Ingrid Mattson – Foundational Teachings of the Hurma Project
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AI: Transcript ©
It's such a, an honor
and a blessing to be here with you
today,
and I'm so excited
about tomorrow.
It's amazing to see the people,
who have so much expertise in much needed
areas.
I I know this subject is,
kind of a downer for many people, but
I feel really excited.
I feel excited because I know that our
religion
has the values and the principles
and the teachings that are necessary
to do the right thing.
And I see that our community is at
a stage in growth where we have
many,
scholars, especially women scholars,
therapists, mental health experts,
so many people doing excellent good work. The
kind of work and expertise and commitment that
we need to move forward. And I have
so much confidence that with Allah's help, we
will,
be in a much different place a few
years
from now than we are today.
Insha'Allah.
The messenger of Allah,
the blessed prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, our
teacher and purified guide, said,
The most merciful,
the,
the most merciful
sends his mercy
upon those who have mercy. Have mercy upon
those who are on earth,
and the one who is in
heaven will have mercy upon you.
I heard this hadith from a
great living scholar of hadith
who conveyed to us his
from his father,
from his father's teacher
through the generations
back to the Sahabi, Abdullah ibn Amir ibn
Alass, to the blessed prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Why does this matter?
Why does this isnad? Why does this connection
of people matter?
The isnaad in the 1st centuries of Islam
was first and foremost
an epistemological
tool
to to ensure the integrity of the transmission.
But it was never enough
for a person to have a good memory
and knowledge of what they were transmitting.
Was always a requirement for the transmitter.
Is purported
when,
there is evidence
that a person
is a truthful person.
And if there is evidence that a person
has lied, this will impact the assessment of
his or her probity.
Even small lies
could degrade a person's status.
Now there is no infallible person after the
blessed prophet. That is true.
We are all
even
we are all people who make mistakes and
commit sins,
even the the
noble companions of the blessed prophet,
may God's peace and blessings be upon him,
committed errors
and sinned,
But not all sins are the same.
Not all people are equal in virtue,
trustworthiness,
and integrity.
We should certainly avoid what
the 19th century,
Danish
philosopher
Kierkegaard
called the leveling process
common in the modern age where people say,
well, everyone's human.
No. We have standards
and we hold ourselves to standards.
The relationship between teachers and students in Islam
has never been just about the transmission of
knowledge.
Allah, the most high, chose to convey revelation
through purified prophets.
The message was conveyed
through the messengers.
Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam is the last messenger, and
there will never be
after him another
messenger
nor an infallible teacher.
It is reported that the prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him, said that the scholars are
the inheritors
of the prophets.
What does this mean?
It does not mean that anyone who calls
him or herself a scholar
is necessarily
so and must be absolutely
obeyed.
It is first and foremost
a factual description
that we are a community
who necessarily
relies on scholars to transmit, interpret, and contextualize
the Quran and the Sunnah.
As
said to the,
the Quran is a book between 2 covers.
It does not speak, rather it is people
who speak through
it. Ask someone who has memorized the Quran
about their teacher.
Ask how it felt to sit with their
teacher hour after hour.
Ask them about their teacher's behavior, how they
treated them,
about the place where they studied the Quran.
What was the setting?
Was there a table? Was there a carpet?
What was the room like?
Ask about their teacher's voice,
how she recited the Quran,
her tone,
the pace of her recitation.
Ask how it sounded when she recited the
Quran when she was older or had a
cold.
Ask those who know a hadith text or
a legal text about their teacher
and how they felt when they weren't prepared
for class
or when their teacher encouraged and praised them
and shook their hand or gave them a
hug.
The stories you will hear are rich with
detail and emotion.
A religion is not just an idea,
It is a practice
a practice in a community.
We are embedded
in relationships
with living people and people who have gone
before us.
Our knowledge, our worship, our common life together
is embodied.
We bring the Quran into our hearts.
We position our body in.
We line up with 1 person to our
right and another to our left, our sides
touching each other.
We feel the heat of the other person's
body.
We feel their fidgeting.
We hear their joints crack as they make
sujood.
We fast and know not just the idea
of hunger, but what hunger feels like in
the belly,
in a headache of dehydration,
in fatigue, and listlessness.
We are embodied souls who will be reembodied
by our creator at the resurrection
and god willing will be granted entry to
a place of joy and reunion.
As Muslims, we cover our bodies. We refrain
from intimate touch with others
until lawful marriage
because this relationship
matters.
Marriage is a solemn covenant.
In marriage, we expose our vulnerabilities,
emotional,
physical, and spiritual.
