Virtual Pulpit- Net Mosques, Congregations & Imams

Virtual Pulpit: Net Mosques, Congregations & Imams

Opening Remarks and Introduction

Sarah Maxson: Hello, everyone, and welcome. I'm Sarah Maxson, the vice chair of the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at UC Berkeley and one of the organizers of today's talk by Imam Suhaib Webb. We are very excited to have Imam Suhaib here today, all the way from Egypt in this beautiful weather.

And we'll be inviting him to start his remarks shortly. Before we begin, though, I would like to very much thank our co-sponsor, the Center for Islamic Studies here at GTU and under the direction of Professor Munir Jiwa for hosting this event in this wonderful space. Professor Jiwa will be moderating the talk today.

But before I turn things over to him, I wanted to explain a bit more about our overall program of which this talk today is a part. This talk is being presented as part of a year-long program under the theme Islam Today, New Media and Youth Culture in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. It is organized by the Centers for Middle Eastern Studies, South Asian Studies, and Southeast Asian Studies at UC Berkeley with funding support from the Social Science Research Council in New York.

Program Overview

Our main goal of this program is to bring forward for public discussion some of the themes and ideas animating how Muslims around the world are using new media to explore their identities, find communities, promote new agendas, and confront stereotypes. Our first event in this program was held this past October and looked at the role of new media and politics in the Muslim world. Today's event and a panel discussion that will be held tomorrow in San Francisco are planned with the intent to provide insights into the role of online worlds and online networking for Muslims around the world.

For those of you interested in the discussion tomorrow, the large poster outside details the schedule and list of speakers. Imam Suhaib will be speaking there tomorrow as well. And the discussion will conclude with remarks by Shahid Amanullah, the co-founder of AltMuslim.com and Monis Rahman, the CEO of Nasib.com, the online matchmaking site.

As an additional note, our final event in our Islam Today program will be a mini arts and culture festival that will be held next month in April on the Berkeley campus, featuring an art exhibit, film screenings, and discussions with filmmakers from the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and a stage reading of Wajahat Ali's new play, The Domestic Crusaders. If you want more information about the April events, which are still kind of in the process of being planned, or if you're interested in the webcast from the forum we held last October, you can look at our website, which is islamtoday.berkeley.edu.

Now I'll turn things over shortly to Munir. I'd just like to thank him very much for his participation and support for this program. His involvement has been extremely valuable to us, not least for the intellectual perspective he has brought to this endeavor. And we hope this collaboration will continue into the future. Munir's own background is in anthropology with a PhD from Columbia, and his research looked at Muslim identities in the US. So I think his interest and insights will be very relevant for today's discussion.

Welcome from GTU President

Before Munir steps up, though, I'd like to introduce our supreme host for today's event, Dr. Jim Donohue, the president of GTU, who would just like to welcome everyone to the discussion.

Dr. Jim Donohue: Thank you. I have to be very careful about using those terms in an academic and a theological environment. Welcome. I really appreciate the fact that you're here, and I want to let you in on a little secret to begin with.

You notice that the blinds are closed. This is for your benefit, because when you're standing up here and those blinds are open, people are looking out at the bay, they're daydreaming, they're doing all kinds of things. So the attention span is typically not on you.

So we have closed them, so you make sure that I'm sure that what you're going to have to say is going to keep attention, but just to be sure. We are delighted to be co-sponsoring this with the Centers for Southeast Asia and the Middle Eastern Studies Center at UC Berkeley. And the collaboration with the GTU and the Center for Islamic Studies is just something that we are very, very proud of and very interested in continuing, because as you all know today, that one doesn't do academic scholarship or intellectual work or community work in isolation from one's obvious collaborative partners.

And this is something that we believe very firmly here at the GTU, and certainly it's at the cornerstone of the mission of the Center for Islamic Studies. The center is hardly two years old, but it's been one of our great success stories. Under Munir's leadership, we have really begun to develop not only an academic center where intellectual work and academic work and courses and talks and research goes on, but also we want to and we're very committed to reaching out to the communities of the Bay Area, the Muslim communities, the Christian communities, the Jewish communities, the religious communities of all types, because that is at the core of what the Graduate Theological Union is and what we were created to do back when we were first founded almost 50 years ago, is to collaborate, is to work across differences, across distinctions, across boundaries, and we do this very, very well and very enthusiastically.

And the work of today's talk, today's collaboration, is really an example of that. So for those of you who are here for the first time, please come home, come back here, and enjoy who we are and what we do. This is an incredible research library that we invite you to partake in. It was actually voted in the East Bay Express to be one of the best places to study in all of the East Bay for both not just graduate students but for undergraduates as well. So it's a beautiful building and we welcome you to be here. So thank you for coming, welcome, and I'm going to hand it over to the very capable leadership of Munir Jiwa, who has just been a true gift to the Graduate Theological Union, to the Bay Area, and to all of us that are interested in the work that we're doing today. So Munir, thank you.

Introduction by Professor Munir Jiwa

Professor Munir Jiwa: Assalamu alaikum, greetings of peace to you all. Welcome. Thank you, Sarah, Maxims, and Sanchita, and the Centers for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley, and other co-sponsors, altmuslim.com, Asia Society of Northern California, and the Arab Cultural and Community

Center. Thank you, Jim Donahue, for your warm welcome. I won't take up too much more of your time, but I want to welcome you all, and I'm grateful for you all being here.

For the newcomers, please come back. I hope this space is enticing enough to keep you coming. And for those who are regulars, I'm glad to see you all again.

And for the students in several of our classes, the Madrasa Midrasha class on Jewish Islamic text study that runs on Tuesday nights, welcome. Welcome to the Pluralism in Islam class and others. I am so delighted to also share with you the Center for Islamic Studies in its third year.

And we have just launched our master's and MA in Islamic studies, which should be kind of up hot and running next week. You'll see it on our website. And we're welcoming you to look at our program, apply. We have a huge sort of number of courses we've added. And what I really appreciate about this collaboration is that one of our goals through this program, through the Center for Islamic Studies, is to really look at the kind of intersections and cross sections between where religion meets the world. And we kind of take that really seriously, both in terms of our scholarship, but also our outreach to various Muslim and other religious communities.

So our focus is where kind of theology meets culture, education, and media. And these are sort of our areas of emphases alongside other areas, which are philosophy and ethics and spirituality. So these are sort of areas in which we've developed a whole host of courses and programs. And we sort of continue our commitment to this.

I was especially delighted also because media is sort of my area of focus. And I worked with Muslim artists for my PhD work. So when I saw this title, I was just completely caught and taken in by it. And no less, of course, Imam Suhaib Webb, who I look up to as a mentor and whose writings and preaching and teaching is just unmatched. It's really a humbling experience to be here in his presence.

Introducing Imam Suhaib Webb

And so I want to, without further ado, introduce him. For those of you who don't know him, I'm sure many of you have seen him, heard him, heard him and seen him online as well. Imam Suhaib Webb is an American Muslim activist and scholar, born William Webb in 1972 in Oklahoma.

In his late teens, he experienced a three-year period of exposure to Islam through local Muslim acquaintances and became a Muslim in 1992 at the age of 20 and took the name Suhaib. He studied at the University of Central Oklahoma, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in education. He currently studies in Cairo at Al-Azhar University in the College of Islamic Law and completed his memorization of the Qur'an.

Some of us can barely get to a few verses. So to be a hafiz is really an honor. And alhamdulillah, praise God.

Additionally, he is in charge of the English translation department of the Dar al-Iftar al-Masriya and is currently training as a mufti and working on an MA in Islamic law. For those of us who have online acquaintance with Imam Suhaib, he entered the blog world early on and describes a blog as a bridge between the idealized notions of theology and the realities of everyday life, a place where the convent meets Times Square and the clergy meets the masses. And you can check out his website, suhaibwebb.com. So without further ado, please welcome Imam Suhaib.

Imam Suhaib Webb's Lecture

Opening: Media and Communication

Imam Suhaib Webb: It's a pleasure to be here. I landed last night from Cairo. When I landed in JFK, everybody was happy but me. And I told them I still have six hours in front of me. And when I landed, actually, I forgot about the SIM card problem. So my phone, my beautiful iPhone, I think it's like a new organ of my body, my iPhone. If I lose it, I feel like I really lost something. Didn't work.

So when I landed, I was supposed to call the limousine service, UC Berkeley, mashallah. And unfortunately, I couldn't do it. So I took a cab. There's a reason for this story. Nothing's an accident.

So when I got in the cab, and I had, actually, I brought a lot of books back. Those of you who've studied overseas, you know, when you buy a book, you buy it like five times because when you want to mail it back, unless you're tenured and you can use your university to send books for you, you're in trouble.

So I got in the taxi, a really nice taxi driver, and I went to Cupertino. I'm actually living in the bay, so I have my cars in Cupertino. I got my car and came here.

And then he asked me, why are you here, you know? Why did you come from Cairo? And I said, well, I'm here to speak at a conference about Islam and Muslims. And of course, I don't look like you're, you know, the adversary of Rambo at all. And he was like, you're a Muslim.

And I said, yeah, I'm a Muslim. And then he's like, oh, so that's why you're in Egypt and Cairo. And I was like, yeah.

And then he said, you know, you guys are, I'm going to use maybe language that might shock you. He's like, you guys are getting screwed. So I said, why? He said, everybody thinks you guys are terrorists.

And I was like, really? He said, everyone thinks you're terrorists, but you're not terrorists. And then he said, in fact, there's only a small percentage of you guys who are terrorists. And then he named a certain group within the Muslim world that I wouldn't want to mention. Just I don't want to get in trouble. And he said, the Wahhabis. So he said, you know, you're not Wahhabis.

So I said to him, I'm just quoting him. So I said to him, how do you know that? He's like, I watch PBS. So I thought that was a good segue for Islam and media.

The Meaning of Communication in Islam

And whether he was right or wrong, the fact that he has built certain constructs based on what he's seen through communication. In Arabic, the word bayan means to communicate. And a great scholar of Arabic language, Imam Ibn Manzur, he was from Africa. Actually, he lived in Egypt. He says in his beautiful dictionary, Lisan al-Arab, that the word bayan actually, in Arabic, means to separate two things. The original meaning of the word is to separate.

So in the Qur'an, God says:

'Allamahu al-bayan - He taught him the ability to express himself.

