A few months ago an attempt was made on the Islamic Awakening forums to start a discussion about the activities of certain individuals on the Islamic speakers circuit, who donned the cloak of Islamic knowledge in the masajid and conference centres while preying in the dark on some of the most vulnerable members of our communities – women.
These speakers, by a combination of smooth talk and shows of outward piety, were able to dupe unsuspecting Muslim women into horrible marriages. Not marriages as you and I understand them, but marriages which I’d prefer to describe as joy-rides: women would be married and discarded with ease. And while the newly discarded and divorced sister went about picking up the pieces of her shattered life, the speaker was priming himself for his next victim.
I’ve generally liked the no-holds-barred approach to discussion on IA, because anyone is free to voice their opinions (as long as they aren’t declaring stuff which is against the law). In the free market of ideas, the strongest and most substantiated arguments will win the day, and the opinions of those speaking out of their arse will get shot down.
In any case, what surprised me in July last year was that discussion of this topic of Predator Shaikhs was shut down completely. I wrote about it here.
I have since learned that the reason the discussion was deleted was because of a specific allegation made therein – an allegation that in Islamic law requires four witnesses to substantiate or else the accuser is the one that carries the sin. Fair enough, but that does not explain why the entire discussion was deleted when deleting just the offending post would have sufficed.
So it was with a measure of surprise that I noted yesterday that an IA mod had restarted the same discussion, mentioning by name the same culprit whose name has been associated with so many scandals. What changed?
I know it is only a rabbit, but I feel so sorry for her!
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With regards to establishing a marriage, it is sufficient for it to well-known, it does not require direct witnesses and hence the difference.
Initially, the hope was to edit the thread and allow the discussion to continue but it never came about simply because none of the other moderators felt capable of dealing with it and I simply didn’t have time.
Also, most of the original thread revolved around the video series that contained the accusations which made it problematic to deal with
As Salaamu Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu
Br. Abu Bakr has clarified most of it, and I would just like to add from what I saw about the previous thread, just as a viewer, not as a moderator….
The issue was dealing completely with a video of UL talking bad stuff about DA. So it was completely related to a single person – of whom not much was known to many people – and this did not even deal with the majority of this hit&quit culture.
In this new thread, the main issue is this culture – and many brothers and sisters have been extremely careful not to take names, and even so far as to say not to take names, until this CLEAR evidence has been provided – so that they can definitively be taken down and humiliated, rather than just be blamed by some internet nobodies.
But like the brother said, the case of DA is well known now, and he is one of many with a well established proof against him. All that needs is compilation.
Regardless, this thread is more than just that. i feel much benefit has come from it (especially with the Director of Solace affirming our beliefs and a need to expose these individuals) and more. And Jazakallahu Khayran for your many good relies on there as well, both this article and that was a benefit to this cause.
In the end, it’s not about IA or just us sitting behind a computer recollecting things of the past or throwing around blame, etc. – but that we look to the reality and the future – of our innocent sisters being raped by these pillaging wolves.
May Allah (swt) bless you and us for the help of spreading this message, and may He (swt) make it to be fruitful and save the honor of our many sisters all around these situations.
Inshallah, this thread – and this cause will lead to much good – and these munafiqeen (if not murtads outright) will be exposed by the will of Allah (swt) and that our sisters will be protected. Ameen.
When you first raised it on IA there were other threads started in the same genre about other specific individuals (threads that you weren’t posting in , so I’ll assume you were unaware of). So we had a sudden case on our hands where we had multiple threads making specific allegations about a number of different people.
Some of these accusations require witnesses and some of them discussed the matters in either a too graphic or street slang-ed manner. So we deleted things to regroup and to try and etch out a forum policy towards it.
I think this time around we’re pushing things in a more general direction rather than letting people get too specific. As you know it’s a delicate matter and there’s a fine line between warning against something and being slanderous against an individual’s character. Not all the people who were targeted were the obnoxious character that you were mentioning.
Plus there’s the difficulty of dealing with anonymous testimony about specific individuals. Whilst these crimes are no doubt happening in general and we need to raise awareness of this. We also have to take care and be conscious that there are people, often when they feel harmed themselves, who have no reservations about making something up to injure someone. I’m sure many of us can relate stories they’ve heard of people coming forward about something which wasn’t true but said out of malice or to malign someone.
So it was, and is, a difficult thing to keep a healthy balance between warning against an evil and letting through unfiltered accusations that could be false / slanderous.
And anyway, you were the first person I thought of when this thread was started and I did mention to other mods: what about Kashif’s earlier attempts to raise this? So don’t think you were forgotten about. ;)