Our community reminds us again and again about
how important it is to refrain from unlawful
intimacy
because it is sinful
and because doing so can negatively
impact
a future marriage and family life.
And now I'm going to talk about some
difficult things.
So what is the impact
then
when a young boy
eager,
keen to learn,
is sexually molested
by his Quran teacher?
What is the impact when the teacher who
taught you Arabic and how to pray abuses
you emotionally,
demeans you, and berates you?
What is the impact on the scholar you
admire
and for whose project you sacrificed your evenings
and weekends and wealth and time with family
is using the money to enrich himself
personally.
What is the impact when a young woman
unsure of herself,
confused by what she hears about Islam,
decides to commit herself to learning?
She attends a conference
trying out a hijab, a pretty one that
gives her some confidence
because she still feels self confident self conscious.
She goes to the conference where a charismatic
preacher whose lecture lectures she has watched online
is speaking.
At the end of the session, she approaches
him to ask a question, which he answers.
Later, they cross paths in the hall. He
calls to her.
She approaches, and he tells her
how much he
admires her zeal for learning.
He asks if she is married.
When she says no, he says,
you are beautiful,
and he asks her for her number
and then proceeds
to send her text messages messages.
She is shocked.
She is confused.
She feels that she must have done something
wrong,
dressed the wrong way,
acted the wrong way with this scholar.
She feels ashamed, guilty,
and disillusioned
and leaves the conference
conference
dejected.
What happens then when any one of these
boys or girls or men or women
disclose what happened to them?
They tell people in the community
and they're disbelieved,
they're blamed,
they're told that they are telling lies,
they are told that they are exaggerating.
Now here is the second harm.
They cannot just forget
when such things have happened.
Those things are in them.
They are woven into their very selves, into
their emotional,
physical,
and spiritual
selves.
The blessed prophet Muhammad
taught us
that each person in the community has sacred
and viability.
One day, the messenger of God was riding
his camel and a man was holding its
reins.
The prophet asked,
what day is it?
And the companion who's narrating this hadith,
Abu Bakr says
that the prophet,
when the prophet asked what day is it,
that they kept quiet thinking he might give
that day another name.
And he
said, isn't it the day of Neher, the
day of sacrificing the animals?
We replied yes.
The prophet further asked, which month is this?
We again kept quiet thinking that he might
give it another name.
Then
he
said, isn't it the month of Dhul Hijjah?
We replied yes.
And he said,
indeed,
your blood, your property, and honor are inviolable
to one another like the sacred and viability,
the horma,
of this day of yours,
in this month of yours, and in this
city of yours.
It is incumbent upon those who are present
to inform those who are absent
because those who are absent might comprehend this
better than those who are present.
What an extraordinary
teaching.
The sacrality
of the person
is the same as the sacrality
of the city of Medina,
of the month of.
How precious
are those times and those places to us?
Are the people of this religion
as precious
to us
as those places
and those times?
We pray here, all of us, to be
among those who understand this teaching
and can convey it to others.
So whose harman matters?
When we say blood, it means their life,
their bodily integrity, their body.
Whose honor
matters?
Whose
livelihood
matters?
Well, the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam
was very clear in his teachings.
All of the people who were degraded
in categories that were demeaned in his time,
he elevated.
He lived in a time
when the only person who truly had value
was the able-bodied,
free adult man.
The man it was those men who were
the
the fighting men of the tribe
to
lack
some,
physical ability
to be disabled
meant that you were not useful.
To be a woman, you were useful
only to the extent that you could bear
children
and
satisfy a man.
Those who worked with their hands were demeaned
while those who were free
to take
what they wanted without working
were elevated.
But the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
he let a little girl
who probably had some mental disability take him
by the hand and lead him through Medina.
He appointed a blind man
to be
his,
Khalifa, his deputy when he left left the
city.
He spoke kindly
with a woman who had epilepsy and told
her
that he could either cure her her disease
or
she could
continue to experience the consequences of that illness
and get the reward.
He didn't say your illness
is a curse on you.
And she chose
to continue in that illness, but asked for
the blessed prophet to cover her body when
she would have,
an a seizure.
Subhanallah.
When Sa'd ibn Mu'az
shook hands with the blessed prophet, the prophet
asked him, why are your hands so calloused?
And he said,
because
I use a trowel
to to farm to support my family.
The prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, kissed
his palms
and said, these two hands are loved by
God.
The prophet
Muhammad brought children
into the
of men. He seated his little daughter
in the place of honor
in the gathering.
He appointed a youth
to order men.
