Maryam Amir – Shaytan- Parents – Man on TikTok
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the potential risk factors that could lead to violence, including factors like Shaytan's "whisps" and the "risk factors" that could lead to violence. They also mention the "entitlement culture" that could lead to healing, including the "entitlement" of sharia protection for families.
AI: Summary ©
In discussing how this could have possibly happened,
I have seen so many people try to
explain that Shaytan is very powerful in his
whispers.
I appreciate that we are looking at this
from a spiritual lens of the need for
purification, safeguarding our hearts, protecting ourselves from Shaytan.
And what I think that those who are
referencing Shaytan are actually trying to answer is
the idea of what are risk factors that
could lead to this level of perpetration.
Over in the core of Islamic law, a
person cannot come and say Shaytan's whispers were
just too strong.
What we can do is look at risk
factors for how perpetrators are potentially created.
There are so many, but just to mention
four, empirical research shows that children who were
sexually abused from the ages of 3 to
7 and older, children whose parents used physical
discipline as the primary form of discipline within
the home, children who were exposed to hyper
-sexualized content from an early age, who had
difficult attachments with their parents when combined with
other factors could lead towards a path of
becoming a perpetrator.
That does not mean at all that childhood
survivors of sexual abuse are going to become
predators.
What it means is that there is a
common thread in predators that they have childhood
abuse.
So if we as a community know this,
and we also know that we are not
immune from the statistics of 1 in 20
boys and 1 in 6 girls are survivors
of childhood sexual abuse, then put in measures
as a community that address those specific risk
factors.
That could include that Masajid require a couple
go through parenting courses as well as premarital
counseling before they marry that couple, include workshops,
khutbas, actively addressing in conferences to help heal
communities, parents, children who are navigating cycles of
abuse.
This type of abuse is not just one
person who has to carry the trauma of
it for a lifetime, it could possibly lead
to generational violence.
Again, those are not the only factors, but
they are some that we can actually work
to address.
I also spoke to a trauma therapist and
a caseworker who specializes in child sexual abuse
cases, and they both mentioned that the idea
of entitlement is one that allows this type
of abuse to continue.
So a few years ago, there was an
account on TikTok.
He was a man who would speak about
Islamic reminders.
It came to light that he had been
incarcerated previously.
He was incarcerated for over five years because
of forcing and harming a child into a
sexual act.
He was actually a registered * offender.
He was working in one masjid to the
next, and he would work with children.
The masjid would find him in really weird
situations with a child, fire him, then he
would go to another city and get hired
by another masjid and work with children again,
get fired again.
And the masjid just didn't have a system
of reference checks or background checks, so they
didn't know his history.
When this came to light on TikTok, a
number of accounts that had over a million
followers or close to it had lives with
him.
They had him swear in the name of
Allah that he is innocent, which he did.
And then they affirmed his innocence because how
could he have sworn in Allah's name otherwise?
That is the culture of perpetuation.
A worker told me of a boy in
an Islamic boarding school being raped by his
classmate.
While the school leadership and the religious leadership
and the authorities did the basic that they
needed to, in the community discussion, there was
not full accountability for these boys.
And there was not a path of healing
for this child who felt like he had
nowhere to go until he met this particular
caseworker.
What's going to happen to these young men's
futures if we tell everyone?
What's going to happen to the families of
these young men if people find out?
That is part of an entitlement culture that
we can change right now, inshallah.
There's a reason why in the maqasid of
sharia, protection of families is cornerstone.