Gangsterism Busting the Gang

Gangsterism: Busting the Gang

Dr. Bilal Philips

Opening

All praise is due to Allah. And may Allah's peace and blessings be on the last Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and on all those who follow the path of righteousness until the last day.

Introduction

I have some questions already from the sisters. The topic as has been introduced to you in the more formal title is informally known as gang busting. This is the topic of the actual lecture. It's called gang busting. Busting the gang.

So, this topic as you can imagine deals with fundamentally the phenomenon of the rise of gangs amongst Muslims. Where Muslims, youths have killed each other. Something which is unthinkable from an Islamic perspective. Yes, we have warring nations. But within a nation where young people will engage in violence to the point where they are killing each other. It's something unwritten in the history of the Muslim world.

So, this phenomenon is a natural product of an existing phenomenon of gangs in North America anyway. And Muslims have fallen into this trap. And as such it is something which we have to worry about. Though it seems to be focused or concentrated in the Somali community. There are many from other Muslim communities, whether it's Afghan, Pakistani, Arab, Egyptian, etc. communities who have joined in, are engaged and caught up in this cycle of violence.

So, as Muslims we have a responsibility to understand this phenomenon and to work out ways and means of correcting it. How do we go about correcting it? After knowing what the problem is, then how do we go about correcting it?

Well, if we look at it from the perspective of the children or the youth. Because we have two perspectives to look at. One, that of the youth and the parents. Because the youth are products of families. They have come out of families. So, we need to look at those families as well as we need to look at the youth themselves.

Stage One: Interest and Admiration (Ages 7-9)

If we start with the youth, we can see that there are particular phases which youth go through when they join a gang. They don't just wake up one morning and decide, I'm going to be a gangster. It is a process that they go through. A gradual process. There are three basic stages.

The first stage, and that stage occurs with youngsters between the ages of seven and nine. This is the stage known as interest and admiration. Interest and admiration. And, of course, what we're talking about, interest in what? It is seeing those who are gang members successful in the sense that they have money, they have prestige, they have big cars, fast cars, fancy dress, the latest Nike, Jordan, boots, whatever. They have all the symbols of success, at least from the rap DVD video world.

I mean, from that world. And these individuals become, for those young people between seven and nine, heroes. They are looked at as heroes. They have made it. In spite of the system, they have made it.

Warning Signs (Ages 7-9)

Now, there are symptoms that parents need to know and to watch out for. Because when kids begin this phase, they will have certain changes in their behavior. And parents need to know it. If parents don't know what's going on, then it will just come at them all of a sudden. They will just find their son in a gang and wonder, how did this happen? Because they had no consciousness of how the gang mentality evolves.

So, what are the signs? One of the signs is school. Problems in school. In that seven to nine year age range, there are already problems in school. Problems with teachers. Problems with other students. Problems which you, in growing up, never experienced.

At home, even though they're between seven and nine, you will start to find some defiance of authority. Defiance of authority. They're not following your instructions. They're resisting family instructions by the elders in the family. They, bedtimes, don't want to go to bed at the times that have been set. They're wanting to stay up later.

And then you also find, possibly, a certain amount of detachment from some of the members of the family. They will start to detach themselves. They don't associate much with certain members of the family. And they seem to be wanting to be alone more. So this is the stage of interest and admiration.

Solutions for Stage One

Once you see this happening, as a parent, then you need help. You need to seek help. Something is happening. You don't really know how to deal with it. You are in a difficult situation, because you're limited as to what you can do. The amount of time that you have to spend with the children is limited, because both you and your wife are working, or whatever.

So it's something that's beyond your ability to just handle by yourself. You might think, yeah, I can take care of it. I can handle it. But no. You need professional help. That's the first thing to realize. Recognize that you need help. If you recognize that you can get help, then it is possible to overcome this stage. Catch things at the beginning stages, before they go beyond your ability, even with help to do anything.

And such young people may be helped through group therapy, sitting them down with other young people at the same age, and discussing the kind of things that are on their minds, and trying to clarify for them, that what they are seeing as being attractive, and flashy, and success, etc. To make sure that it really isn't. To try to get them back on track, to have a proper view of the realities of life.

And also to educate them to substance abuse, because that's the next stage. Once they get past 7 to 9, they start to ease into 10 to 13, the next phase. Then substance abuse is going to be a common factor. So we have to get them sufficient information, that they will know to reject this, when it is offered to them, etc. Otherwise, they will engage in these practices, without you knowing it. And once they get on that track, it's very, very difficult to bring them back.