The prophet Muhammad, alaihis salasam,
overturned
every
single
hierarchy,
and he brought those who were considered low
high.
Do we do the same?
Did we learn that lesson?
And if we did,
why are our responses
to abuse of trust
by scholars
and prominent individuals
so deficient.
Denial
is
the most common human reaction.
When we hear something shocking, it is our
first reaction.
When Sayna Umar Ibn Al Khattab, may Allah
be pleased with him,
was told that the blessed prophet had died,
he became
angry and agitated.
He threatened to strike anyone who would say
that.
It was too shocking and too upsetting
And it was only when Saidna Abu Bakr
recited the Quran
that then he calmed down and realized that
it was true.
It is shocking
when someone who we trust,
who we think we can count on,
has betrayed our trust.
But the Quran
teaches us everything. SubhanAllah.
It is really,
you know, more proof of
that this is the word of God.
Look at the story of Sayna Yusuf.
If any of you had a young son,
who could you imagine
would be better
to care for and protect that son than
his older brothers?
Who would be more loyal? Who would be
more protective
of their little brother
than the older brothers.
Yet here we have
Sayna Yusuf's brothers
who themselves
are the sons of a prophet
who betray
that trust.
They
said, truly Joseph and his brother, the younger
brother, are more loved by our father than
we even though we
are a tight group. Our father has clearly
lost his way.
Kill Joseph.
Kill him
or send him away somewhere
so that your father will give his attention
back to you. Then later,
you can become righteous people again.
How deceived they were.
How blind they were to their responsibility
and to what they had learned.
Now eventually,
they realized what they had done,
but only after there had been great suffering
and it was only
when they admitted
that they had sinned that then there was
a chance for reconciliation.
So we have hope for reconciliation.
We have hope
that Allah will turn the hearts of people.
It is always possible. We never
deny that hope,
but we also know
that
the change has to come from the hearts
of people.
They have to first face the truth in
themselves. Joseph's brothers
were so deceived that even when he was
standing in front of them, they didn't recognize
him. That's how blind they were
to reality,
deceived by their own wishful thinking and rationalizations.
We are a community
that bases
our assessments
on facts and on evidence.
Evidence and not wishful thinking.
This is why there is one of the
one of the 5 major legal maxims
is
doubt,
that certainty is not removed by doubt.
How many times do we hear people
who faced with the evidence,
sometimes even a conviction in court, sometimes even
a confession
by someone who admits someone who admits that
they have
violated another.
I myself, just 2 weeks ago, heard someone
say,
well, maybe it could be that they're just
saying that because
and then spun some kind of fantasy.
K. That that wishful thinking
does not
this is the
the the the
the
the wishful thinking or doubt that has no
weight
compared to evidence.
This, that that principle is,
is,
illustrated in the,
the legal code of the Ottomans
with this example.
If it is said,
if a man appeared out of a house
with a knife in his
hand, he being stained with blood moving fast
and with symptoms of fear,
and upon seeing this, people entered the house
and found a man slain,
and there is no one else except the
man who went out of the house.
This man will be taken by this evidence
because no one doubts that he is the
murderer.
Because
the supposition
or the fantasy or the conspiracy theory
that someone else killed the man and jumped
over the wall
or that he himself committed suicide
is a remote chance and cannot be taken
into consideration
because there is no proof of it.
Evidence
matters.
I I love this community. I love the
Muslim community.
This is my family.
I have experienced
so much graciousness,
so much hospitality,
so much care.
This is where I learned my religion.
I know we are having a difficult time.
I know there
are so many things
wrong in the world,
and I know
so many are suffering because of attacks on
Islam,
unfair attacks, distortions of our teaching.
Islamophobia
is a reality.
And indeed, there are conspiracies
against Muslims.
No doubt that is true.
That is true, and it is also true
that we have people within our own community
who have abused and oppressed and exploited others.
Again, Allah
has provided us with everything we need to
know.
When Allah says,
oh,
you who believe, be steadfast in your devotion
to God, bearing witness to the truth with
equity,
and do not let the hatred of another
group towards you
let you swerve from justice.
Be just that is closest
to taqwa.
Be conscious of God.
Verily Allah is aware of all that you
do.
Allah created us. Allah is our creator and
so knows that when we are under attack
that
there are 2 reactions
that are very typical. 1 is that we
will attack back.
We're pushed. We push back.
The other thing is that when we're under
attack,
we
turn away
from
caring about justice within our own group.
You know, it's about circling the wagons.
And so not only
can we
deny justice or swerve from justice in our
response
if we don't fear Allah, if we don't
have,
but we can belittle and minimize the oppression
within our own group.