So he notes that this means that actually man is different from other creation because of his ability to interact and communicate at such a high level. He is distinguished from others by this ability. Which means that the person is distinguished, human beings are distinguished by their ability to speak and communicate.

And also in the Qur'an, it clearly says, And from the signs of God, from the signs of your Lord, are:

Wa min ayatihi khalqu as-samawati wa al-ardi wa ikhtilafu alsinatikum wa alwanikum - And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the difference of your languages and colors.

The differences in people's language. So communication is valued. And it's an important means for us to build relationships with each other and understanding.

And really, just living in Egypt for seven years and being able to look back towards the West from kind of a different set of lenses. And then coming back here and looking back at Egypt through lenses of the West, communication and sharing of ideas is crucial, I personally believe. And I would like to thank UC Berkeley for having this program.

And the three centers. I'm not going to make any mistakes on saying which centers. But the GTU, I'll just say that. And Nadia Hussain, her name wasn't mentioned, but she was constantly sending me emails. And everyone involved and Munir, thank you for this opportunity.

My Conversion Journey and Early Islam

My conversion to Islam, and don't get scared, is really intertwoven into my experience on the blogosphere. I converted in 1992. I was a hip-hop DJ. I used to throw down with Pete Rock and DJ Premier, Primo, and all of these other old school artists that none of you probably have ever heard of.

Although Guru is in the hospital, may Allah, you know, cure him. And my first Sheikh was Rakim and Public Enemy, and X-Clan, and Paris, a local artist. If you know who Paris is, Sonic Jihad, and other artists.

And at a young age, being exposed to groups like Public Enemy and having that hamasa of being a young person, not Hamas, Hamasa, ultimately led me, at the age of 20, my freshman year in college, it was either Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, which is African-American fraternity. I was about to cross the burning sands or become Muslim, and I became Muslim.

On becoming Muslim, I would have to be honest and admit that my early Islam was filled with a lot of idealized notions about what it meant to be Muslim. And then being a white male in Oklahoma, there weren't a lot of examples of Muslims from Oklahoma whose grandparents were farmers. My grandfather had a ranch with cows in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. There wasn't much of an example to follow in the spirit of Vygotsky or Piaget.

There wasn't much of a modeling.

You know, Will Rogers didn't really do it, and neither did Mickey Mantle. So, not really having an example, and this is mentioned in the Qur'an that the Prophet is a Qudwa, is an example for people to see.

So, my Islam early was based on the books of Saeed Qutb. Again, don't run out of the room. Who I feel is not dealt with justly at times. People like Maududi, even some of the works maybe of Khomeini, coming out of the hip-hop community into maybe an immortal technique kind of understanding of Islam, social justice causes. As a freshman in college, the cusp of your life where you think you know everything, and then when you hit 37, you realize you didn't know anything. And really practicing Islam in the shade of modernity, almost with a sense of fascism.

Struggles with Identity and Validation

And I'll be honest about that. A very intolerant understanding of Islam. And when that was combined with some of the neo-Salafist trends that we find in the Muslim world, as well as America, and then in the light of not being able to validate my Islam as a white American.

And Dr. Sherman Jackson, who is one of my mentors, talks about the reality that many converts who convert to Islam in America have to validate their Islam by adopting another culture. So, you would have found me at that time on campus wearing like a bonanza shalwar kameez, a thobe from Saudi Arabia, having a stick in my pocket, my beads would have been out, oils that smelled, we're not going to go there, and so on and so forth. And really confused in a lot of areas as to how to maintain William Webb, who I still go by, the name doesn't bother me.

My mother is not calling me Suhaib, okay? And then knowing what I know now, I would have not been Suhaib. I would have stayed William. But at that time, feeling uncomfortable and not really able to validate being an American Muslim led me to become somewhat of, as my mother likes to call me, a prima donna or an ideologue.

Ultimately, what happened was, as I got older, as I finished school and as I became a teacher, I started to realize that this is not going to work for me spiritually. I'm hitting lows. I'm not, you know, because converting to Islam is like using drugs, or to any religion, you know? When you convert, you get high for a minute, but it's going to come down, okay?

So coming down and having to deal with, you know, the people that I had grown up with my whole life, seeing their reaction to what had happened to me, my own parents, and then my interaction with my professors on campus, and then studying with a profound teacher from Senegal, West Africa, for almost 10 years, in Oklahoma.

It's actually where I memorized the Quran, 27 parts of Quran were not memorized in Egypt, were memorized in the land of the Sooners. And in realizing that in order to authenticate my Islam, I need to learn Islam. And that caused me to study with him, and then ultimately head to Egypt with my family in 2004, in Cairo, where I entered Al-Azhar University, thinking at that time that I would find the answers to the American Muslims' problems in Al-Azhar.

Journey to Egypt and Return

So going there again with some romanticized notions, the Malik Shabazz kind of towards Mecca, everything was fine, you know, and so on and so forth. In 2004, when I left the Bay, I knew that I could not come back an Egyptian, not just because of my physical presence, but I knew that the shoe that fits Egyptian culture is not the shoe that's gonna work in American culture. I was old enough to understand that.

And I had a friend of mine, actually, who went here to Berkeley, who went to Mauritania, and he asked me, 2003, 2002, what advice do you give me? And I said, if you come back a Mauritanian, we're gonna have to go in the parking lot and take care of business. We're gonna have to go outside and do some mixed martial arts. Because I started to see, within the American Muslim community, a lot of divisions that disturbed me.

That the term practicing, non-practicing, I find it rather offensive. Such and such person is practicing, such and such person is not. I like to tease our community and say, we have more flavors than Ben and Jerry's, or Barnes and, you know, Baskin-Robbins.

It's good to have flavors, but we should learn to respect those flavors. So leaving, going to Egypt, and those of you who have been to Egypt, that's the gumbo of the Muslim world. You'll find Sufis dancing in the mosque.

You'll find very, very stringent Wahhabi Muslims who, you know, there's nothing in the mosque. You'll find people like Haifa Wahbi, who's, of course, from Lebanon, but welcome to Egypt, and Shakira, and Beyonce, who was recently there, and 50 Cent is gonna be there this week, or next week. And then you'll find on the other end, the history of Umm Kulthum and the poetry of Shawqi.

Everything's in Egypt, from Sami Yusuf to, you know, to Def Leppard. So I chose to go to Egypt for that reason, and I chose to come back to the States every year instead of staying in the Muslim world, just to make sure that I would not lose touch. That was really my main purpose.

Starting the Blog: The Translators

In 2004, a friend of mine, Yusuf Rios, who lives in Ohio now, he also studied in Egypt for six years, a Puerto Rican Muslim convert, told me, you should start a blog. So I told him, what on earth is a blog? And he said, you know, it's incredible. It's just like, and he's a philosopher, he's like, you know, post-modernity, mass communications, explosions, symbology.

It's like, look, just, I'm from Oklahoma, okay? Just keep it easy, why do you wanna open a blog? And he's like, you know, you'll be able to maintain a feel with Western Muslims. You'll be able to somehow stay in touch with what's going on in the West. And he was like, I warn you, don't let that happen. Don't go back an Egyptian.

So he was a very, really instrumental person in starting a blog, which started in 2004 as The Translators. And we called that blog The Translators because my idea at that time was that Islamic tradition has the answers to our problems in the West. So simply, what we need to do is just regurgitate what's found in classical books, translate that into English, and everything's gonna be fine. And I'll be honest with you, that was, at that time of my life, my understanding.

Moving Toward Synthesis

As we continued to do that, what we realized in 2004, 2005, myself, him, and here, we have Brother Amir Khan who also, the guts and the brains of the website, is that we are not going to be able to authenticate ourselves with anything except being American Muslims.

That was kind of the conclusion that we came to. Through our translation of classical text, running into the patriarchy that exists, and I know Muslims don't like to talk about this, within the language of classical text. You know, some of the things that, for example, you know, Imam al-Dardir, the great Maliki scholar says in his book, Sharh al-Saghir, if I read it to my mother, my mother would kill me.

She would take me outside, and even though I'm 37, she would remind me of the good old days in Oklahoma. And understanding that a lot of those texts might actually hamper the growth of Muslims within America, and the West in particular. So we started to make another move.

I guess you could follow our move if you're familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy. I'm an education major, so I have to talk about this stuff. We started to kind of head towards synthesis, where we realized that, you know, the tradition is great, and there are certain elements that Muslims are gonna have to cling to from the tradition in order to gain authority, but it doesn't have all the answers.

Then entering into Azhar University, and hearing, not necessarily in the university, but even in the halaqat, the circles of knowledge outside, which every Muslim in the West, most of them have this dream of sitting in the halaqat with the sheikh, the big beard, and the incense flying across the room, and you know, wow, I'm like here, I'm like David Carradine, you know, like in the Kung Fu series, and you go through this whole kind of experience, and then you realize, you know, he's talking about buying slave women. They just said that if someone said the prophet is black, he's not a Muslim anymore.

So hitting the wall, so to speak, with those romanticized notions, and coming to the conclusion around 2005, 2006, that we have to synthesize things, and we have to really present an Islam from our understanding as best we can. I'm not claiming here to have the answers at all. I'm living a life of transition. So who knows what I'll be 10 years from now.

But those are conclusions that I made. Those were calls that I made. And started a blog, actually it was started by a company that I worked for. I would never have called my blog suhaibwebb.com. It kind of bothers me. And there have been discussions about changing the name, and taking my picture off the front of the website, but nobody will let me do it. But which was used actually to market some products that we were selling.

Mothers of Believers was a series that we sold and so on. And we took over that blog, shut down the translators, and started this concept of synthesis.

Growth of the Website

And what happened was from a period of 2006 till now, our staff has gone from two to 60. The number of full-time professional editors are six, constantly on call working, and none of them are being paid. One person is being paid. And Ziba, she's here, she's also, we interviewed her, we're very happy recently to have her on our website.

And my conclusion from the website, as I gave the title, is it's a virtual masjid. And why do I call it a virtual masjid? Is that you will run into people, you will be able to talk about things, you'll be able to address issues that you could never address in the masjid. And that was a struggle, as I go back to my conversion, that I dealt with, ultimately, having to come to grips with who I was, and maintaining somehow who I was with my Islam.