Also, in this stage here, it is good for parents, who have similar problems, to come together and share. So they have what they call parenting groups. Parents who have children who are at risk like this, and they can discuss different strategies, with the help of psychologists, psychotherapists, etc. to guide the parents in dealing with this situation.

The Missing Islamic Connection

And of course, what is missing from this picture here, is the relationship between that child and Islam.

Obviously, something has gone wrong. The Islamic connection is missing. Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, had instructed us to teach our children Salah, by the time they are seven:

Reference: Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 495

"Teach your children prayer when they are seven years old."

They should know Salah. Know Salah meaning, not just they know how to do the motions, the movements, what we call monkey Salah. They just monkey see, monkey do. This is what they say. So they just go through as you do, they just go through the movement. No, we are not talking about that.

Because the Sahaba, may Allah be pleased with them, informed us, that there were amongst them, those who led their whole community in Salah, at the age of six. They were six years old, and they led the whole community in Salah. Why? Because they knew the most Quran. They knew, they had memorized the most Quran, and that's what Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, had said, that the one who knows the most Quran, is the one who should lead the Salah.

So, they having known the most Quran, and of course, known what is Wudu, and what breaks Wudu, and what to do when you break Wudu in Salah, and all the different things that are connected with it. It just doesn't mean they just memorized the Quran. They need to know all the things that, for an Imam of the Salah, you would need to know. You made a mistake, you make two Sujood, right? Sujood As-Sahoo. They know about all of that. They were doing that at the age of six.

So, that kind of knowledge of Salah, and that knowledge should be connected with, a consciousness of Allah. That they know that the prayer, is not in order to please their parents, because this is one of the mistakes that tends to happen, in that early stage when the children, between three and six, where personalities are developed, that we inadvertently train them, to pray in order to please us.

The Danger of Riyah (Showing Off)

And this is something, which may be natural, at three years old, the child sees you standing to pray, so he or she stands and prays along with you, and you say, MashaAllah, it really touches your heart, it touches the heart of others around you, it's impressive, the child sees that you are impressed by it, you are happy with it, so, the child will do it again.

And anytime they want to get attention, that's all they have to do, you'll be sitting there and talking with your friends, and they'll just come out, and everybody will be, MashaAllah, look at that, look at that. Something very impressive. But, at the same time, if we allow that to just grow as it is, then the child identifies, pleasing parents with this act, and so, they will do it, merely to please the parents, as they grow older with a better consciousness, but they're still thinking, my parents will be happy when I do this, if I want something, if they're upset with me, I just need to go and do this, and everybody backs off.

This becomes a powerful tool in their hands. So, we need to connect them, with the idea that this worship, is not to please parents. It is to please Allah. Why are parents pleased? They're pleased because Allah is pleased. That's why we need to get them back to Allah. They're seeing us, but we need to get them to understand, that ultimately it is Allah that is pleased. And that is what is important. Because that way, even when we're not around, they will pray. Because they know, it is Allah that they're pleasing.

But if they only know they're pleasing us, when we're not around, they won't pray. They'll only pray when we're around, so we'll be pleased. Right? And this, in fact, is the essence of Riyah. What Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

Reference: Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 23630

"The thing I fear the most for my Ummah is Ash-Shirk Al-Asghar: Ar-Riyah (showing off)."

So, this, while on one hand, is natural for the little children to do, we have to nurture it, we have to develop it, and we have to give it real meaning. But of course, that goes back to the parents themselves. You know, if for them, Salah is just a duty they do as Muslims, we're supposed to do it, so we do it, you know, maybe we do it on time, maybe we don't do it on time, maybe we only do it on Fridays, we only do it on Ramadan, you know, we have all these other kinds of things.

If our Salah is that way, then what is going to happen to the children? There will be no chance for us to elevate that consciousness. Because we are not ourselves good examples. So first and foremost, for us to be able to nurture that consciousness, we ourselves have to be clear about our prayers. That we are truly praying to please Allah. We're not praying as a cultural ritual. It is a part of Islam.

Muslims pray five times a day, so we pray five times a day. So we pray the kind of prayer that many times in the Middle East, where I'm based, you know, and involved in Dawah to non-Muslims, they will say to me, you know, our manager, our director, our supervisor, we see him praying all the time. He prays Duhur, he prays Asr, he prays Maghrib, you know, he's always going there. First there, praying. But he cheats us. He cheats us. He doesn't give us our proper wages, you know, he makes us work overtime without paying us, you know, all these different bad things.