We can say, well, that doesn't matter. That's
not as important,
And it is so common. And it is,
you know, it's understandable,
but we can't allow this to continue to
happen.
We are told to recognize this tendency within
us, to recognize this reaction,
and then
do the right thing.
You know,
strengthen our spine,
be courageous,
and do the right thing.
It is not easy, though, to know what
the right thing is to do.
How many times have I heard someone say,
someone has to do something.
Right?
Someone has to do something.
There's a there's a common
social psychological
phenomenon called the bystander effect.
You've heard of it.
You know, how could it be that there
could be a whole group of people
watching someone being robbed and beaten and they
don't step forward and do something?
While if they were the only person there,
they might jump right in.
Because we're in that when we're in that
setting, in that group setting, we often think
to ourselves, well,
someone's gonna do something
or, you know, someone more qualified
than me is going to do something
or someone stronger is going to do something
or there must be someone in charge here.
Right?
So
I believe that for many of us,
we want to do the right thing.
And I've been in that situation before.
I've said
why isn't someone doing something?
But if everyone thinks that way, nothing will
get done.
It is
not an individual
obligation
unless we are the only one in the
place or the only one with knowledge. It
is a communal obligation. It is a for
us
to stop injustice
and to promote what is right.
This is the purpose of living in community.
There are things that can be done only
by the community.
But what does that mean? It means the
community has to organize
enough
to establish
systems and processes and councils
and
means and mechanisms
and experts in order to fulfill
these functions.
We have to stand up together
and
decide
how we will address
such problems. This is our purpose
as
a community,
And it is a purpose
that is,
that defines both men and women together.
This is not just for women to do,
it's not just for men to do,
but Allah
will bestow
his mercy.
It is upon those
believing men and believing women
who who promote what is right
and prescribe what is wrong, who work together
to do these things upon whom
Allah will have mercy.
We need the mercy of Allah.
I think there's no doubt
and so we need to work together.
Pain
is a sign that something is wrong with
the system.
That's true of bodily pain.
It's true of our social pain or community
pain.
When the community is scandalized
by a religious authority
abusing or exploiting other believers,
this can be a sign that we have
neglected our our
collective responsibility
to put in place systems of oversight and
accountability
to prevent
and to justly respond
to abusive
and exploitative
behavior.
Neglecting our collective responsibility
will lead to scandal.
So rather than blaming the victim when we're
in pain
hearing about this,
we're blaming
those who support
the victim.
And I'm going to say right now victim
rather than survivor because you know what? There's
some people who don't survive this.
There are those who survive this, but there
are some people who do not survive
abuse.
Spiritually, they do not survive it. Emotionally,
they do not survive it. Socially,
they do not survive it.
So when we feel the pain of these
scandals
rather than blaming
the victims
or blaming those who support the victims,
who report
about the abuser
rather than
taking that easy step and blaming someone who
cannot hurt us more,
then we need to look at our collective
responsibility.
And there are many people who have stepped
up.
You know, when we started the Horma project,
it was not because
no one was doing anything.
There are those who have been working hard.
There are
chaplains.
There are imams.
There are therapists. There are social workers.
People like Hart who are now,
have spent 10 years.
And how many of those years had the
community blamed them for supporting victims?
I I really hope that
that eventually those who have blamed them will
come to
apologize
to those
who were the only ones who stepped up.
You know, face in the last 2 years
has stepped up
and done very difficult work
of supporting
those who have been egregiously
violated
by religious leaders,
helping them through the legal process,
meticulous
meticulously
documenting
the harm,
using public records.
And yet people say, why do they have
to do that? Who gave them the right?
What authority do they have? They aren't the
ones who should do it. Why are they
doing it this way?
Lot of armchair criticisms.
Those critics, what have they done?
What steps have they taken?
I'm not saying that every person who has
intervened in any way has done everything perfectly.
We all make mistakes.
But are any mistakes
that those who have supported
victims and survivors are any mistakes that they've
made really comparable
to the harm caused
by a trusted religious leader
who is sexually molested
and abused
students
and others?
Where is our sense of proportion?
Whose body, whose honor,
whose livelihood
matters?
Is not
the of
the believers
equal?
So what are the solutions
and what are the problems?
How many of you
saw this film Spotlight?
Highly recommended.
Say, a a really good movie based on
the true story
of the investigative
reporters from the Boston Globe
who,
began researching
the cover up of priests, Roman Catholic priests,
who abused
children, sexually
abused children. So it's not the abuse, but
it's the cover up.
They were shocked. Why was the story not
picked up? And when they began
working on it, they became increasingly shocked at
the numbers
of people.