And validating my Islam, not through saying zindagi babandagi shamandagi, but validating my Islam by saying, yo, what's up, man? And being who I was, and trying to synthesize that culture into my Islamic articulation, my Islamic expression.

So we started, and I remember, when we first started, we'd have like 200 hits. We're like, wow, 200 hits a day, wow, it's unbelievable. And now, anywhere from 2,500 to 3,500 hits a day, if it's something spicy in the community, around 4,000 hits a day.

I'll share with you my take on the blog, what are some of the patterns that I've seen over the last three years or four years. And this year, we were lucky, we were blessed and honored to win the Brass Crescent Best Blog of the Year, which, I don't know if we really deserve it, but it was a great honor, and we feel honored by that. We hope it will increase us in humility.

Pattern One: Discomfort with Identity

But when I started the blog, I still had a lot of idealized notions about what it meant to be a Muslim, who I would have respected as a Muslim, and not really dealing with people. So in Egypt, one of my teachers told me something remarkable.

He said, the blood of the paper is black and cold, the books that you read, but the blood that you're gonna speak to as a clergy is red and warm, requires love and emotion and mercy.

And one of the patterns that I noticed early on is that Muslims in America are not really comfortable being who they are sometimes, in front of their fellow Muslim brothers and sisters. And running into questions that would say, I'm sorry for asking, I'm sorry for asking, excuse me, I hope I'm not disrespecting you, please don't post this, don't answer this, even if it's anonymous, don't tell anyone I have this problem.

Whereas outside of that sphere, maybe even here at UC Berkeley, people would have been much more open in front of non-Muslims than they would have been in front of Muslims. So concluding that there were certain definitions which were inhibiting the growth of Western Muslims about what it means to be religious, what it means to be a dedicated, practicing Muslim. And one of the goals that we tried and are trying to accomplish is to expand that definition.

Just because of the diversity of the West and the lack of a social religious element that you would find in the Muslim world. And Imam al-Shatibi, the great Andalusian 8th century scholar in his book, Al-Muwafaqat, he talks about this in detail under, of all chapters, who qualifies to be a witness. Because in classical Islamic law, you have what's called al-'adalah, al-muru'ah.

You know, is someone, first of all, fit to be a witness, and then secondly, do they follow certain social norms that would not take away from their, quote unquote, orthodox practice. He says very clearly that these definitions have to change over time, according to place and situation. And he gives a very funny example.

He said, if we're to take the qualifications of a witness that were used in the early century, the first century of Islam, the companions of the Prophet, and those who came after them, no one could be a witness now, not even me. And this is al-Shatibi. So understanding that religiosity has to change over time, although Muslims will always hold onto certain orthodox principles for sure.

As a majority, most definitely. But giving people within, especially the framework of the West, room to breathe. Hassan al-Basri, the great mystic, said, al-nas la budda min al-tanaffus - people have to have the time to kind of rest and relax and take a break.

Creating Welcoming Spaces

So number one was to try to expand who's welcome to the community. You know, my wife, I lived in Michigan, and my wife would not go to the mosques in Detroit. So I said, did some sister make you mad? Did someone burn the biryani? You know, what happened, she's like, have you seen the sister side of the mosque? I was like, no. She's like, do you know where it is? I was like, I just saw the sign.

So she's like, you have to go under a basement, yeah, through this dark corridor with like dripping water, and then there's this nasty curtain, and that's the sister side. I was like, okay, you know, cool, pray at the house.

Running into people who were religious, who loved God, who were dedicated to Islam, were dedicated to being citizens, but not comfortable in the confines of the masjid. And that's why you'll find a lot of our young, younger community members, if they make a mistake, they'll say, don't tell Imam Suhaib.

They could talk to Dr. Phil. They could call, you know, Dr. Ruth, long time ago, but they would feel very uncomfortable. Of course, there might be a natural shame to that, but my feeling was that the first place that people should feel welcome is to the mosque.

This is the place of redemption. This is the place where you seek your relationship with God, you articulate your struggles, your mistakes, and no one has the right to come between you and that relationship with the creator.

So I myself felt that as a convert, and that's why I was wearing shalwar kameez and saying, ab khair, and you know, kana khair bayan, and so on. And then coming to grips with that, ultimately being, trying to be who I was, and then the fact that I was thrown into the light of an imam, okay, where there's this kind of high set of standards, which really no one can live up to. And seeing fellow clergy really border on like nervous breakdowns, just because of the sense of having to be what you're not. And I still struggle with that now, of course, I'm only 37, I'm not that old.

But trying to maintain who I was to some degree. So expanding that definition of acceptability.

Welcoming Diverse Struggles

So we started getting questions from homosexual Muslims on the site. And I remember the first few questions that we got, people were shocked. There's gay Muslims? What do you mean? Think there were gay Muslims? Adulterers, people who've had affairs on their job. Drug usage, jihadists, people who have struggled with Muslim cults, trying to come out of those experiences.

And ultimately, trying as best we could, making mistakes, of course, to make them feel kind of welcome. If you look at the Prophet's tradition, you will not find what you see today, in many of the Muslim countries. Because Muslims, at least in the East, my theory is, have not really come to grips with modernity.

Cornel West says that African Americans are born into modernity. White Americans were born into modernity. But in the Muslim world, you still find the dichotomy of racism, although it exists in the West, for sure. We have the Tea Party and others. But, I'm not at MCA, so I can say that. I'm not at my mosque, I can say that.

But in general, struggling with even the concept of human rights, the dignity of human beings. Muslims believe in this, but it's a social system. Struggling with that.

So, what we see in many of the Muslim countries are, as I mentioned about my conversion, my humble understanding of this, is a very idealized set of notions about what Islam is. How Islam should be articulated. The human face is taken away.

The books of Qutb are clung to, like they're clinging to oxygen. The idealized notions of certain verses about non-Muslims, and even women and Muslims in general, are held onto without any respect for the text, the context of that text, or the rhetoric of that text. And as al-Qarafi, the great jurist said:

Al-jumud 'ala an-nusus dalalun fi ad-din wa jahlun bi-maqasid 'ulama al-muslimin wa as-salaf al-madin - Al- Qarafi, the great jurist said that, anyone who clings to these texts in such a fashion, this will lead people astray, and themselves will also be astray.

The Human Element in Islamic Tradition

So, coming to deal with the human element that we saw in the time of the Prophet, when as Bukhari, the great Hadith scholar mentions, the drunk man. That one of the companions of the Prophet drank some alcohol. Even for you to say that in many Muslim communities, you would be charged with, well, this is the white convert, you know, the liberal, and not really a Muslim, he's kind of, you know, he came Muslim, but he's not real Muslim, you know.

Even though he went to Azhar, it was like not real Azhar, it was just kind of Azhar. So he memorized the Qur'an, he's like, Qur'an for dummies. Really? Sounds like the Qur'an you read.

But this is in Bukhari's authentic collection, as Muslims will agree and fight for, that everything in Bukhari is authentic. Okay, here in Bukhari, it's a companion of the Prophet, peace be upon him, who got drunk. Who got drunk.

Whereas the first place he goes, is to the Prophet himself. Not to Abu Bakr, to Umar, to Uthman, or, you know, to Betty Ford. The first place he goes, is to the Prophet, because he trusts the Prophet.

Whereas now, we don't have that trust amongst clergy, and the others. You have fear.

Story from Egypt: Doubts and Faith

So when I moved to Egypt my first year, I went to a bank there to open up an account, which is a story, man.

Wow, it's an awesome experience. And the woman who was taking care of me, you know, was dressed like she could be on like, you know, O Magazine. The cover of Oprah.

I didn't know she was Muslim. So she said to me, your name's William, how could you be a Muslim? I was like, no, I mean, the name is not really important. I mean, you can have any name, be a Muslim. She's like, no, but William. It's like William Shakespeare. I was like, yeah, Shakespeare.

She's like, no, no, William Webb. So ultimately, she came to grips that I was a Muslim, and then I said, she's like, how are you a Muslim? Like, how? It's a white man, Muslim.

So I was like, well, I would like to tell you the story, but I, you know, maybe you're not Muslim, and I wouldn't want to offend you. She's like, I'm Muslim. I was like, I'm sorry.

Then what happened, yeah, Oklahoma. So then what happened was, she said, you know what, can I ask you a question? I was like, sure. She's like, I can't ask anyone this question.

I don't trust anyone. I was like, what? And she's like, you know, I have doubts about religion. So I was like, everyone has doubts about religion.

She's like, no, I'm not, I'm still Muslim. Like, very defensive again. That pattern that I'm talking about of not being able to really let our hair down.

Okay, metaphorically, of course, might get upset. And telling me, I can trust you because you're a convert, and I know you went through the same crap I'm going through right now, basically. I said, really, what's wrong? She said, you know, first of all, am I bad because I doubt? I was like, no, no.

I said, how are you gonna come to, you know, Piaget, you know, cognitive dissonance? How are you gonna arrive at yaqeen, certainty, if you don't doubt first? So, and then I told her, you know, Allah says:

Wa idh qala Ibrahimu Rabbi arini kayfa tuhyi al-mawta qala awalam tu'min qala bala wa lakin li-yatma'inna qalbi - Ibrahim, he asked God, show me how you bring the dead to life. In the Qur'an, God says to Ibrahim, don't you believe? He said, I believe, but I want to strengthen my heart.

When I told her this verse, it's like the first time she ever heard this verse before.

Then she said, you know what? I'm the white guy who doesn't look like he's practicing, who's wearing a suit and tie, who comes from America, who became Muslim through doubts. She would feel more comfortable than dealing with clergy. That's the point I want to make.

Pattern Two: Absence of Authority

So with our website, and not to also discredit clergy by any means, because there are some, Amr Khalid, Sheikh Hamza, have great examples out there. But as a community, not feeling that they can trust religious authority.

And that's the first pattern that we've run into through the website, is an absence of respected authority.

Because if you look historically, even with the four schools of Sunni Islam, as well as Shia Islam, most of them were implemented through a political enterprise. There was either patronage politically, or there was a military backing behind them. So Imam al-Shatibi, he says, that no person should make a fatwa that goes against the Maliki Madhhab in all of Western Africa and Spain.

Because that was the law of the land. He was supported. But after the collapse of the Khilafa, but I would say even before that, as many of us know, the collapse of Muslim institutions took shape, I would say even in the 10th century, where if you look at the ijazahs, the traditional Muslim licenses that were given, the names of women start to disappear.

