Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? [a split from: Tough Decisions in life

I use to go to jumah, after they said second prayer. So I have to listen anty shia/ahmidy/christian/deobandy/wahabi bul****.
I didn’t go to any other prayes because I was lazy + I clearly remember that “you should not say prayer behind an imam you disagree to”

Those morons have access to loud speakers, where they use to prove how shia were kafir and how ahmdies should be confronted. Yes I did not want stand behind such a guy.
Not in this life time.

I mean even they bent over guy like bhutto and do him in the ..

Re: Tough Decisions in life

as a matter of fact, open an other thread I will show how we use "ISLAM" to screw our society.
In fact its not islam, its us. Its like monkey having a match.
We just don't deserve such an advance ideology .
we donot understand it.

I understand your dismay and it is a diff topic and a good topic maybe we should even split or copy this and have a diff thread,

have you ever thought why it is the way it is?

its us bro...all of us..we did nto speak up, we were not involved in our masajid, i mean especially in pakistan really..seriously...many people just go to this place on Jummahs and thats it, not that everyone here goes for all prayers..actually I think more ppl go to their local masjid regularly than we do in the west but here we get involved due to community reasons, over there even fi you are going several times a day, many ppl are just not involved enough.

so where do the imams/khateebs come from, where are they getting their training from, who hires them, what is teh criteria that is used to hire them, how are they evaluated, who evaluates them, who do you complain to.. most ppl dont even know that.

now lets go to the topic of the imam and khatibs themselves, who are they? what kid in our community grows up saying he wants to be an imam..none that I know..and this is coming from a family where my maternal side is very religious and i have cousins in theri teens who are hafiz..but its just not seen as a real career choice

so it has to be a rare individual who could have done anything but decided to pursue this path, many are those who had few other options, or aptitude for other things, some are from very poor backgrounds and went thru rans of madrassa to become imams.

some of the institutions in the country are very good for religious education, some are not, some try to expose students to other subjects, others dont, those who expose the students to other subjects, some do it thru their own lens, some do it fairly unbiased way.

so u have a mixed bag of ppl getting in these roles, and when we are not engaged and in some rural areas where these guys get this sort of power..we are in for a bad situation.

but anywas the questions I wrote above, i really dont know the answers to those myself..by the time I started thinking about them I had moved back from pakistan..

Re: Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? a split from: Tough Decisions in lif

Dude PM, you are taking it to the next extreme. You cannot dis all the scholars just because you are not in agreement with your neighborhood Mullah.

And what is wrong in calling a Kaafir, Kaafir. Quran called Kuffar, Kuffar, Prophet did that. All of a sudden, why is it a taboo after 1500 years.

Re: Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? a split from: Tough Decisions in lif

so you agree with the ppl who are calling shia kaffir?
kaffir means non believer..and I think PM is upset that some ppl took it upon themselves to call shia non believer..I see his point

Did Prophet ever call a self-proclaimed Muslim a Kafir?

No I am not saying that I am OK with Shia being called Kaafir. What I am saying that their are scholars who know what they are talking about and then there are half baked mullahs. We should not confuse one with the other.

I dont have knowledge so I cannot distinguish officially, but there are groups/Sects amongst Muslims who are doing stuff that is against the basic/core teaching of Islam. It is dangerous for our imaan if we do not recognize them. Okay maybe we want to be politically correct and not go out and announce that these people are not Muslims, but it is important for us to at least know that.

No, but he called them Munafiq..

Exactly. These takfiris mullahs are going against the Sunnah of the Prophet.

you were there brother. Listening them is as some one suffocating you to death.
To them every one is going to hell.

I have heard that a million times when world comes to end there will be 72 sects, only one will go to heaven.
We are simply not capable of understanding quran and God will/mood towads things.
We rather depend on good scholars and self contradictory books.

Allah promise us that quran will be protected, and we see it is. Not even non muslis scholars ague about quran not being word of God.
BUT
God did not promise to protect "any" other books. Not bukhari or any thing.

Their mood in the mosque is almost to confront ppl. (confronting pak style)

I am a lucky SOB my faher knew arabic, every time I had a question he gave me referance from Quran.
And its beautiful book. I just love it!!

But what mullah is do is plain ugly!!!

Re: Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? a split from: Tough Decisions in lif

anyways, the issue is not who is kaffir, munafiq, but the issues of why our masajid, khateeb and imam are the way many are..

There is non-professionalisms in every profession. Medical malpractice, accounting frauds, court injustice ... same with deen. But making real scholars and half baked Mullahs stand in the same line and treating them the same way is not right.

And to answer PM's comment, if you are going just by QUran, did Quran not call Yahood o Nasara, kuffar, so why is it an issue if you local Mullah says that

[quote]
I use to go to jumah, after they said second prayer. So I have to listen anty shia/ahmidy/christian/deobandy/wahabi bul****
[/quote]

Re: Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? a split from: Tough Decisions in lif

That issue arises from the fact that many masjids employ not just unqualified imams but also imams who do not know how to communicate effectively.