So they say, well what is the value of that prayer? What kind of prayer is that? And I have to agree with them. Allah knows best. What is the value of that prayer? Because Allah clearly said, that Salah prevents evil speech and evil deeds. So how could somebody be so conscientious in their prayer, and at the same time, be oppressing the people that Allah has put them in charge of? It's contradictory. It doesn't make sense.

It must mean, not that there's something wrong with the prayer, but something wrong with their prayer. There's something wrong with their prayer. They are not praying the prayer, which Rasulullah, peace and blessings be upon him, taught. They are praying, as we talked about before, the monkey prayer. Right? Monkey see, monkey do. Okay, they do it.

But what is inside the prayer, which is supposed to change a person's attitudes, his Iman, his emotions, control his tongue, control his actions, it's missing. So, while looking at this first stage, interest and admiration for the seven to niners, we need help externally, but we also need to work internally, because external help, this is the last resort. If we have our program in order, then we wouldn't be faced with this. So it means that something is wrong. We have to correct what is inside, and we get help from the outside. So the combined effort, inshallah, can bring about change.

Stage Two: Introductory Level (Ages 10-13)

The second level, that is called the introductory level. That's for the 10 to 13 year olds. In this stage, the gang, seeing these youngsters who are admiring, they've reached that age now, they give them small jobs to do, which makes them feel more attached to the gang. They give them the job of looking out for the cops. They're the

Warning Signs (Ages 10-13)

How to know when the children in this age group are involved in such types of activities, they've now become linked to the gang? You will see changes in their routines. They'll start coming home later than they normally come. You'll see a change in their friends. The friends who they used to bring over to the house and so and so, you start to see a different kind of friend. They don't look the same as the other ones. The other ones looked a little more innocent. These now are starting to look a bit shady.

You find they become secretive. They have secrets they don't want you to know about. They stay up late at night. You find them very irritable. They have anger issues. Getting really upset.

Parents. And they try to keep parents away from their room. They want to lock the door in their room. They want their own lock on the room. Nobody goes in the room except for them. And some of them are able to actually control their parents.

They try to gain control over their parents in this stage. They control the parents by threatening to do things that would embarrass the parents or whatever. And so the parents will go along with what they want to do. Let them stay out later. Let them do this. Let them do that. Keep them happy. Just try to keep them happy. So parents caught up in this keeping your kids happy so they don't get real angry and they don't say things that you don't want to hear and all this kind of things.

They have now gained control over the parents through that. Of course in this period of time too if you see them coming in with their eyes red these are the signs. They're smoking. Not cigarettes. They're smoking pot. Marijuana. Hashish. That's what's happening. That's where the red eyes coming from. So you have to be careful about that. You see your kids walking in with red eyes then you know you have big problems on your hands.

Big problems.

Solutions for Stage Two

At this stage here definitely you need help. The group therapy is not enough. They will need to sit with psychotherapists and others who can talk them through walk them through what they're going through to help get them back on track.

One of the things that you can do in this stage here is when they don't realize it you can check their pockets. You know as parents you check their pockets because when they've reached this stage they start to become a bit disoriented disorganized and although they will try to hide their stuff they will slip up and you will find it in their pockets. Things that shouldn't be there. And these will be the signs that you definitely need to go and get help.

Stage Three: Full Membership (Ages 14-21)

And at this time you'll see them sleeping out. They're not sleeping at home anymore. They're hanging out. They're coming back after days. They've been absent for so many days. They break all the curfews that you set. Their grades have dropped. If they're still in school their grades drop. And you'll find them dropping out of school. They don't want to study anymore. Finished.

This time they'll openly threaten parents. Stand up to them. This open rebellion is happening in the home now. And they will threaten to move out. Some of them will even move out. And of course it will be a big tragedy. The family's upset. No come back. Don't go. And you know they'll pressurize the family to accept them. Maybe they even pressurize to accept them to smoke dope in the house.

The Critical Decision

You have parents who allow their children. So what else to do? Otherwise he's going to go. They allow him to go and smoke in the home. And what happens of course there are younger kids in the house. They're seeing this person. You've just sealed their fate. You think you're saving the bigger one but in fact you're destroying the smaller ones.