Obviously something happened. Prior to the 10th century, for example, in Herat, Afghanistan, who would believe that the greatest scholar in Sahih Bukhari was a woman named Fatima in the 7th century in Afghanistan? Hijri. So after the 10th century, you see women start to disappear.

Then as you continue and continue and continue, up until you get maybe to the time of Muhammad Ali in Cairo, you see that these ijazahs become kind of streamlined. The scholarly class becomes well-defined, not open so much to the masses. And ultimately you have a collapse.

Azhar, taking a major fall in the last 100, 200 years or so. Deoband in India and Pakistan now, by many people, as seen as not relevant to their lives to many degrees, especially women, and so on. So people in their struggle to orient themselves as Muslims haven't really been able to find authority.

The Challenge of Post-Modernity

And what we discovered after giving people that space trying to create a space of feeling comfortable with themselves and developing their religious notions, number two was the fear of not having authority. Not having a marji'iya, as we say, a reference point. And you throw that in with post-modernity and this just, you know, Sheikh Wiki Ibn Google, Ibn Yahoo, as I like to call him, and the exposure to millions of ideas, which is good and bad, but not really being able to understand what might be considered acceptable and what might not be considered acceptable.

And when I say that, I don't necessarily mean textually or religiously. Because as al-Qarafi, the great Maliki jurist, mentioned, that for anyone to give a religious ruling without taking into consideration the climate and environment that he lives in, this person is a criminal.

So just because something's in those classical books or you find a certain text or you find a statement of a certain scholar, doesn't necessarily mean that's correct. And that's why we have training.

So an absence of authority, kind of a scramble. And two, in two main areas. Number one, by certain Muslim leadership, the world over, and the West as well, to gain authority. By any means necessary, okay?

Number two, the Muslim masses, especially those who are taking part in the blog world, they're frustrated with that. So, for example, I remember once we posted a religious ruling on celebrating the Prophet's birthday, peace be upon him, that was written by the great scholar Abdullah bin Bayyah, which basically says, if you wanna party, party. If you don't, stay home.

And somebody wrote me and said, how come there's no definitive guidance there? Why is Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah not pushing me around and telling me it's like this, it's not like this? Not being used to hearing that kind of discourse.

Pattern Three: Dangers of Online Extremism

So an absence of authority, and that led to the third trend that I've seen in working in the blogosphere, and that is the danger of being a Muslim on the net. And when I'm talking about the danger, I'm talking about certain pseudo-militant jihadist movements, which do and are very, very active on the net. And having to engage some of their thoughts and ideas.

Anwar Awlaki is probably one of the best examples in the last six months of that. Someone who was a very popular speaker in America one time, obviously took on a different message. And being asked questions that I myself was not sure, should I post this? Because when I land, and like many of you, the TSA always has a wonderful welcoming committee waiting for me when I land.

Even though my name is William, on my passport. And I'm from Oklahoma. And initially struggling with those problems.

Number one, the militancy or the lack of tolerance. So when we posted your article, we didn't put your picture up there. Because we knew if we put her picture up there, no one would read what we wrote about you.

Certain people. And they would make a big issue. Why does Ziba not wear hijab? And why is she not covered? Of course, I believe that hijab is an obligation.

But that doesn't mean I don't respect her as my sister in Islam. I don't love her as my sister in Islam. I certainly will welcome her in my community.

And I'll give her a platform to speak. But there will be other people who have serious problems with this. And by posting that picture, we knew that they would not benefit from her knowledge, her wisdom, the beauty of her intellect.

And what she took on as an American Muslim woman was very important for us to define ourselves as American Muslims.

Questions About Western Muslim Life

So dealing with that, some questions that I received about voting in the West, participating politically in the West, going to universities, studying with the Kuffar. These are the kind of questions that we would receive.

The validity of suicide bombings in Israel. A number of questions. The concept, especially amongst convert Muslims of Hijra, migrating and leaving America, as well as the children of immigrants who are somewhat, and I'm not saying all of them, but some of them are suffering from a psychosis.

Am I here or there? I have a friend who was born and raised in Kansas with Dorothy and Toto. So I ask him, hey, where are you from? He's like, I'm from Imbaba. Imbaba is a slum in Cairo.

So I was like, really? 'Ishta kam yom hunak? How many days? He's like, walla walla yom. I never lived one day there. So I was like, how are you from Imbaba, bro? You're from Kansas City, Missouri.

Not Kansas. He's like, yeah, you're right. Why do I? I was like, yeah, because you have this kind of orientation issue where you haven't really understood where your ultimate investment is.

The Issue of Hijra (Migration)

So we noticed that there was a pattern of converts who were made to feel uncomfortable about being American. Or they were sold by some type of self-styled guru who would use the intangibles to intimidate them religiously. So having a dream about seeing the prophet, you know, I had a dream, the prophet came to me and told me I'm better than you.

And people saying, you must be better than us then. And using that to the point that some of them ordered them to divorce their wives, to leave them, to forego their children and their responsibilities. The other is the trend of militancy, as I mentioned earlier, that you're born as American, you live in America, so it's almost like you, it's like original sin.

And the only way that you're gonna be able to overcome that is to leave America and live in the Muslim world. So I had once a guy come to me and tell me, you should migrate to the Muslim lands. This was about 10 years ago.

I said, really, where am I to go? He said, you can go to Yemen. So I was like, so with all respect to Yemen, yeah, you think I could just go over there and get a job as a teacher with my license from Oklahoma? Like, start teaching right away? He's like, yeah, yeah, no problem, you can go there. I was like, no, I don't think they're gonna give me citizenship.

He's like, okay, then Japan. So I was like, last time I checked, yeah, Japan wasn't the home of the Khilafa, man. He's like, no, no, but they're less kufr than America.

So that's something that was used on converts, and I experienced this as a convert, to push them. Sometimes you'll find that the greatest carriers of patriarchy are women, the greatest carriers of extremist Islam and messages could be actually converts because they are made to feel somewhat guilty about who they are.

Number two, the children of immigrants, also for the same reason.

Addressing Hijra and American Identity

So we started to publish articles, probably in 2005 and 2006, that dealt with the fallacy of hijra, the ridiculous notion of migrating to a country en masse and expecting that their economy is gonna be able to handle that migration, first of all. But first and foremost, that it is not a religious obligation. Three of the four Islamic schools of thought clearly state that if somebody is qadir, if somebody has the ability to worship God, the basic fundamentals of Islam, then that person does not have to migrate to the land of the Muslims.

That's the Shafi'is, the Hanafis and the Hanbalis. Imam Malik has a different opinion. Based on the hadith of the Prophet about Fudayk, one of his companions who came to him and the Prophet told him, establish prayer amongst your people, live amongst them and stay amongst them.

And this hadith is related by al-Bayhaqi, and he said it was authentic, with an authentic chain of narration. So trying to save converts from some of the experiences that I went through. Secondly, engaging the children of immigrants to try to encourage them to realize that your ultimate investment is in America where you live now. Although you should not forget about your parents' homeland by any means or disrespect the culture that they've given you. But ultimately your investment is not in Rawalpindi. Your investment is here. And you're American. Your culture is America. You can't deny that. So every year someone comes to me in Egypt, I get a phone call, Imam Suhaib I need to see you. I meet a brother or a sister somewhere in Egypt who has stomach problems, a fever, they're not feeling very well and they're like, I came here thinking that I was going back to the land of the Nile to kind of relive this romanticized notion of my grandparents. And I got typhoid, man. Intellectually as well as spiritually. And I said yeah, because they listen to who they listen to. And you listen to the Backstreet Boys, man. It's a whole nother world. It's a whole nother system. So seeing those people come back home. Addressing Misunderstood Texts

And we started to address the issues of Hijra. We started to address the issues of violent aggression against the innocent. We addressed some of the common misunderstood texts.

For example, the Prophet's statement, (أُمِرْتُ أَنْ أُقَاتِلَ النَّاسَ - Umirtu an uqatila an-nas) - I was ordered to fight the people. We tried to address issues of participation in the community.

And we tried to address, most importantly, that in order for Muslim Americans to really feel confident and to maintain or fulfill their divine role as members of the community, they're going to have to make their own calls on certain issues. So if you look at our website and other websites, you will find constantly overseas scholars being quoted and referenced, which is important. But very rarely will you find, for example, recently, Sheikh Yasir Qadhi from Yale, who has Muslim Matters, excellent blog, actually took the time to write an article dealing with the concept of separation of church and state, the Constitution of the United States of America, on his own.

And I applaud him for that. Sheikh Abdullah Hamid Ali here at Zaytuna recently wrote an article on scholarly consensus on his own. So now you're seeing that change from just regurgitating the translators, quote unquote, to now this synthesis.

And that's something that we try to encourage. We have a staff of around five or six people, two American Muslims who study in Al-Azhar. There are two, as I know now, two or three American girls studying in Al- Azhar.

One of them from Afghan descent and another from Pakistan or India. We have three converts studying in the College of Islamic Law, myself. And trying to keep them involved in dealing with the community.

Pattern Four: The Convert Experience

Finally, it's a lot to say, and only one tongue to say it all, right? Feeling that, as American Muslims, I'm in a very difficult position. Because even with the children of immigrants, I don't really feel comfortable sometimes. And why I say that is, I don't care about the People's Party, Altaf Hussain, MQM, and Benazir Bhutto, may God have mercy on her, and her husband, and he got hung in the late 70s, or her dad, or whoever, in Pakistan or Egypt.

I'm not really concerned about Ahmed Naji, and Ayman Nour, and al-Baradei's back. I'm worried about Obama. And running into converts in America.

Last year, an African American brother was making six figures a year, who has trouble getting married in our community because of the stigma of racism that exists in the Muslim community, comes to me, and basically says, I'm lonely. And I was like, you know, I'm lonely too. I'm in Egypt far from home.

But I told him, you know, he's like, you know, I just wanna go out and kick it, you know? I'm like, me too. He's like, no, not kick it like Balochi dances and stuff.

I mean, can I kick it like Q-Tip? So, I said, yes you can. For sure.

