some of them are pure idiots and make trouble for their teachers. Can’t you just hear it now?

“Mohammed! Why are you acting like such a fool? You had better sit your ass down before I smack you!”

And then the teacher is beheaded for blasphemy.

LOL! Just kidding!

But my point is that if we know that there is no intentional harm meant (and even if there was an attempt to insult), why must Muslims react so extremely and go for the harshest punishment? Wake up Muslims!

Mullah Muzzle: Oh, If Only There Was Enough Duct Tape…

Finally Some Good News Regarding The Virginity Issue

In February, the grand mufti of Egypt, Aly Gomaa, told a TV talk show audience in Cairo that he endorsed a recent fatwa by noted scholar Soad Saleh that it is religiously acceptable for women to undergo surgical hymen restoration. Perhaps even more controversial, according to Cairo’s Daily Star Egypt newspaper, was Gomaa’s corollary, that any Muslim man who insisted on his prospective wife’s virginity should be prepared to prove his own. [Daily Star Egypt (Cairo), 2-20-07]

Now I’d like to see how that would play out. Any suggestions for how a man can prove his virginity? Considering the whole “intact hymen will produce blood proof” issue isn’t even valid for women, I would love to see what we could come up with to prove that a guy is a virgin.

Dueling Fatwas (Would You Trust This Man?)

I certainly wouldn’t trust him to protect the rights and interests of Muslim women. Not only did he lead the resistance in granting women the right to vote in Kuwait, but more recently he issued a fatwa decreeing that if a woman did not follow her husband’s instructions regarding who to vote for, it would constitute Islamically legal grounds for divorce.

Al Hamdulillah, fairer heads have prevailed:

KUWAIT CITY: The Al-Ifta and Islamic Research Sector at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has issued a fatwa stating “no one can force any citizen, either male or female, to vote for any specific candidate.” This fatwa invalidates the earlier one issued by Dean of the Faculty of Sharia Cleric Dr Mohammed Al-Tabtabaei and gives Kuwaiti women the freedom to vote for the candidate of their choice without any pressure from their husbands. Recently Dr Mohammed Al-Tabtabaei issued a fatwa, which said “a divorce claimed by a husband on the grounds that his wife didn’t vote according to his preference will be valid.”

All News Is Bad News On The Planet Of The Apes

IRANIAN president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday reversed his decision to allow women to attend soccer matches. He had said he would allow women to attend soccer matches in a separate section of the stands to “improve soccer-watching manners, and promote a healthy atmosphere”. But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who under the Islamic Republic’s constitution has the final say, opposed the move: “The President has decided to revise his decision based on the Supreme Leader’s opinion.” No kicks for Iranian women, then.

Aiyeee!!!! My Eyes!!!!!

Circulation of actresses’ images on mobile phones slammed

Doha: Companies offering to transfer for a small fee images of actresses and female singers to mobile phone owners through SMS are defiant in the face of widespread public accusations that they are circulating semi-nude photographs and polluting social environment in Qatar. According to a local Arabic daily, a number of Qataris want the authorities to closely monitor these companies and keep a check on their business.

But officials of many such companies were quoted by the daily as saying that there was nothing wrong in circulating such pictures as they were available on the Internet and frequently aired by TV channels. “They are not semi-nude pictures,” an official of a communication firm said even as the daily reproduced many indecent pictures sent by such companies to mobile phone subscribers. The problem is that mobile phone owners are circulating these pictures among friends and relatives, causing concern in society, the daily said.

Interesting, huh? No one seems to object to the photos of terrorist beheadings that are currently be circulated on mobile phones here in Doha…. People! Let’s get our priorities straight!!!

Qaradawi Teams Up With Al Jazeera To Promote Resistance In Iraq

In statements to Al Jazeera, Islamic scholar Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi said the resistance in Iraq did not need a new fatwa. Rather, he said, resistance is a religious obligation for any country that comes under invasion and occupation. Resisting invaders and occupiers is not only legitimate, but also a religious obligation for any country attacked by invaders and occupiers, Qaradawi said. All Islamic sects and Islamic schools are unanimous that it is obligatory to resist the invaders that occupy your land, especially if those invaders and occupiers do not abide by any religion, law, morals, or international conventions, he said adding that they do not even respect the holy places and shell mosques.

“We even see their soldiers kill the wounded who seek refuge in mosques. They do not respect humanity, and shell hospitals. They even prevent relief from reaching those who need it and prevent medical teams from exercising their duties. This is a ruthless invasion.”

The problem that I have with this is that any resistance in effect will delay Iraqi self-determination. Encouraging resistance as a Muslim duty means that every wacko with a kalishnikov or shoulder fired missile launcher now has what appears to be the backing of Islam. I have a hard time believing that prolonging the period of war in Iraq is going to help anyone arrive at legitimate sovreignty any faster. In fact, it will delay it and certainly cost countless more lives.

Spoof: Muslim Reality Shows

Crossroads TV, the Muslim lifestyles cable channel expected to launch in late summer 2004, has announced their exciting fall lineup including “never before” seen Muslim reality shows.

Crossroad’s, “Fitna Island” is a show centered around five Imams sent away to a Caribbean island in the midst of spring break. The Imams attempt to remain consistent with the piety and modesty with which they’ve been raised while at the same time are immersed in an environment which is anything but. The last Imam left unscathed will win the cash prize of $500 along with assurances from the programming directors that he will be entering into the glorious gates of heaven.

The new channel hopes to hit a home run with a prank television venture entitled “Detained.” Hosted by 786 Heartthrob Zafar Razaki, “Detained” tours the nation with a hidden camera, scouting out Muslim households and individuals and telling them they’ve been detained by the Office of Homeland Security under the “Secret Evidence Act.” The reactions of candid shock and horror that ensue formulate one half hour of quality comedy.

Is Al-Qaradawi Moderate???

Not according to the former editor of the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed:

“Now, what is the truth: Is Al-Qaradhawi an extremist? The truth is that with regard to [internal] social problems, he is regarded as one of the most liberal ulama [i.e., Muslim religious scholars]. However, when we are talking about general political matters, he turns into a different kind of mufti, and his record is well known.

“Perhaps the fact that his name is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood organization has made him look on the world from the viewpoint of the party [i.e., the Muslim Brotherhood] rather than from the reality of the Islamic nation, its capabilities, and its needs. One can say about him what the Saudi minister for Islamic affairs said about some of the propagandists and mosque preachers – namely, that they incite the youth to go out to fight while they do not leave their countries and do not allow their own children to do so.”

“Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi, may Allah forgive him, has been one of the most prominent speakers calling for war and confrontation. But he himself has continued to live in Qatar, in an air-conditioned house. I heard what Al-Qaradhawi said in his own defense against the attack by the London press, denying that he is inciting [and claiming] that he is conducting a dialogue, and that he is against violence and in favor of peace.”

Furthermore, “the Sheikh” has called for the Ulama to supercede Islamic nations right to govern through the OIC; refused to conduct dialogue with Jews (”Jews” — not “ZIONISTS”) because according to him they are iniquitous; and called for Islamic nations to obtain nuclear weapons.

So I’ll leave it up to my readers. Do you think Al-Qaradawi is a Moderate???