ICCL Seminar Dissects Extremist's Call

 With headlines screaming of bloodshed from Istanbul to Cameroon to Jakarta in every newspaper, a seminar held on maintaining faith in times of extremism at the Islamic Community Center of Laurel in Laurel, Maryland on January 10, 2016 drew a large crowd.
 
Centering around Islamic definitions of extremism and faith-based solutions, it was presented by American scholars Mufti Hussain Kamani of the Qalam Institute and Imam Mikaeel Smith of the Islamic Society of Annapolis. The seminar focused on the reasons for the extremism and what Muslims of the area should be doing to build a healthy community.
 
Mufti Kamani shared that extremism rises due to exclusivity (declaring people non Muslims), decontextualizing sacred texts, and lack of suhbah (companionship) with learned scholars.
 
“The first group of people who lead to extremism are those who speak without knowledge. When we see someone with ibadaah, we tend to assume that the person also has attained knowledge,” said Mufti Kamani. He explained the function of a hafidh is to preserve the Qur'an. “His knowledge of the intricacies of Fiqh and understanding its principles and being able to give legal verdicts do not exist because he memorized the Qur'an when he was 8 or 9 years old. There is no guarantee of the comprehension of the deen from a person who has memorized the Qur'an. People will soon be quoted the MBC Omar series! I understand everyone wants to give an opinion [but] I want to give you one piece of advice,” he said. Quoting Ali (by Allah be pleased with him), he suggested that if you do not know something and are sitting in front of those who do know something, the best thing to do is to remain silent. “Silence has never harmed anyone, whereas speaking has,” said Mufti Kamani.
 
The second group of people the Prophet (peace be upon him) warned us about are the people who have hijacked the religion, he said. “Corrupted scholarship is an unknown enemy— one wrong word from the podium has an effect on the whole community.”
 
“Extremists are people who are already tampering in the Deen. These are people who are not ignorant, they are knowledgeable, but they have a wrong agenda. They are attributing falsehood to the deen. They are attributing false things to the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him). This is very dangerous.”
 
He shared that when he first heard that Baghdadi had declared a caliphate, he called around to ask about him. “He announced his Khilafah on YouTube … on YouTube! Who is this guy?” He called teachers and scholars in Iraq and Syria and no one knew him. “We couldn’t profile these guys. I tried but I could not find a single book attributed to this person,” said Mufti Kamani. 
 
He said this is not the first time in Islamic history that we are dealing with extremism. The first group known for their deviance in Islamic history is a group known as the Khawarij. This was one of the first times Muslims saw extremism as a political platform. The Khawarij came after 25 years of the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) death, and the Prophet Muhammad had warned the Muslim ummah of a group of people who will be very righteous outwardly, but internally their faith and their knowledge will have zero impact on the hearts. These will be people who will be void of spirituality, so the knowledge will manifest itself externally but internally these will be people with lost souls, as they won’t be connected to Allah, he said.  “Just because someone has ibadaah does not make him or her credible in matters of jurisprudence, Islamic politics, or theology,” said Mufti Kamani.
 
He advised parents to connect their children to trusted people of knowledge from their local communities. “The crux of this situation of extremism is the lack of companionship— the kids who leave to Syria or Turkey etc., they don’t have exposure to orthodox Islam and companionship,” he stressed. 
 
“What we have deduced from this situation so far is that the psychology of [ISIS] is that they don’t want to include – they want to exclude. Because they create certain parameters of religion around you that are so extreme that naturally every single person will fall outside those boundaries and the only person left in that boundary will be you. That’s the nature of it. Islam is not to restrict someone's life. Islam is a very natural [way of] life – it’s a fitrah [innate nature],” he said. 
 
Imam Mikaeel Smith, who is of African American heritage, presented solutions to the community hungry for practical ways to maintain the faith of their families.
 
“Sometimes your weaknesses are your actual strength,” he said, noting that this time of pressure can make us stronger in faith. He spoke to the largely immigrant community: ”You are not the first class citizens as you believed [you would be] when you moved here; you will be moved to the back of the bus like we were; you will have to prove yourself just as African Americans had to,” he said. He urged the community to realize that they were placed in the United States for a reason. If immigrants had come here for a comfortable life, they should change their intention and renew it for Allah’s sake. 
 
He gave clear suggestions: Build ties with other minorities especially the African Americans’ as they are the Bani Hashim of our times, and tap into the spiritual power by connecting to Allah through prayers.  
 
He also reprimanded people for going on national media and claiming that Muslims are exactly like everyone else. “When you say you are like everyone else you lose the ability to correct and critique the society,” said Imam Mikaeel. While doing this he said the community should work on projects that humanize Muslims. “We as a society have to engage the whole community on the platform of Muslims.  We must ‘break bread’; we have to add the human element.”
 
Imam Mikaeel also urged masajid to cater to the youth, the elders and women. 
 
“The seminar was a need of the times,” said S. S., a mother of five boys. An African American attendee was pleased to hear the solutions and was happy with the inclusive nature of the event. “I thoroughly enjoyed it and will implement some of these suggestion in my teaching,” she said.