Running into a convert community, who in many ways, with all respect, is treated kind of like a handicapped community. We have our own doors, we have our own clubs within the mosque, but you don't find us on the board of any masjids. If you look at Muslim organizations outside, for example, Zaytuna and a few others, you will not find converts participating in the actual discourse of the community. But who is more qualified to present Islam to the people of this country? Other people from this country.

Stories of Marginalization

So, running into that frustration, which is articulated well in Dr. Sherman Jackson's book, of brothers and Muslim sisters who come to me, another person came to me a week later, here in Santa Clara, six figures, works for Facebook, brilliant guy, graduated from Stanford, African American, comes to me, stands at the door of the mosque, my office, and says, am I haram?

It's like, are you haram? Haram means forbidden. It's like, thawban, or libasan, or sha'ran? And he, what way are you haram? He said, no, like, totally. Like, in my totality, do you see anything haram with me? So, I was like, not really.

I like, actually, where'd you get those shoes from? I'm not gonna give you my shoes. Got a sale, you know? I said, sit down, what's wrong with you? Brother was visibly upset. Said, you know, when I go to the mosque, people constantly come and complain about how I'm dressed.

I was like, okay, look, I'm gonna write this down for you. Carry this in your pocket. Imam Suhaib Webb said, I'm not haram.

Put that in your wallet. But can you imagine how, you know, we're not used to regulatory religion. And that's something that we struggle with.

But even the prophet taught us how to be wise when we deal with people. So, a convert community that needs room to breathe and grow and make mistakes. A sister contacted me from a state who just converted to Islam, and she was upset on the phone.

And I asked her, what was the problem? And she said, I left Jumu'ah prayer and I took off my hijab. I just became Muslim. You know, if I wear hijab at home, my mother and father are gonna go crazy.

That's a reality. You know, if my relatives see me in the street with hijab on, things get ugly. And, Imam, I'm struggling.

You don't have to tell me I'm doing something wrong. I know it. But I got issues.

The law is one thing and practicing it is another. She said, but when I leave the masjid, even with the hijab on, a man pulls up next to me and says, I just wanna let you know that you're dressed improperly, and pulls off. I said, that's not gonna fly here, man.

Although your intentions are great and you have an obligation, if you have knowledge, to teach the people, but dealing with that convert component, a community that's kind of misplaced, although 50% of American Muslims are converts, don't really have a voice, being a place where they can kind of come and vent a little bit, and let some steam off, if you will, and express some of their frustrations.

Now that, I see a lot of brothers and sisters who are obviously not the children of people from Oklahoma. And I'm saying this, and they're going, because that also applies to them.

But as a convert, struggling with that, and also struggling not to be anyone's poster boy, the great white hope, it's not gonna happen.

Summary of Patterns Observed

So those are things that we struggled with, that we felt on, in the blogosphere:

Number one, expanding an acceptable feeling for people to be part of the community, which could not happen, really, in a lot of communities, to be honest with you, just because of cultural baggage, as well as some misunderstandings of religious texts. Try to expand the maidan, or the square of who the community is.

And it's very clear, if anyone reads any book on creed, in classical tradition, you'll find one of the first principles is that no one is taken out of Islam for a sin they commit. Of course, associating partners with God is the only one. But even there, the person is allowed to repent.

Number two, realizing that al-Azhar is not the answer for America. That tradition is not the only answer for Muslims in America. But a synthesis, as Dr. Sherman told me, when I left to Egypt and started to study, study with one eye open, brother.

Have a filter. Don't come back and regurgitate those classical texts here and expect that to work, because those classical texts are not holy.

Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb

Wajahat Ali, one of our dear brothers, he contacted me a few months ago about Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb, the land of Islam and the land of war.

I told him, Wajahat, it's not found in the Quran, it's not found in the sunnah. It has nothing to do with revelation. That's a political theory that was put together by a student of Abu Hanifa, al-Shaybani, who basically was acting as the Huntington of his age.

Instead of the clash of civilizations, he was asked to describe the political climate of the Muslim world. Harun al-Rashid asked him, Sif ayyamana hadhihi - describe our times. And he said, ayyamuna ya amir al-mu'minin, or daruna, he said, Sif darana - describe our land.

He said, daruna dar al-Islam wa daruhum dar al-Harb - our land is the land of Islam and their land is the land of war. That was how this all started.

Wajahat was like, what? I said, Wajahat, it's not in Quran, it's not in sunnah. He said, I never knew this. I had always assumed that this was something that is like binding on us to hold on to.

But if you look out through history, Imam al-Shashi, the great Muslim legal theorist, at the end of his lifetime, he says that, you know, this division is good, but it doesn't fit our days. And he took that stance and said, this is the land of Islam, this is the people who are not Muslims, that's how we'll divide these lands. So, dealing with that.

The Collapse of Authority

Number three, the collapse of authority. That Muslims, till now, don't have, and clergy sometimes assume, you know, Bernard Weiss says in The Spirit of Islamic Law, that contemporary Muslim scholarship builds its authority by being retroactive. So, they'll kind of like relive their experiences of like, you know, Ibn Taymiyyah with the philosophers, and al-Ghazali, you know, with the philosophers, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal with, you know, the Mu'tazilites, and Ibn Abbas with the Khawarij, and gain some kind of authoritative feeling from that.

But if you were to go to most young Muslims in Egypt and ask them, do you know who Qadi Abd al-Jabbar al- Mu'tazili was? Like, who? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Lakers? It's like, no. Qadi Abd al-Jabbar al-Mu'tazili, wrote a book in Usul al-Fiqh, it's one of the greatest books ever written. Like, I don't know who you're talking about.

And once, in a cab in Egypt, this happened to me. A young man, he asked me a question, and I said, let me ask you a question. He said, yeah.

I said, do you know who Abd al-Rahman al-Suyuti is? Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti. He said, yeah, he gives the khutbah in Zamalek on Fridays. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He died 911 after hijri, bro. Then I was like, do you know who Nancy Ajram is? Oh. Wasafaha wasfan tamman - and he described her completely.

And then I ask him, why do you like Amr Khaled? Why don't you like us, the dudes with the red hats? Why when we show up, you guys flee? But when Amr Khaled comes, Amr Khaled, God bless him, if he gives a speech in Cairo, 15,000 people go. I mean, it's like, it's incredible. It's like, you know, something, it's a sight to see the whole city just kind of moving towards 6th of October where he gives his talk.

He said, because he speaks the language of the youth. We understand what he says. But when you guys talk, lughat al-mashayikh la tufham - the language of the scholars is not understood.

It's like, that language is not understood. So, the same thing here in America. We cannot regurgitate those very difficult texts, like the Mukhtasar, for example, of Ibn Hajib in Usul al-Fiqh.

How many people in the world now can understand that text? And then I'm telling you, in order to be a good Muslim, you have to master this tradition, which for, I would say, 90% of the Muslim world is not understandable. That's not gonna work.

Overwhelming Questions and Issues

Number four, dealing within that absence of authority with a plethora of thoughts and problems and ideas, which, honestly, I haven't written for my own blog in probably three months, just because it's overwhelming.

It's almost impossible to handle the number of questions, inquiries, problems, and also good things that we see. Muslims contacting us, for example, a young doctor studied in the University of Michigan who actually wrote an article but went to Jamaica, contacted us saying, look, I'm volunteering in this village in Jamaica to help these young people. There's a lot of very good stories.

Ziba was a very wonderful story. Bilqis Abdul-Qadir, if you know, the great basketball player, wonderful story. But just massive issues which are related to being exposed to 1,000 different ideas and having an absence of authority.

The fourth that I talked about is the converts, kind of like the prodigal son, so to speak, but still not having come home yet, yeah, struggling really to find a place of orientation and rest, and trying to create an understanding that ultimately maintaining your Americanness and maintaining your position and place in society and synthesizing that with your religion is really your ultimate challenge, and that's very difficult for people to realize, myself included, and I really went through that problem.

And finally, encouraging the children of immigrants too, because they have a lot of problems. We were talking today earlier how the marriage issue for any single young girl, if you're talented or if you're well-spoken or if you're in the community, the aunties are gonna be on you like white on rice, basically.

And as well as the brothers struggling to get married, struggling to live up to certain cultural constructs which are almost impossible to replicate in America, and allowing them kind of have some space.

Future Directions

Earned Authority

What I think, or where I think we're headed is a good question, as I finish. I would say number one is that

Gender Balance in Scholarship

Number two, I think we're gonna see a more gender-balanced effort.

In the Sharia College in Cairo now, we have, I believe, around 15,000 girls graduating every year. So over time, these people, they talk, yeah? They write, they talk, in fact, today we published an article on our website by one of those graduates who speaks English, she's applying for a Fulbright, so if anyone knows any connections, can talk to me. Sister Najah, an Egyptian girl who graduated from Al-Azhar, she's bilingual, and her article today, that I read, is a very profound article on differences in Islamic law.

So I think you're gonna start to see that, especially here in America, that sisters have a lot of questions, and really, the absence of scholarship for them is profound, it's malnourished. And I think Zaytuna here is doing a good job of trying to address that, as well as other organizations like al-Maghrib is doing a good job of that. But creating a climate where women can actually engage in scholarship.

Ordaining Imams

One thing that I would hope to do when I move back to the Bay, and to America, is to ordain imams. And to create a battery of exams that would not only be for men, but also for women, that would allow people to have faith in the intellectual credibility of their clerics.

And one of the requirements for that exam would definitely be a popular culture battery of questions, and I'm dead serious. 50 Cent is not change, bling bling is not silverware. And understanding who you're talking to as an imam, and being relevant to young people, and to the community, is very important. And not forcing anyone to be ordained, but to let people feel comfortable with scholarship in their community.

Adding also a psychological component to that, counseling component, as well as a battery of exams that would not focus on one aspect of the tradition, but would include even Shia Islam. So that now you have a well grounded cleric who exhibits the maturity to respect, even though he might not agree. I can disagree with you, but I can respect you.

With certain traditions, but he's literate, or she's literate of those things. That's something that we, I myself, would like to see happen in the next five to 10 years, that there would be kind of a battery of exams that could be offered, not forced upon anyone, to those people who claim the mantle of clergy, within the American Muslim community. That would not only test their ability to understand Islamic issues, but cultural issues, historical issues.

Cultural Understanding for Clergy

I was in Al-Azhar, one of the best things I've learned, training with a Mufti now who is in America, Dr.