So there's a point here where in terms of dealing with this where you have an individual who insists that he wants or she wants to smoke dope in the home. This is the point where you have to say Ma'a Salama. You have to put your foot down. Ma'a Salama. And go. Because you want to protect the rest of your home. If you don't have the authority to maintain a clean home then you're finished. All the other kids will fall into the same situation.

Solutions for Stage Three

Now definitely these youths if you're able to intervene they need to enter into substance abuse programs where they and of course this is if they realize if they hit rock bottom if you've kicked them out of the house and they come crawling back because life out in the street is not so easy. Didn't really work out. Whatever. They want to change at that point. But yeah. Substance abuse programs can help them.

Of course this is where the mosque plays a big role. We should have them involved in the activities of the masjid. This is where we need to have youth programs in the masjid especially for this age group because they are the most at risk.

And we need to find for them jobs because most of them have dropped out of school etc. We need to have some jobs available for them to reestablish themselves in the community. Find a base for themselves. It's very very

important. We have many Muslims who have businesses etc. This is where the community needs to know who has these various businesses and be able to process the children or the youths in this stage who are at least trying to pull themselves back together and get themselves back on track.

There are jobs available for them where they can engage themselves and hold some alternatives to that lifestyle. So basically we are looking at trying to provide for them alternatives.

Not a Quick Fix Solution

And it's not about just ok let's get them a scholarship to Medina to come to the imam can you please write a recommendation for so and so. This guy is a druggy. He is a gang member. You sending him off to Medina what do you think he is going to do in Medina? You think he is all of a sudden going to become an angel you know the land of the sahaba so now he is he is going to go over there and do it there too.

Because there is dope there. Yes as quiet as it is kept there is dope in Medina. Well we don't see it normally you go through I mean I was there for a good six years and I never saw it. But we heard about it. It is there. If you are looking for it you will find it.

So that young person the solution for him or her is not to try to pack him off and send him off to some other place and this is what parents are typically doing. You know they put him in a madrasa. You know it is ok they can't send him to Medina. Medina won't accept him for this reason or that. Ok we find a madrasa here the local Ajax or wherever you know put him in there. Again it is just chaos.

The Madrasa Problem

This is not the solution. This is not the solution. The madrasas are not the place for troubled youths. Actually this has been a tradition in the Muslim community especially in the Indo-Pakistani continent you know where the people who go to madrasas are the kids who are failing who are you know troublesome to the parents and that. They can't get them into university. Ok put them in a madrasa.

And so what you do is that yeah these kids go there they are bad kids and the people in the madrasa are the kids from the generation before. Right? And what do they do? They will beat the kids you know in the best of the madrasas. You will find them twisting the kids ears and twisting their arms and kicking them and all kinds of stuff going on in the madrasa.

I am sure you have enough witnesses here who will put up their hand and say I have been abused in the madrasa. And you as adults you know you have been there. You know what happened to you. This is actually a huge problem that we need to tackle. We need to tackle it. It is not a solution.

And we need to correct it. Because actually those who are going to the madrasa because they are going to become teachers of the Quran they should be the cream. They should be the cream. They should be the best.

They are the ones who should be going to the madrasa. So when they come out as the best they will give the best.

But when you are putting in the worst the dregs the bottom of the barrel this is what you are putting in the madrasa you know as they say in the computer world garbage in garbage out. Yes he may be called Maulana but he was garbage in and yes he is garbage out. So all kinds of things happen.

This is not the solution. We do need to tackle this problem which is a global problem which Muslims face today. So we have to tackle the gang from the earliest stages before it reaches this level. Once they have become full members in many cases they are lost cases. That's it. There is no bringing them back. It's just picking up their body from the morgue and burying them. So we don't want to reach that stage. We don't want to be in that position. So we have to tackle this problem right from the very beginning.

Parental Level: The Root Causes

Now on the other hand gang busting also has to be worked on on the parental level. Because the basic elements for gangsterism exists amongst the adults. They may not call themselves gang members or gangsters. They may not call themselves this. However they display all of the traditional features of gang membership and gang administration that the smaller version among the youths display.

Drug Culture in Families

So if we look on the family level of parents we can find elements of the drug problems in the community where Qut may be popular. This is from Yemeni, Somali, Kenyan communities where people have these leaves that they chew which have been identified by Muslim scholars as intoxicants, as haram. But it's become a widespread practice you know those who are involved in it when you see them with this in their mouth and if they are experts they are doing it from both sides.