Now
the Roman Catholic Church is
the most
centralized,
organized,
and,
you know,
religious organization with a clear hierarchy and authority.
Yet that system
of oversight and accountability
was only used to more
perfectly cover up the crimes.
So that means that it's you know, our
problem is not just that we are, you
know, scattered,
decentralized,
grassroots
because one of the most egregious examples of
our time was a very centralized,
organized,
hierarchical,
well trained,
seminary trained
organization.
So
when it comes to I mean, there are
many different kinds of abuse, but what about
abuse of children? Is it about *? There
are some people who will say, well,
with Roman Catholic priests, obviously, the problem is
that they're celibate.
And so there's some kind of, like, sexual
energy that is displaced and then then ends
up being turned towards children.
Actually, what they found
what the experts found is celibacy was a
problem, but not for these reasons, not for
some kind of medieval
theory about sexual energy necessarily,
you know, coming out in some,
some deviant form if you are
celibate.
What they found was that, in fact,
approximately
half of the priests were not celibate. They
were engaged
in
a consensual
heterosexual
relationship
with an adult woman.
So many of them had consensual
relationships
with adult women,
long standing,
almost like a common law wife,
but they've taken a vow of celibacy.
And so
they
wanted to conceal that.
So the main problem is that there
was a culture of secrecy.
Why would
one priest not want to expose another priest?
Why not expose the priest, his fellow priest
who was abusing children?
Because he himself
was breaking his vow and was afraid that
if you
reported about that priest
that his own secret would be found out.
So it's the culture of secrecy
that creates a,
a very
problematic
atmosphere
where no one wants to report abuse.
So when we talk about
you know, we really have to and this
is one issue we'll be looking at at
the research conference tomorrow.
What is the difference between privacy,
which is
a legitimate
need and right of people
to have privacy in their life, even scholars
should be able to have a zone of
privacy
over their family life.
But what's the difference between privacy and secrecy?
Concealing
and bringing other people in
a conspiracy
of secrecy
so that
what they're doing won't be found out because
they know that there's something wrong with this.
When we look at
the reasons
why there have not been
sufficient
responses
to abuse.
There are many
there are many kinds of errors that have
occurred. 1 is an error of category,
and that's very evident with the with the,
concept of,
for example.
So what I mean by an error of
category is is putting something in in the
wrong place.
So putting a personal sin in the same
category as a violation of another's right.
Certainly,
we are supposed to,
we are told not to,
you know, tear off
the sitter, tear off or
or uncover or expose or out those
who are committing sins.
You know, that is between them and Allah
and we hope that with support,
that and with guidance that perhaps they will,
you know, eventually change their ways.
But the violation
of another's,
another person's right
is in a different category.
This is
a crime,
a violation of trust,
or oppression.
The prophet
Muhammad
said, help your brother
whether he's an oppressor or is oppressed.
And one of the companions asked,
oh messenger of Allah, I can help him
if he is oppressed, but how do you
see that I can help him if he
is an oppressor?
He, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, said stop him from his
oppression.
That is how you help him.
How are we helping people who are committing
sins
by allowing them to engage in those sins?
The best help
is to support them by stopping them
and and working with them if they are
willing
to change their ways
and
take responsibility
for the consequences of what they have done,
whether that means going to jail,
whether that means apologizing
and paying a fine, whether that means stepping
down from their position, whatever it is
to take responsibility,
to repent, and reform.
And
many people are capable of that,
but there are also those who are not.
There are those people who are predators,
who are sociopaths,
who are
narcissists,
who are incapable of seeing
what they have done as wrong. And from
those people, we only have to protect ourselves
and keep them when they're uncovered, when they're
discovered,
to keep them far away from us.
Disclosing
derogatory
information
about another
is not something that we should do
unless someone has been oppressed, unless
someone has been harmed.
And
then, not only
can they talk about it,
but those who advocate for them or support
them,
can also do that.
Imam Anawi,
may Allah have mercy on him and
talks about truth telling And he gives 5
examples, and this isn't a comprehensive
list,
but a kind of,
you know, key,
categories.
That in these five cases, it is permissible
to discuss the sins of another person.
It is permissible for an oppressed person to
speak to a judge or another person in
a position of authority
and explain how they were harmed by a
particular person.
Someone can solicit another person's help in trying
to stop
a particular person from continuing to do a
reprehensible thing,
a. 3, it is permissible to mention the
wrong actions of a person in seeking a
fatwa.
4, those who openly commit sinful actions.
5, one can openly call out bad qualities
of those who narrate hadith,
are witnesses in court, or are seeking marriage.