Muhammad Wissam, is when he would call me, and say, I got a question from America, but I'm missing something. Can you, can I ask you a few questions? And the questions that he would ask are strictly cultural. You know, the Islamic side, he's a Mufti, he's one of the top students of Dr. Ali Gomaa.

He has everything memorized. He memorized the Quran when he was probably six. But not knowing who he's dealing with in the West.

So I remember we had a question from a convert in New York City, who said, I'm scared to wear hijab. If I wear a hijab, I don't know what's gonna happen. Because I'm in New York City and there's no mosques.

So she just converted. So I told him, Sheikh, we have like 600 mosques in New York City. I don't think she's been around very much. Maybe she converted at Barnes and Noble or something. Sheikh Barnes doesn't have a mosque. But maybe Sheikh Noble does.

And then telling him that and him saying, oh, okay, so there's like, you know, in America you have mosques? I was like, yeah, we have a lot. And we have schools and Quran schools. Like, you can walk outside with hijab on, no one hurts you.

He's like, well, I, he didn't know that. And I said, Sheikh, I wanna show you something. So I showed him the speech of Martin Luther King, I've been to the mountaintop.

So he was, he understands English. So he was watching Martin Luther King. And I said, Sheikh, do you know who that is? He said, I have no idea, but his language is unbelievable.

I said, Sheikh, that's one of the most important historical figures in America, the last like 60 years. He's like, you know what I want you to do, Suhaib? Because he came to me one day and he said, (أَنَا أَمْسِ شَاهِدْتُ فِيلْمًا، عَجِيبًا. اِسْمُهُ - ana ams shahidtu filman, ajeeban. Ismuhu), the scent of a woman.

So I met him one day, he told me, I saw a film last night called The Scent of a Woman. And I was using torrents. I said, hey, hey, Sheikh. Scent of a woman is one thing, but torrents is another, Sheikh. I was like, so are you saying torrents are halal? He's like, don't write that down.

But then he told me, I asked him, Sheikh, why are you watching The Scent of a Woman? He said, I'm going to America.

I was like, shouldn't you watch Coming to America with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall? But the Sheikh told me something that was profound. He said, I need to try to understand that place. I said, you're not gonna do it watching The Scent of a Woman, Sheikh.

Although you might get a little something, but your wife is gonna get mad at you, Sheikh. But working there and him constantly calling me and training me also, but realizing that most of his questions are about us, cultural issues. And him telling me, you guys are lucky because you live there, you have this and you have that.

I don't have that. I have that problem in Egypt. When Egyptians come to me and ask questions, I'm in the dark, smoke and mirrors.

I can give you the answer from Al-Mughni of Ibn Qudama, but I don't know the cultural nuances that exist here.

Conclusion: Synthesizing American Muslim Identity

So realizing, I would say at the end, that American Muslims in all of their greatness and all of their struggles, whether it's the Salafis, whether it's the Sufis, whether it's Sheikh Hamza, whether it's Sheikh Yasir, whether it's Dr. Sherman Jackson, even someone like Dr. Tariq Ramadan, Jamal Badawi, the GTU, this effort is all really an effort to synthesize that expression as American Muslims, to come to grips with being comfortable. And I think this is a great platform to work towards that.

And I ask God to bless this effort and to bless everyone here. And I thank you for your time. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm good, man. Jazakumullah khayr.

Q&A Session

Moderator's Opening Reflections

Professor Munir Jiwa: Thank you, Imam Suhaib. We're going to open it up for Q&A, if you can keep your comments brief and pose it as a question and maybe I'll take the liberty of just a few reflections first.

One of the things that, I mean, out of the many things you spoke about, a few that just kind of came to mind in terms of thinking about, you know, what online communities do and what they enable and what a virtual community does that doesn't, you know, that's not always possible in sort of real communities. But there's a sense that what is real and imagined and what is public and private is all sort of blurred when we're talking about kind of virtual worlds, including what is local and global. And when you talked about language, I thought it was interesting.

It's not just kind of a cultural translation that needs to happen or a religious translation, but there's also questions around, you know, the languages that prevail. So when you talk about American Islam or Muslims in America or American Muslims, perhaps, you know, English becomes that language and perhaps even more so than Arabic. But on that note, I wanted to maybe probe this as a kind of or raise a sort of problematic as I see it.

One of the things is this possibility of interpreting what you have shared with us so brilliantly is this, you know, the way in which Muslims are kind of created into good Muslims and bad Muslims, you know, good Muslims being the American Muslims and sort of bad Muslims everywhere else. And I wonder if there is a sense as Muslims kind of come to deal with their American-ness, if there's a larger process in America where Muslims who are here get to be the good Muslims and sort of Muslims all around in the world are the bad ones.

And so I wonder if you could maybe address this issue. And then also how American Muslims get mobilized into, again, being the spokespeople for the Ummah. Then the opposite is that many Muslims feel themselves to be global citizens, you know, and in fact always have to prove their patriotism in this country. So there's a fine line between claiming your American-ness and having to perform American-ness to be the patriotic Muslim or a patriotic citizen, which others actually don't have to do.

Non-Muslims don't get to do that. So there's both this fine line between how much of your American-ness you can claim as a Muslim without feeding into this whole idea about being, you know, the good patriot, because

that rhetoric is certainly, and in fact, we're trying to push Muslims to be, to make sure that they're as global as any time before. So it's just the idea is that to be a person in this world is to be, you know, to have this kind of consciousness of a global citizen.

So I just want to raise that as a question of how the good Muslim, bad Muslim gets mobilized in the rhetoric of claiming American-ness as an identity. And then we can open it up to the audience as well. So thank you.

Can I just, sorry, make an announcement? For those who might want to pray Maghrib, you're welcome to use the next room or outside.

Question One: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim

Imam Suhaib Webb: One of the issues that I wanted to speak about, as you reminded me, is that American Muslims are constantly forced to answer or speak on behalf of global Muslims. To the extent that if you find, for example, Dr. Hatem Bazian, I believe was on Bill O'Reilly's show, Sheikh Bill, a few years back.

And the first question, I believe, he asked him was about the Palestinian crisis and the idea of suicide bombers and terrorism. And Hatem answered brilliantly when he said, why are you trying to define me through that? Why don't you define me as an associate professor, UC Berkeley, someone who started the Zaytuna Institute?

So one of the struggles that we have to deal with often, especially, I can say that from a convert perspective, is that we have to separate ourselves from being spokesmen for the rest of the world. I'm not responsible for what happens in the rest of the world.

My circle of influence is very small. I have two kids and that's about it. And even that sometimes gets challenged.

But having to speak on behalf or validate or invalidate the actions of people that I have no relation to. I have never met them. I remember once I landed in LA and our friends at the TSA, who are nice people, I mean, they're nice people, one of them asking me, do you know Osama? So I was kind of shocked, you know, like, how would I meet Osama? I mean, like, one day I was on Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn and I was having, like, you know, a halal coney dog and I met, like, Osama? Where did I meet Osama? And the question was put to me as though I really had knowledge or an ability to know anything about someone who lives in a cave.

And I was offended, not because of the association of terrorism, I mean, that's what they have to do, but why would you expect me to speak on behalf of, I know more about Bob Stoops, the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, than I do about Osama bin Laden. So one of the challenges that we've had is, and you mentioned it, is to define ourselves as American Muslims and to stake our claim in that and to answer to that and to be responsible for that. But at the same time, we cannot demonize the Muslims in the East.

And what I'm referring to are the orthodox, broad community of Muslims, not terrorist organizations, people who are killing the innocent, anything that's going to violate American law, we obviously have to speak to it as a community, because we live in America. But outside of that, their countries and their problems are their problems and their countries. We've seen that you cannot build democracy with an army, and how are we going to be able to do it from here as Muslim speakers? It would be very difficult.

On Patriotism and Community Diversity

So I would say, number one, we have to present ourselves as a community that's concerned about America. And not just from the point of rhetoric, without appearing to drink too much of the Kool-Aid. I guess that's what you were alluding to about patriotism.

But also, if there are Muslims who want to drink Kool-Aid, let them drink Kool-Aid. Because that's part of our community. There's Muslims who don't want to vote, that's your business.

But we cannot force a strict set of definitions on our community, or create trouble and problems. So the question's a good question, but ultimately, it's going to be very difficult to just give a definition. We're a very broad community, a very different community.

I mean, all of us know how many masajid, how many mosques are in Oakland. And how different are they? Very different communities, just in Oakland itself. So creating a very specific set of definitions is problematic.

And that's why al-Shatibi, who I constantly quote, a remarkable scholar, talks about the concept of Islamic universals. The maqasid al-kulliyah, where we define ourselves through these universals, and where actually Islamic law left the particulars to culture and society. So for example, in the Qur'an, God talks about the rights of the woman who's married to a man through a legitimate contract.

One of them is called nafqah, which is, he has to spend on her. But the Qur'an does not define in clear terms nafqah. It does not say, you know, (يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اشْتَرُوا الْوَرْدَةَ - Ya ayyuha alladhina amanu ishtaru al-wardah) - And, Oh, you who believe, go buy roses.

(وَآتُوهَا إِلَى أَزْوَاجِكُم ذَٰلِكُمْ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ - Wa atibuha ila azwajikum dhalikum khayrun lakum in kuntum la ta'lamun) - It doesn't say that in the Qur'an. It leaves it open to culture. So I think also that leadership of the Muslim community, who are writing, people like Dr. Sherman and others, on Islamic Western theological issues, are going to have to do so in the light of those big universals.

And then when we're addressing our own communities, where we live, not even as a nation, it would be very difficult to define, I mean, look at Northern California, like I was telling them on the way here, you know, in Northern California, I never saw a McCain sign anywhere. But I went to visit Oklahoma, I didn't see one Obama sign. I mean, really, just night and day.

So I think particulars are going to have to be left to local communities and local scholarship. It would be very difficult to put those particulars and use those as definitions for a whole community. As for patriotism, I think we need to encourage patriotism.

The Irvine 11 Example

I think that, you know, I supported the 11 youth in Irvine, I don't know if you guys are aware. And the reason that I did that, and some people got mad at me, they said, you're a radical, and I was like, so you're telling these 11 young American Muslims that they can't be jihadists, they can't go grab a gun and kill someone. But when it comes to doing something that's as American as apple pie, standing up and protesting is very American.

