IACN Launches 'Mosques Development Project' (MDP)

8 Dec 2003

Arguing about the appalling state of Muslims is commonplace within our gatherings.  Typically these arguments tend to start and end with criticism; sometimes lasting several hours and can even, in some extreme cases, extend to abuse and exchange of blows.

Such scenes occur, quite often, when the main topic of discussion is the condition of our mosques.  Arguments for the sake of argument are a waste of time and get us nowhere.  Islam requires both faith and action and hence it is crucial that we act and not just speak.  How many of us have actually taken the time and visited our local mosque to put across our concerns? Solutions are of no use if kept to ourselves.

Over a period of time, we have been monitoring several mosques around the country and their internal mechanics such as how they function and cater for our spiritual needs, their involvement & interaction with society, their role in the community, etc.  It cannot be denied that mosques have the capacity to play a tremendous role in shaping the lives of Muslims and benefit the society as a whole.

Unfortunately during this investigation many commonly held myths were shown to be true.  Three observations help illustrate this:

1) Lack of community engagement

During the peak of the Denis MacShane controversy, we contacted around 13 mosques in Sheffield & Rotherham area.  Not even a single mosque was aware of this matter.  Comments such as “brother we don’t go into politics” were not uncommon.  We were surprised at the way mosques viewed issues.  It seems that if it is not to do with prayers and the mosque itself then it must be 'politics'.   We are not suggesting that they stand in parliamentary elections.  Is asking them to make an announcement about an affair that concerns Muslims or simply register a complaint too much?

2) Violence against children

How long are we going to put up with our children being regularly assaulted during Quran classes? We know it happens and we know it pushes away kids from Islam.  Yet we don't attempt to stop it.  Some of the punishments we came across were:

- Striking the back with bare hands

- Caning of the palms & ankles

- Slapping across the face

- Being a "murga" for long periods (where you have to bring your arms from behind through your legs to hold your ears in the crouching position) 

Are torture camps being run here? This is not Islam.

3) Absence of dawa to non-Muslims

IACN approached an 'elder' in a mosque and queried him as to why they don't give dawa to non-Muslims.  The reply we received was astounding.  "Arder nahi mila," he squirmed (Translation: Haven't received the order).

"Who didn't give the order?" we asked. "Whoever it was, can it be above the order of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) to propagate Islam?" we queried.

He defended his point of view by saying that:

- Muslims should put their own houses in order first

- When all the Muslims have perfected their iman, the non-Muslims will automatically accept Islam

"So when will this happen? How long do we have to wait? How many non-Muslims must die before we start sharing our faith? What will we say on the Day of Judgment when those non-Muslims question us?" - We argued.

He tried to switch to the Seerah of the Prophet (pbuh):

- Look at the Makkan stage. Weren't thirteen years spent working on the Muslims alone?

We replied - "Islam was incomplete then and the Quran was still being revealed.  Today we have Islam in its complete form and we are commanded to spread the message even if we know one verse."

We explained that the spiritual work they were doing with Muslims was good, but it should not be the only work they do. As Muslims we should be excellent in all disciplines.

[The above conversation was entirely in Urdu and we have presented only a rough translation]

A desire to monitor, advise and improve the state of our mosques has enabled IACN to officially launch a national Mosques Development Project.  The approach will be to firstly establish links with mosques around the country.  We will then monitor things such as:

-          Interaction with the community

-          Youth education & development programmes

-          Women’s affairs

-          Treatment of children

After that we will privately advise them on their shortcomings and how they could improve to help the Muslims.  We will offer them full training if required. 

Insha’Allah this will be a very large-scale project and there are well over a thousand mosques in the UK.  Taking this into account we would like other like-minded Muslim organisations to work with us on this project as this way we would be able to share the workload.

We would like you to tell us about your mosque.  How active is it? How good a job is it doing to cater for your worship and Islamic knowledge needs? Are they doing anything to protect Muslim interests in the community?

Mosques are the Houses of Allah and as such they need to be dynamic and vibrant role models reflecting the true spirit of Islam.