Also, seekers of knowledge should be warned from
studying with an innovator in religion.
So
again, this is an example of the kind
of categories
where disclosure is permissible,
not a comprehensive
list, but a good sample.
Another major error that people make when they're
discussing
instances or cases of abuse or exploitation
is that they engage in cherry picking
from traditional
legal positions.
I don't think anyone has really proven this
better,
in recent scholarship than Hina Azzam in her
book Sexual Violations in Islamic Law.
In that book, doctor Azzam,
demonstrates
how
she she compares the Maliki position and the
Hanafi position on sexual violations.
And she shows how they were quite distinct,
but that each
school has its own particular
logic.
So, for example, while the Madakee School does
allow pregnancy
to be used as evidence
for, engaging in unlawful
*.
At the same time, the Maliki School allows
for circumstantial evidence to be used
in,
proving
sexual violence
so that a woman can come and claim,
you know, make a report that she has
been
assaulted and her report and any circumstantial evidence
she has can be used,
against that person.
So that,
and then that evidence can be used even
in,
discretionary
punishment, something,
to,
is,
we could
is usually translated as discretionary punishment, and it
means the punishment that the judge or the
executive
can give a person if they haven't met
the threshold of a Haduid crime. So it
doesn't have to be, say,
you know, sexual violence to the point,
that,
say, a woman got pregnant,
but she could be molested or assaulted in
other ways and be subject to punishment.
According to the severity of the crime, she
can also demand compensation.
On the other hand, the Hanafis,
traditionally do not allow pregnancy
to be used as evidence
in,
in,
but they also do not allow the use
of circumstantial evidence.
And,
in this case,
it is a completely different doctrine
so that if a woman
is pregnant,
the Hanafis,
say that that could not be used as
evidence
that she has engaged
willingly and unlawful *.
But they also really restrict her ability to
report on that.
So the schools are very different.
Now the big problem, as doctor Azam shows,
is that in many contemporary Muslim societies,
people mix and match these two doctrines
to the point where
the result
is,
can cannot be characterized by anything other as
extreme oppression
to women
because it makes it impossible
for a woman to report her assault, but
also
she will can be convicted
of of on the basis of a,
a pregnancy.
So this is just one example where cherry
picking traditional legal positions
can result
in,
just a disaster.
And to do so is not
is
not
is
not law.
It is wrong to take one position
from a classical,
doctrine and say this is Islamic law. Islamic
law is a system.
Right? Law is a system. It's not just
a collection of opinions.
And people are,
are really committing a great deal of oppression
against people by doing this.
Not only
do you have to look at how
various opinions
were collected within a
coherent system,
a system that was
rational
and also
upheld the values of the Quran and Sunnah,
but you also have to look at how
law
functioned or how thick functioned
within
the whole,
legal system
that necessarily
includes
executive authority and judicial authority.
There is no law
without
judicial authority
and executive authority.
Rather, all you have are legal opinions.
So people who say, well,
well,
the the Shaafi'i madhab says this or the
Maliki madhab says this,
that's fine. Those are legal opinions, but that
is not law. That is not Islamic law.
Law is a system.
And there never has been,
you know,
edeb or etiquette
or fiqh without the existence of an executive
and a judicial
authority.
What is the executive authority? Executive authority is
the caliph or the sultan
or the king or the prime minister.
They are the ones who hold political power.
Judicial authority, this is the judge and all
of those who fall under the judge.
And
the it is the responsibility
of the chief executive
to hold all of those under his or
her authority accountable and responsible.
Saidna Umar Ibn Al Khotab
gave the chutba
and said, oh, people, I do not send
governors
to you to flog you or to take
your possessions.
I send them to teach you your religion
and the path you should follow.
If anything other than this is done to
anyone, he should raise the matter with me.
By him in whose hand is my soul,
I shall certainly permit the law of retaliation
to be used.
And
Saidna Ahmed ibn al As jumped up and
said, will you really permit the law of
retaliation
to be used against
any commander appointed over your subjects who disciplines
one of them?
Said no Ahmed replied, yes, I shall certainly
permit it.
And why not, as I have seen the
messenger of Allah allow the law of retaliation
against himself?
Do not beat Muslims
and humiliate them.
Do not keep them away from their families
and bring temptation upon them. Do not deny
them their rights
and turn them into disbelievers.
Do not settle them among thickets so that
you may lose them.
There has always been a chain of supervision
where anyone who is established in a position
of authority
was supervised by someone else.
So you have the walk, the charitable endowment,
whether that is a school or a masjid
or a university or anything,
it is supervised by a nazir or a
mutawali.