You're going to stop them from that, too. Then don't be surprised if they join a jihadist group, because you're suffocating their expression. You might not agree, I might not have agreed with how they did it.

Question Two: Re-engaging Disconnected Muslims

Other questions, comments, reflections, please, at the back in the middle.

Audience Member: I had a question, and towards the end of your speech, you talked about where the community is headed in terms of outreach, and you mentioned that authority needs to be earned. And I think that's really a salient comment.

And I think the question is, how do we, how can one as a virtual, a member of the virtual community, go towards the community, approach the community, and try to re-engage people who maybe aren't Muslim, but were raised Muslim, or had gone through the whole entire arc of being overzealous and then dropping it completely. How do we re-engage people who have distanced themselves from their religion, from their spiritual identity, because of this sort of suffocating experience that you described that's happening to a lot of people within the confines of their homes, or within the religious authorities that raised them, or that locked them up.

And then as they grow older, they find themselves going through normal cultural life experiences in colleges and universities, workplaces, and realizing that they have a spiritual identity, and trying to put those two together.

How can we as a virtual member in a virtual community, where there's distance, you know, where there's a screening that separates you from another person, how can we re-engage people through that? Because, you know, as much as I love the computer, and I love reading blogs and writing posts, and making comments, I know that when I'm impacted by a person, it's because I have face-to-face contact. That changes everything. The dynamic of being able to stand up and ask a question, and hear you answer it, is very different than typing a question on the computer.

And so, I'm really interested in, yes, having virtual communities, but also having actual spaces, and when you have gender-segregated spaces, like you do in colleges, I think that really creates issues when you want to

discuss topics that are relevant to this culture. Maybe not in every country, but I hope I'm not wrong. It's all right.

It's good. It's no problem.

Imam Suhaib Webb: I think that we have to realize that we're limited in our role and our effect on people online. I mean, I would really hope that, you know, people aren't finding 100% fulfillment through digital life, you know?

But, one pattern also that I've noticed by people who are regular is loneliness. So, Zubair here is with me, we try to actually personally answer things. So, using that celebrity status, I don't like to look at it that way, but like you said now, and actually answering questions, and that kind of drove me crazy.

But, trying to actually contact people personally, and then, I'll give you an example. And I don't want to emphasize myself, because I'm nothing, but just recently in Egypt, I get a message on my phone from a young girl who says, I have four bottles of vodka in my house, and I gotta drink. I was like, definitely, four bottles of vodka.

Someone's gonna drink it, right? And just developing a relationship with a girl I don't know through messages on my phone. And actually, I put her as struggler. Her name on my list is struggler.

And contacting every day and saying, I'm not drinking. I'm going crazy. I'm not drinking.

And then, realizing that she just needs to hear from someone, don't drink, man. And then, getting her, actually building a relationship with her to the point that now I have her in contact with a counselor. But, are we able to do that for everybody that we run into? I think that's impossible.

The Waning of National Organizations

And I think that, and this is a pattern that I do see in the Muslim community in America that you should note, is that the importance of national organizations is waning. The idea of, in Muslims, really, Malcolm X was an amazing person, but he's almost a difficult historical figure to deal with. Because the converts are all waiting for a Malcolm-esque-like figure to take us and lead us to the River Jordan.

Because we have a lot of Christian theology in our mind as converts. We're still waiting for a messiah in the Muslim community. Not necessarily the theological concept of a messiah, but that Malcolm-esque figure.

That type leader, whether it's Siraj Wahhaj, Imam Hamza, Imam Zaid, and so on and so forth. Cat Stevens, even. I think that's impossible now.

The diversity of the community. Number two, Muslim immigrant organizations became strong in the 60s and 70s and 80s because there were very few Muslims in America at that time. Outside of the indigenous Muslims, who were already well-organized with the leadership of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, may Allah have mercy upon him.

But as Muslim communities became more diverse, and as our numbers started to spread, and halal stores started to pop up everywhere, it wasn't a big deal to go to a conference every year. So if you run into uncles and aunties

who were like, I remember back in 1960, you know, when there was just like, there was just one place to pray Jumu'ah. We had to drive like five hours.

So amazing, we saw like five Muslims there. We've all heard these stories. We would like drive from Tucson to LA to buy halal lamb.

So at that time, it meant something to have a national organization that you belonged to, to kind of help you orientate yourself and give you a feeling of authentication. Now, if you look, for example, MCA, MCA had one year 17,000 people for an Eid prayer. They're not really in need of a national organization.

The national organization is in need of their money. And I'm saying that, with all respect, that you're finding communities are serving themselves now. So they have their own doctors, they have their own counselors, they have their own youth organizations.

Local Connections and Mentorship

So that absence. So what we try to do, and to get to your question, when meeting people who are like middle-aged, who have kind of converted again, is to find people that we know within the areas that they live, who they can meet up with. For example, Imam Mahdi in the Adams Center in the DC area is a good example.

Sister Zainab Ansari in Atlanta, very, very amazing sister that we try to get them in touch with. Sister Heather, the wife of Dr. Sherman Jackson, someone that we try to get them in touch with. Finding someone locally that can ultimately mentor them and take care of them.

Thirdly, what we try to do is get them part of the blog. So actually, a lot of writers on our website were people who stumbled across the website and kind of started redeveloping a relationship with God on their own terms, and with Islam on their own terms. And some of them come in and say, look, man, so hey, I still smoke weed, man.

You know? I said, look, just do your best. Try to stop. You know? He's like, I know, I know, it's haram.

Don't say that. But ultimately coming out of that through his or her own development is something that we found has a much more profound impact than me going and saying, you know what, according to Al-Azhar University, smoking weed is haram. Sheikh Ali Gomaa said smoking weed is haram.

Ultimately coming to his own conclusions or her own conclusions was very important. So number one, the absence of really needing national organizations, whereas local communities are very strong. So directing people to those local communities.

Number two, getting people involved, actually, in their own spirituality, expressing themselves and feeling confident in themselves is also very important.

Question Three: Drawing People to the Website

Audience Member: I'm wondering at a practical level, who stumbles across your website? How is the pathway? Do you know how many Buddhist sites there are? You've often talked in your conferences, about more synthesis, you mentioned in your translation. How do you get there?

Imam Suhaib Webb: That's a very good question. She asked, how do you know or how do you draw people to your website? Initially, we didn't really know how to do that. So I learned a trick with Google.

God bless Google. And that is that if you put a word like porn or murder or terrorism or jihadist, you get a lot of hits. I mean, honestly. Hey, that's my trick. So don't use that for your own blogs.

But we really attracted people who were frustrated with that translation process and with that synthesis process and who kind of said, you know, for example, we translated an article by a scholar about Independence Day.

I mean, all across the Muslim world. You know, I was a convert. I was told the first week, all your holidays are forbidden.

So I go home to my mom. It's Mother's Day. And, you know, you got to go to church on Sunday with mom.

You know, she's got her hat on. And it's Oklahoma. And I'm like, Haram.

And you can imagine the continental divide that was created in my house. And then I go to the Muslim world and they're celebrating everything. I mean, they have in Egypt, because of the Pharaonic times, they have like holidays every week in Egypt, right? And then going to scholars and saying, like, what are you celebrating these holidays for? And they were like, what? You don't celebrate? I was like, everything.

I was told birthdays and Mother's Day. So we started to kind of sift through classical Muslim tradition. Because you have to do that in order to keep yourself authenticated with the community in all honesty.

You can be a rebel. I think the progressive Muslim movement is an excellent example of that. A movement who I certainly don't agree with a lot of what they had to say.

But I do agree with a lot of what they had to say as well. Like, for example, I think those walls should be torn down in the back of mosques. The Prophet probably didn't have a wall.

But if I were to say that in my own community, and I did it once, and the biggest backlash was from women. Not from men. In fact, a sister came to me and said, you know, you're a sellout.

You went to Al-Azhar and you got that red hat. It's over with. I said, look, the Berlin Wall was torn down.

Now we can't tear down a wall. My daughter, when I punish my daughter, what do I make her look at? I'll put her facing a wall. So now she's in a mosque.

Listening to a speech about, you know, she just went to the MSA where everyone was sitting together. And Sheikh Jamal Badawi was talking about how Islam, you know, liberated women. But when she goes to the mosque, there's the wall? You like the new wallpaper? But, you know, we'll get some cameras.

And I was in one community where they were so uncomfortable even with the camera that they thought their wife was going to look at the khatib and get all hot about it. Honestly. That they ordered the cameras to be removed.

Because we're not comfortable with who we are. So we dealt with that frustration. And you mentioned, one of our brilliant scholars, he's a Hanbali jurist from Kuwait.

He's from Oklahoma. He converted. His name is Abu Majeed.

He wrote an article about the khutbah in English. Which was in USA Today. They ran some stuff on it as well as the Washington Post.

But the amount of responses we got from people. They were just like, yeah, you know, my whole life I wanted to hear a speech in English on Friday. And I never could.

And I lost my religion because that was the only time I'd go to the mosque. And I one time attended a mosque. And it also happened to Sheikh Hamza where they ordered me to give the speech in Arabic.

So I said, you know, I'm just going to do it. I just want to see what happens. I want to live through it.

I want to be a Hanafi for a minute. But not from Turkey. So I gave the speech in Arabic.

At first in English. Nobody was in the mosque. It was me and the cockroaches.

But then when I started to speak in Arabic, the three minute khutbah. The masjid was crowded. They didn't understand one word.

I could have been telling the recipe for baba ghanoush. And they would have said ameen. Allah zidna zaytan. Allah zidna batingan. They would have said ameen.

So we ran into people through kind of the topics that we dealt with. The issue of synthesis. The issue of translation. Presenting.

We have a series on American Muslims who are involved. And that's where I met Ziba and others. Who are just living their lives, man.

You know, I think she asked you the question in the interview. Are you like a representative for Muslim women? You're like, no, that's what I do. That's how I live my daily life.

You know, finally other people would say, you know what? I do that too. That's what I do. I didn't do it to be, you know, like the next Rabi'a al-Adawiyya.

That's what I love to do as a person. So we ran into people really through topics. That we chose.

Especially those topics about language. Issues of worship. Issues of, more liberal positions that had to be taken legally.

From the point of ritual law, we seem to attract a larger audience. From those who agree and then those who really let us have it.

