Today i attended the first day of the “Before you say ‘I do’” course offered by AlKauthar Institute in London and taught by Sh. Yassir Fazaga. I found it to be quite unique compared to other Islamic courses i’ve attended – and i include courses offered by AlKauthar Institute itself – in the sense that a core part of the content was drawn from the instructor’s training in counselling and psychotherapy coupled with his many years of experience as a marriage counsellor. Thats not to say that there was no Qur’an and hadith mentioned because there was plenty of that too, but woven into the course content to explain and support what he was saying.
A watershed moment came when the shaikh was asked whether a woman who had been sexually abused in the past should make this known to her fiance. In his answer the shaikh recommended that anyone who has been through such a traumatic experience should seek professional help – from a Muslim or NON-MUSLIM. I think many, many Muslims discount the help of non-Muslim counsellors (and people of other professions) because they view them as kufaar or infidels. In their minds its almost like kaafir=person i should avoid=person i can’t seek help from, and it was great to hearsomeone speak out against having such an attitude.
I remember mentioning once to a muslim friend that i had a standing order set up with the Air Ambulance which operates from the Royal London hospital. He was aghast – what was i doing funding a non-Muslim service?
Forget the fact that many a life is saved (first by Allah, and then) by the great-work of the air ambulance team, what mattered to this brother was that they were non-Muslims and that therefore i should not be supporting them.
In fact, i find non-Muslims generally to be helpful – even in Islamic projects. I’m working on a cool Islamic project at the moment – which i shall reveal in a couple of months insha’Allah – but some key technical issues in that project were resolved for me by some of my non-Muslim colleagues.
If Muslims decide to cut themselves off from the wider non-Muslim society they are also choosing to forsake many people who are friendly, and throughly decent human-beings.
3 Comments
July 6, 2008 at 6:42 am
Salaams – shock, horror! Non-Muslims turn out to be human beings!! I think too many Muslims still judge Britain through Saturday nights in the town centre and the media, which is no better than non-Muslims judging us via the media and the nuttier demonstrators outside the Danish embassy.
July 7, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I talked yesterday about something God said to the Judeans exiled in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
As people defeated and carried off by the Babylonians, it’d be easy to understand the opposite idea: Do everything you can to oppose and undermine your captors. God’s attitude instead was that his people be agents of blessing even to foreigners (and enemies).
Would I be reading you accurately that you take Islam to teach (or allow) a comparable attitude and practice? That sure sound better (to us non-Muslims) than the common “House of War” that we hear about.
July 21, 2008 at 11:17 am
I have been to few course offered by AlKauthar in B’hm, but i couldn’t make this one..