The,
the nazir or mutawali of the waqf is
supervised by the judge, by the qadi.
The and sometimes the imams are supervised by
the governor.
The governor is supervised by the chief of
staff or the vizier.
The chief of staff or the vizier is
supervised by the sultan or or caliph.
Now it's at this point where it gets
a little difficult.
Who will hold and check the Sultan or
the caliph?
Well, actually, the way it worked is that
nobles, notable,
or or prominent people in society,
scholars in the military
tended to hold,
hold the kelaf or the sultan or the
king in check.
Now how many of you recognize
this handsome gentleman
in profile here?
This is Suleiman al Qanuni,
the great
Ottoman caliph Soleiman.
He is known as Al Qanuni,
the lawgiver,
because of
his commitment
to making sure that all of those who
were under his authority, anyone who was put
in a position of power was held accountable,
was supervised,
was governed
by law,
and would not just use their power,
as they wished,
oppressing people.
This picture, by the way,
do you know where it comes from?
Anyone?
Supreme Court.
Congress.
Yeah. This is inside
inside
the congress.
This is actually in the chamber where the
lawgivers of the United States,
construct and debate law. He is one of,
I think, 20
individuals who are displayed in this hall for
upholding
justice
and law.
That's that's that's
our people. That's our tradition
is to hold people accountable.
I mean, this is all over the place.
You can look through,
you know,
throughout
the the, premodern
legal system.
Look at Caiyas e Sharia texts or,
manuals for judges or books of politics, and
you see again and again the list of
those
who held authority
to supervise
others
so that no preacher, no imam, no teacher,
no judge,
no one was without someone who supervised
them.
And the higher you rose in power and
position,
the harder you fell.
I mean,
while an ordinary person might be punished for
a crime,
if you were appointed as a judge
or a governor
or in a position of prime minister, or,
you
were in a position
of great power over others,
tax collectors even,
and you exploited those people,
you would be subject
to a
a discretionary
punishment, a
that will,
make your hair curl or straighten depending on
the original state of your hair.
I mean,
people were beaten.
They were mounted backwards on donkeys.
Their faces were covered with ashes. They were
paraded through the cities.
They were,
you know, heads were displayed
on the spikes at the gates of the
city. Now I'm not advocating
any of that.
Okay.
But what I'm saying is that
when people
say, well,
aren't we just, you know, supposed to forgive
people and give them a chance? Yes. We
do that.
But
our tradition,
our Islamic tradition
is that if it is a person
who is in a position of power,
who has authority over others, who has been
given a unique trust,
especially when it comes to the religion,
and they violate that trust, not make a
mistake, but violate that trust,
they're exposed,
literally
exposed
in the public
and,
held accountable.
So,
you know, we are not like great people
of the past.
And I'm not saying that
that we we we cut and paste,
you know, any of these systems
or any of these
practices,
but the principles are there.
And we need to know
our tradition. We need to know our history.
And I'm coming near the end now.
One of the one of the many ways
that people
who had positions of power and authority held
were held accountable
was
also
collective accountability
so that anyone who was in a profession
or a guild
right? And and it's amazing when you look
at the list of guilds in the Ottoman
Empire, for example, or a Mamluk Empire,
you have everything
from guilds of preachers and scholars
to,
guilds of,
of merchants,
of shoemakers,
of bakers.
I mean, for crying out loud,
even the prostitutes had their own guilds
with a code of behavior that they had
to follow.
You know, they held each other accountable.
And how is that possible?
It is possible for Muslims to bind upon
themselves,
responsibilities
and codes of ethics that are beyond
what is
obligatory for everyone else.
So Imam al Qarafi in
the, which was recently translated by,
professor Mohammad
Fazl talks about this. He says,
any individual
may transform any recommended act he wishes into
one that is obligatory
even though the revealed law deemed the act
in question to be merely recommended.
And so by taking a vow, a person
can bind themselves to a different calling. And
this is where we see throughout Islamic history,
those who
who,
decided to enter a profession
where they had authority over others, where they
had responsibility
for others,
bound themselves to codes of ethics, just like
lawyers today
have professional ethics, and doctors have professional ethics,
and therapists have professional ethics.
You know, even computer coders have professional ethics.
So,
one of the easiest ways
to begin to transform
expectations
and change culture
and elevate,
the behavior of those who have authority over
others
is for,
groups to get together and bind themselves
through vowels
to accountability
and a higher
code.