Question Four: Building Community Relationships

Audience Member: Thank you so very much for just making yourself a human person by saying that you will make mistakes. I think part of the problem, the community has a problem going to the scholars because they believe that they're perfect so if they go with their problems, they're going to be judged. And I would love to

know what is it that I, as an individual, could do for the community? Because it is that they're seen as a monolith. That also goes back to the question that she asked too.

Imam Suhaib Webb: You need to befriend people, first of all. You have to be, you cannot go to someone and feel that you have to change their life religiously and then somehow feel that you've authenticated yourself doing that. I think there was a, two days ago there was an article that came out that people who spend more time chatting and like posting on Facebook and Twitter are like much more prone to be unhappy than people who sit and have meaningful conversations with their spouse, for example.

I mean, duh. Unfortunately, our tax dollars are spent to come to that conclusion. So you have to develop a meaningful relationship with people, man.

And they have to feel that you love them. That you care about them. And that's very simple.

I mean, it's like in Oklahoma we have mashed potatoes, that's considered like comfort food. If someone comes over to you and makes them happy, mashed potatoes, man. It's like dal and rice, I guess for you.

So getting to have that comfort feeling with people is extremely important, Auntie. You cannot just say, you know, like a number of our convert sisters tell me, and even sisters who revert who are already Muslim, right, I mean they come back to their religion, that the first thing that someone gave me was a hijab. And I'll tell you an interesting story.

I have a lot. But this one is probably up there, the top five. And you talk about interfaith, this is the story.

Story: Korean Sunday School Teacher

A Korean lady comes to me in Santa Clara, calls me and says, I need to see you, no one can be there. It's like, wow, what's going on? I mean, it's kind of a strange request. Because I might end up on like, you know, Fox News or something.

A video or something. So she comes to me and she says, Imam, I'm a Sunday school teacher. You know, I grew up in Sunday school, not Muslim Sunday school.

No, no, no, I'm talking about the felt board with the disciples. You know, and then the tuna sandwiches, and the Kool-Aid, the VBS. So, that Sunday school.

I was like, so you're a Christian Sunday school teacher? She was like, I'm Muslim. So I was like, wait a minute, you're a Muslim? You're teaching Sunday school? And she's like, at this huge church. I can't say the name, I don't want to get in trouble.

So I was like, how? Like, how'd that happen? She's like, I just converted to Islam. And I'm like, spiritually torn. I don't know what to do.

And I've been, I love these kids. I've been teaching them for like 10 years. And I'm just sticking to the 10 commandments, because I know that Islam and the 10 commandments go together.

And I don't want to disrespect them. And I was like, wow. She's like, and if I quit the church, there could be some ramifications I can't mention here, because we're being filmed.

So I told her, keep teaching. But, you know, eventually you're going to have to admit, theologically, that you have to make some decisions. But at this moment in time, you can't.

So she was like, I mean, she almost fell over. And she's like, you know, I really don't want to, I'm not teaching anything that goes against their religion, and I'm not teaching anything that goes against our religion, but I'm just really in a very difficult situation. So that's a woman that needs a mentor in the community.

She needs someone to come and hug her and say, hey, you know, it's all right, sweetheart. You're going to be OK. And I had once a sister that came to me who had serious, serious family problems, and I had to go find a woman to hug her.

No, it was fine. You know, I can't hug her. Islam, we have certain rules and regulations that we respect.

I metaphorically and emotionally hugged her, for sure. I would have probably suffocated her, because she was kind of small. So I went and found a woman, and I said, would you mind just being like a hug buddy for this girl? And she was like, sure.

So she just came and hugged her, and I talked to her, and she was crying. And then a year later, that hug, the hugger, OK, not the hugged, the ism al-fa'il, came to me and said to me, you know, we're the best friends, man, because we trusted each other after that moment.

So you're going to deal with converts, number one, it's not going to be romantic, they're going to have problems, you're going to have problems, cultural issues, but you've got to be committed to cultivating friendship, man.

The Prophetic Model of Brotherhood

And I believe in communities, in the Muslim communities, we need to take the prophetic model of pairing people up, man. MSAs can do that. In Medina, what did the prophet do? He took people who didn't know each other and said, you guys are going to be brothers for a while.

You guys are going to be sisters for a while. Getting to know each other, man, and feeling relaxed with each other is extremely important. So investing in that relationship, first and foremost.

Sister Samina, you're being humble. You have an entire conference that's coming up from fear to friendship, so we'll announce it again as well, but Sister Amina, please.

Question Five: Balancing Tolerance and Standards

Audience Member: I actually have ten questions, but I'm only going to do two. We talked about strictness that Muslims have with each other, and this kind of puritanical attitude, but you also say these other extreme words, like, have it your way, I think that was your expression, have it your way as well, where you don't ever want to say anything to anybody because you might offend them or you might, you know, not apply standards. So how do you kind of balance that out?

And the second question I have is, you know, anytime I go on an article about Islam, I always go to the end of the article and look at the comments, and I usually feel kind of safe at the end of it, but I kind of limit it. It just seems like, you know, the internet brings out the worst in people, or is it just people who spend their life saying, people may be writing these really nasty comments, so what is your perspective on that? A, and B, are you the recipient of that? And do you view the cons as well as the pros? And how much of that do you accept?

Imam Suhaib Webb: The first question? I just came from Cairo, don't forget.

How do you balance between not being judgmental, but also not just saying anything goes? Well, yeah, I think we have to respond to that with the usul, and the usul are the foundations of our religion, or orthodoxy. Does that mean that we treat people who are not orthodox as not being Muslim? No.

Imam Ibn Taymiyyah, who unfortunately, many times is misrepresented as this kind of intolerant, harsh, you know, unfortunately that's due to a number of reasons, that a lot of his books that were brought out, Ibn Taymiyyah wrote without putting any spaces between words, he wrote so fast.

So his Arabic writing is like a line. There was a person that was in charge of actually rewriting what he wrote in his lifetime. So you have, for example, the collection Majmu' al-Fatawa of Ibn Taymiyyah, where even the topical headings are mistranslated back into Arabic.

So, for example, you have the chapter on Genghis Khan and the Tartars, where it says, so they translate as, they translate as churches and the polytheists, where actually it's Genghis Khan and the Tartars, that's how off the guy was who was trying to read the Arabic.

Then you read this really harsh language, like, wow, you know, I'm not bringing him to an interfaith club, I mean, Ibn Taymiyyah. He was talking about people who were invading and killing his people, not churches and Genghis Khan.

Ibn Taymiyyah on the Khawarij

Ibn Taymiyyah said something interesting about the Khawarij, who were kind of the first extremist movement within the Muslim world, who considered, you know, the vast majority of Muslims as infidels, and actually declared their blood permissible, even killing some of the Prophet's companions and their wives. He said, even though they were definitely not Orthodox, when they died, we buried them as Muslims, we prayed upon them as Muslims, and we distributed their wealth as Muslims. We can invert that into our community.

Number one, we don't have the literacy that Muslims had many years ago, in the sense of, even in the Muslim world, a societal literacy, where, for example, even now if you go to Mauritania, because of the language, kids are still poets. They can just rattle off lines of poetry, Arabic poetry, without even thinking about it, where in most of the Arab world now, you don't have that. People are struggling even with basic sentence structure because of slang that's spread in the Arab community.

So what do we say about American Muslims who are far away from really living, quote unquote, in a society where scholars are everywhere, and you have this rich intellectual tradition within Muslim communities, not in academia? We cannot expect them to be at the same level of those Muslims that we're reading about in classical texts. Just because of the absence of that connection, and the reality of living in a completely different world.

So we have to respect Orthodoxy, and I think in order to keep ourselves safe, I will say that as someone who's trained, but at the same time, we're going to have to give people room to make mistakes.

Being Critical with Ethics

We can criticize, we cannot be utopian, in our democratic understanding of Islam, so to speak. We're going to have to be critical, but let's be critical with ethics. Let's be critical in a way that we're not threatening people physically.

So that gets into some email, I mean, I've received emails from some militant Sufis. When I agreed to teach for al-Maghrib institute, oh wow! I got may Allah guide you. You have destroyed the Ummah.

Things like this were just very violent, harsh messages, and I'll be honest with you, I haven't seen a trend amongst the Salafis or the Sufis, but what I've seen a trend is from people who are arrogant because of self-righteousness. Regardless of their orientation. Regardless of them being Sufi, Salafi.

The Jihadists, I haven't had a lot of interaction with, just a few questions here and there, or even having given a speech somewhere and then receiving like an anonymous message. But nothing personally threatening. But I will say something.

Sorry. That we are going to have to change our understanding of Sufism to deal with the West. And when I'm saying that, or the modern world.

Taqwa in the Digital Age

The idea of being alone in front of a computer is really one of the most important pivotal moments in the life of a person to prove if they're God conscious. Nobody sees me now. So instead of projecting Sufism or Ihsan to some type of romanticized historic guru who flew on a rug or something.

As Shaykh Uthman Dan Fodio talked about. Your Sufism or your Ihsan with God is when you're in front of that computer and you're talking bad about somebody or threatening somebody or bullying somebody. Because you don't feel responsible.

You're able to type whatever you want. As you said, there was a time, actually this is one of my teachers I'm talking to here. There was a time where we stopped comments on our website.

Because it was just, somebody came to me and said, I'm not reading there because of your comments. I was like, well, don't read the comments. No, I have to go to the bottom.

I was like, that's your fault, not my fault. But actually we stopped the comments for about two or three months. And then we started again and people were like, okay, we promise.

We got the idea. But really, spirituality now has to be redefined within the framework of what we are living now. And that computer is one of the biggest tests of Taqwa.

As the Prophet said, to worship God as though you see Him, even though you can't see Him, but you should know at least He sees you. So if you're typing on the computer and you're being harsh or rude or talking about

someone in a bad way, man, where's your God consciousness?

When the Prophet told us very clearly:

(Sahih al-Bukhari 6018, Sahih Muslim 47)

Man kana yu'minu billahi wa al-yawm al-akhir falyaqul khayran aw liyasmut - Whoever believes in God and the last day, let him speak well or remain silent.

It's directly linked with belief in God and belief in the last day will come out in that character, that behavior.

Closing Remarks

Professor Munir Jiwa: I think that's a great way to end the program. I want to just, if you can join me in thanking Imam Suhaib Webb again.

[Applause]