These in certain parts of the Muslim world have become a norm in parts of Yemen, Somalia, Kenya. This is a norm, Djibouti. People don't even question it. It's openly sold, openly utilized. This is a drug. If this is in the family if it's in the family then what are we going to expect amongst the youth? This is the breeding ground.

Also we do have in Muslim families those who are engaged in taking alcohol, drinking alcohol. Parents, usually fathers taking alcohol. So if that is a practice in the family what are you going to expect from the youth? And cigarettes.

The Ruling on Smoking

Of course cigarettes have not been looked at in the same light. You know people say, well it's just makrou. You have people saying it's makrou. Not haram, it's just makrou. Disliked. If you don't do it, you're rewarded but if you do it, no sin.

No. Smoking cigarettes is haram. It is a sin. Without a shadow of a doubt. Yes 500 years ago scholars in the Ottoman Empire when looking at the effects of tobacco on those who used it concluded that it was makrou. They did. Because the effects that they could see from it the bad effects only included bad breath. That smoking cigarettes produced the smoker's breath. Today we have sprays and tablets and gum that you chew to try to hide it.

But in those days there was nothing so when you smoked you just had that bad breath. So according to the Sharia where Prophet Muhammad had said, whoever eats raw garlic raw onions should not come to our mosques. Meaning that the 25 to 27 times additional benefit you would get from praying in the masjid is lost. So this must be something makrou. It's going to prevent you from getting those additional rewards. Prohibited because in the end of our salat we say what? As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. Now if you've been eating your garlic and you're you're hurting your brother your sister you know so stay home. Pray at home instead.

So this is what they made as a basis for concluding it was makrou. But in the 70's after 15 years of struggle with the cigarette companies evidence was already produced from back in the 60's that smoking was connected to cancer but the big cigarette companies had bought out scientists and doctors who were saying these evidences are not conclusive.

We are not certain it could mean other things and they were just double talking their way through for 15 years. Finally the evidence became so overwhelming that no scientists who had any kind of honor would dare to say this connection wasn't there. The Surgeon General of the US declared that smoking causes cancer this is conclusive all cigarette companies were now forced to put warnings on their cigarette boxes you know pictures of lungs and all kinds of stuff to let people know this thing causes cancer and for us we know cancer of the lungs cancer causes death.

So scholars when that became a fact scholars whose fiqh was living fiqh and not fossilized fiqh then re-looked at the evidences and drew from the Quran and from the sunnah the statements of Allah where he said do not kill yourselves and do not throw yourselves with your own hands into destruction do not destroy yourself so these evidences combined with the statement of the Prophet that whoever kills himself in this life will find himself in the next life in hell killing himself forever over and over again all of this put together led the scholars to conclude that smoking was haram without a shadow of a doubt.

And the arguments of those who tried to defend it saying well not everybody who smokes gets cancer in fact in Ripley's believe it or not the Chinese woman who lived the longest in the world, a woman who lived to the oldest age something like 130 years or whatever they asked her what her secret was she said I smoked a cigar everyday ok she smoked a cigar everyday and she lived the longest so they said hey how can you say this is suicide, you're killing ourselves.

Well the point is this is just Allahu Akbar that's all it is, is Allahu Akbar that something which normally killing everybody else, this woman lives to 130 in spite of it right, this is just to show that Allah is greater, he is the one

Conclusion

So in summarizing we have to tackle the problem of the gangs from both the level of knowing our children our youth, knowing what's happening to them, why it's happening to them get help where we need it make sure that we have provided them with sufficient Islamic input from the homes that the gangs would not become attractive to them develop for them wholesome heroes from the time that they are young.

Instead of the average kid we ask here you know do you know batman? We know batman do you know who is the enemy of batman? Oh yeah, we know who he is do you know spiderman? Yeah, we know spiderman the enemy of spiderman do you know dajjal? Dajjal? Who is dajjal? Basic information our children don't know it you know we allow them to know all of this other foolishness and it truly is foolishness and what is real and also exciting if they want a nice story something exciting the truth they don't know so who do we blame? Who can we blame? But ourselves.

We have to tackle the gang mentality within ourselves as Allah said:

"Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves."

So inshallah I hope that these thoughts on busting the gang would help you all to work towards a new beginning for our community which would be one free from gangsterism on any of the levels.

End of Khutbah