We have a position open at our local masjid currently and we've interviewed sevaral applicants. The reason why the position hasn't been filled yet is because most applicants were too immature to deal with the kind of crowd that comes there. Our previous imam was not only an aalim, but had gone through several years of extensive education in various fiqhs in South Africa, had excellent command over the language (English & Arabic) and was able to answer questions in perspective. He was also a good leader as he didn't sink into political pressures of the "board" and established right rules such as moonsighting issues, etc. Sadly, he had to leave due to visa issues.

We need more such people. It isn't enough to just know the subject, but to understand, communicate and compare. You must also be able to relate with people.

come on you could do better then that!

see I was kafir my self for couple of years. My friends called me so I laughed.
Now who ever don't believe is non believer. Understood.

But what with using those word to make ppl hate a group of our own country men.
I mean in best era of islam thay had mosques and church across the street from each other.

Now imagine a mullah telling poor ppl thay they are kafir some thing mw need to hate??

See my points is 1500 years ago

kufar = ppl who tried to kill Phophet.
now
Kufar = could the ppl like mother treesa and stuff.

Point here is when u use a overly hatred term "karaf" for poor ppl, the negitive sentiments get attached to that poor group.
Remember Prophet loved a karif king of athopia???

Re: Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? [a split from: Tough Decisions in lif

Majority of the people who have gained some kind of education , liberal arts, politics, engineering , science , medicine and who have analytical abilities , critical thinking and open minds they are yearning for different breed of Ulema a Islam. Typical Mullah from a typical madarsa will not meet their standards. There are many scholars now who relate to new world and its challenges and they are addressing these issues in the light of Islamic teachings.
I am impressed with many of them.
You can find lectures by some of them here:
Aswat Al-Islam.net (www.aswatalislam.net)

1- sure so lets talk about why such a large number of your regular masjid khateebs and imams not quite the enlightened gentle sould we would expect them to be?

2- whats the diff between, kaffir and ahl e kitab? and even if they are called that, does quran call shia or deobandis or any other sect kaffir? there is no precedence yes there wereno sects then but what we see done is over the top

I have seen deobandi and barelvi and some other group masjid within a stones throw of each other in pakistan, ppl go to one not to other, one badmouths the other group and vice versa...is that what we need to focus on.

we are way too focused on hellfire and brimstone, and 'chal nikal islaam kay dairay say' type of stuff, or just gender stuff...really..thats not all there is to it u know

true..the good thing is that we do see more people choosing to go towards this as a career.
because when this topic has come up in the past I have asked ppl, how many have asked or wished that theiur kids become an imam...
whatever teh answers may have been, the faces told a diff story

Re: Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? a split from: Tough Decisions in lif

as Niksik mentioned, this is because most of the Imams are not qualified and here is where our role (or lack of it) comes in. Specially in Pakistan people dont take interest in Mosque's everyday business. Even 5 time Namazi's just go there 5 times, and jet out in a min.

We should get more involve in our neighborhood mosque and I am sure Mosque's committee will not be able to hire such incompetent mulanas. I have lived live for quite some time in US and now I am in Canada. In USA I have lived CA, TX, NC and VA and believe me almost 60%-70% of the Imamas I met were "illegal" in US. I mean how can you be a muslim if you dont follow the rule of the land? If I remember correctly, Muhammad (saw) has stressed upon us to follow the rule of the land/country we live in (unless its against the preaching of Islams).

Re: Why are Imams and Masjids the way they are? a split from: Tough Decisions in lif

In addition to my above post, I'd like to add that a lot of barbarism comes from lack of knowledge at home.

Example, many muslims have no concept of islam (sadly) but are influenced by cultural decisions, and monkey see monkey do kind of stuff. Now that I am involved in our local masjid, madrassah I realize that many things were have picked up along the way are not just incorrect Islamically but so widely practiced. So if there was consistency of knowledge, disagreements would be fewer.

Why is it that on every Eid all local masjids fight over the correct day? We see 2 sometimes 3 different Eid days within the same city. Some imams succumb to the pressures of ignorant community members and go against their principles and belief system.

Regarding why imams and khateebs may not be as gentle as we expect them to be... maybe because we as a community are also less tolerant now, we have unrealistic expectations, we like to dump everything on the Imam...what about our responsibility as a muslim? Yes there are imams who don't know how to deal with people but there are also community members who have a problem with everything.

There is a hadeeth that gives out the resolution of this issue. I am paraphrasing but its says that if two obviously Muslim people calling each other Kaafir, then one of them is Kaafir. I found this hadeeth always so beautiful and full of wisdom.

Me calling someone kaafir is not going to make that person kaafir.

and to answer your other comment, here is a quote form a Shia website

Kafir means non-believers, there are two types of Kafirs...one are Ahle-Kitaab which have been deemed as clean by most of our scholars today. The other type of kafirs are polytheist/atheists, which have been deemed as najis

Okay, so if we dis Bukhari/Tirmizi/Muslim cause those books are not PURE anymore that could you kindly tell me how would I perform my salaat then. You might know Quran better than me but I dont remember anywhere in Quran where it teaches how to perform Salat, how many rakaat, how to perform wudoo and all that good stuff.

Quran is the best book but you cannot follow that book by dissing Hadith and Sunnah, cause that is the practical application of Quran, a demonstration on how to follow .. if you may