Just a few final things. There are so
many things to say about this just to
demonstrate. You know, my goal here is to
demonstrate to you
that we have the precedents,
we have the practices, we have the principles,
we have the history,
the examples
that we can draw upon
to really guide and reform our community.
So, for example, the precautionary
principle
when claims of abuse are made.
The the precautionary principle is that preventing a
harm takes priority over permitting a benefit. This
is an Islamic principle as well. It means
that
it it means,
the precautionary principle in itself means that something
has to be proven
to not be harmful
rather than,
wait and see if harm happens. So for
example,
you cannot,
start selling a pharmaceutical,
a manufactured
drug until you've proven
that it will not cause harm. Right?
So when it comes to putting people in
power,
there has to be due diligence.
There has to be not only rigorous
scrutiny and background checks,
but really,
psychological
testing
and other means can be used
to
to make sure that we're not putting someone
in charge of our whole community who is
going to harm them.
I mean, you know, people say, well, innocent
till proven guilty. Again, this is the misplacement
of a of a statement
from a legal or or,
from
a adjudication
to a,
to appointing someone to a position of authority.
It doesn't fit there. It's not it's not
the appropriate place to say that.
Would you if someone came and knocked on
your door and said, hey,
I'm a babysitter. Can I come babysit your
kids? You're gonna say, oh, yeah. Well, I
have to have Hassan Adhan
and give people the benefit of doubt. Go
ahead. Come on into my home and take
care of my children. I'm gonna leave.
How can we do that with the people
who
are in charge of the spiritual health of
our whole community?
When a claim is made, the person is
is put on leave until it can be
investigated. Again, this goes back to really, you
know, my hero, Sayid N'am Mirabin Al Khattab,
who,
gave us so many excellent examples
of, of holding himself first accountable and then
others. So Sayyidina Umar relieved Sayyidina Khaled ibn
al Walid.
Sayf Allah, the sword of Islam.
The sword of God for the sake of
Islam relieved him from his position
until he investigated
a complaint against him and was satisfied that
it had no basis.
Said
influence
are not feelings. Power is not a feeling
for someone to say, well, I'm not powerful,
does not make it
disappear.
Power is the ability to influence someone.
The humility of a scholar or an imam
does not diminish or erase their power and
influence,
and consent can be impaired by intimidation,
poverty, imbalance of knowledge,
experience, etcetera.
Here's one,
final example I'll give you.
This is from,
an example
of when,
restrictions you can you should put in place
restrictions to prevent exploitation of those with less
knowledge.
So Ibn Rushd, the grandfather, in his Bayan
says the Malakis are unanimous
in their
prohibiting a sedentary person to sell goods on
behalf of a nomad because, quote,
if the latter is ignorant of prices in
towns or villages,
their inhabitants can profit from his ignorance,
buying goods cheaply from him.
So is it lawful to enter into a
contract of buying and selling? Yes.
Are these nomads
adult,
rational,
persons who are freely able to consent to
a contract? Yes.
But situationally,
they are they have a deficit
of knowledge with respect to the context.
So the,
it's not the
but the executive, the sultan or the political
authority,
who will put in place and here it's
supported by
the Maliki judges,
that the executive put in place this restriction
that,
sedentary people cannot sell on behalf of the
Bedouin.
And the judges
would,
issue discretionary punishments to Azzir on a case
by case basis of those who did this.
So let's think about context
where we have adult,
Muslims who enter a situation
where they they don't really completely understand what's
happening.
How many converts,
young Muslim
convert women,
have been exploited by people who use their
ignorance
to engage in some kind of,
you know, shady secret marriage.
And we're we're
with scholars or teachers or preachers are told
that.
That's not acceptable. And you can't say, well,
she consented
because that consent is impaired when they don't
understand the context. And there are many more
examples we can give from Islamic law that
prove this.
So in the end,
you know, there's a lot to
there's a lot to talk about.
There are,
many examples of of things that are going
wrong,
but I hope that with this presentation tonight,
I showed you
that there are also
many resources
to make things right.
That we have the principles, we have the
teachings, we have the examples.
You know, look at you. We have people
to be able to correct this. It's not
going to be easy. It's complex. There are
many different layers.
And
tomorrow in our research conference,
we have people who are who have,
you know,
diverse
experience
and profession and expertise,
who are going to give us, you know,
part of the solution
to help us understand.
So may
Allah guide all of us. Please pray for
all of those who are doing this work
and,
I ask Allah
to forgive me if I said anything wrong,
to correct me and guide me,
and
to, bring his mercy upon this community
so that we may truly be servants of
the servants of God and the work that
we do.
Do, and may God's peace and blessings be
upon our blessed,
prophet Muhammad.