Dawah Carriers Are Destroying Your Faith…And Having A Good Time In The Process

By mmmclmru

The-99-aspires-to-teach-Muslim-principles-D2D8E2L-x-large
I don’t think SuedeNikita looks like this. But one can hope…

Back by popular demand like the ‘Hunger Games’, SuedeNikita caused a massive stir when I published her ‘response’ to Hamza Tzortzis earlier in the year: 

https://asharisassemble.com/2013/10/14/hamza-tzortzis-wants-to-love-you-or-else/

I don’t necessarily endorse her views but I do like them…

I can already hear it: hostility, wailing, gnashing of teeth, suggestions for exorcism, even threats of violence. Masked takfir is a must. And the inevitable call for ‘unity’ against the onslaught of ‘the kuffaar’. There may even be emotional appeals such as ‘it affected my iman, how could you?!’

And of course: ‘These people defend Islam! They make huge sacrifices! What do you do eh?!’…’She’s a hater, she’s jealous’…’Ignore her’…’lets see you do better then’…’at least they are doing something! What have YOU ever done for Islam!?’…etc, etc, ad nauseum.

I actually sympathise (a bit): many Muslims, especially the young, feel under siege from the barrage of negativity and criticism they face about their religion. They can’t catch a break – whether it’s Islamophobic You-tubers, bloggers, serious journalists, the national press or the latest Hollywood movies, they must feel like they have a target on their back. In fact, young Muslims can’t go to the library, newsagents or cinema without catching grief about their religion. People like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins can say things about Muslims that if they uttered them about Jews, would get them arrested faster than Miley Cyrus can get her skirt off.

And their religious establishment, such as it is, does’t help much either: the first generation of largely immigrant Muslims had necessarily limited interaction with the ‘host’ society: they did not want to rock the boat, saw their stay as limited and faced hostility, violence or indifference and were ignored by their hosts. Their children and grandchildren however, expected better treatment, or at least more visibility and ‘attention’. Well, in the case of Muslims, they sure got it. But the Imams and scholars were not equipped or willing to deal with the problems of Muslims in a non-Muslim society and questions ranging from the Quranic stance on evolution to how to find a boy or a girl, what type of sex to have with them when you did and whether there is any good reason to oppose gay marriage were asked to a cohort of people not comfortable with being questioned about anything. At all.

Access to information also increased exponentially during that time, the internet was born and like Frankenstein’s monster, went to account its makers – all manner of questions came into the minds of Muslims that had never done so before – some due to the ‘free thinking’ attitude of the educational institutions that they attended (that their parents, like most immigrant communities, had not) and some due to the hostility towards Islam by secularists and Christians alike, especially in the ‘safe zone’ (for bigots that is) of the internet – questions like was Aisha (RA) really nine years old at the time of marriage and does the Quran actually tell you to beat your wife, as well as technical questions such as is the Quran really preserved and philosophical ones like what really is the proof that Islam is not just made up hokum?

It was a tough time, and it was made suddenly worse by 9/11. Things went into fast forward: the Muslim community had no time to adapt, no voice, no representative. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made things worse still, radicalising host communities and Muslims alike. Hostility to Muslim Taliban or Muslim insurgents translated into inevitable hostility to local Muslims. More questions were asked, more doubts were raised. Some people left Islam all together and then railed against it, being offered immunity from the usual political correctness in the media due to their ‘ex-Muslim’ status. They could get away with saying what they wanted, generalising their personal experiences to a whole community in a way that would be instantly recognised for what it was were they Jewish. They took full licence and again, through the internet and other media, the doubts, questions and general anxiety of Muslims increased.

The ‘scholars’ tried – or rather, they saw an opening: a chance to leave their mosques and to enter the elysian fields of British or American academia: trouble with Islam meant Islamic societies, student bodies and organisations needing speakers to argue their corner and satisfy their body of students, away from home, horny and alone with their doubts and guilts in student accommodation. So a new era was ushered in: no longer would Riyadh Ul Haq, Haitham Haddad and too many others to mention, be confined to their mosques or to weekend seminars and evening classes. No – they would emerge and rescue the young Muslims from both their interrogators and their own doubts. Now the scholars would inspire a new generation of Muslims to be self confidant and at the same time show how stupid the kufaar were, university or not.

Except it didn’t quite work out that way.

Because the scholars, when faced with a critical university audience which often included combative non-Muslims, basically sucked.

Haddad soon got caught out for his frighteningly uninformed comments on Jews, and just about everything else. Other scholars, who for the sake of brevity can remain nameless, were shamed by simple questions on whether the Quran said one was allowed to beat ones wife. Far from being fonts of knowledge, their presentations consisted of authoritarian posturing, reminding the audience that they did not have the requisite Islamic ‘qualifications’ and telling them that that’s what Islam said and if they didn’t like it then ‘that’s the bottom line’ like some kind of bearded Steve Austin (yes, I am a girl and yes I watched pro wrestling).

They behaved strangely, unfamiliar with Western universities or even the wider society. They dressed strangely, spoke as if preaching to the converted and the struggled to contain their indignation at the mildest criticism or cross examination. Many threw public tantrums. But most persisted, drawn by the allure of influencing the young (what more worthwhile group to influence after all!) and perhaps even an appearance on ‘Newsnight’ to tell Paxman that Islam really was a religion of peace (or something reheated like that).

Of course, it ended badly: the scholars were famous amongst their own sectarian groups only, they usually did not have even a cursory mastery of the English idiom (or cultural quirks) and were frightfully out of touch with the issues of the day as well as the controversial questions of Islam and even religion and the belief in God that had been asked from time immemorial. At worst, some, like our friend Haddad, made it into the national press for their gaffes and earned, along with many of his colleagues, bans from educational institutes (and he was one of the Western educated ones).

But if only a desire or a wish being unfulfilled led to its withering away, humanity would be a much more peaceful race. Despite the failure of the migration of the ‘scholars’ from their courses and evening classes into the universities, the young Muslims need for ‘answers’ or at least a shield, a defence, remained as great as ever, if not more so, as calamities such 7/7 and the War on Terror kept arriving like London buses: all at once.

Exeunt scholars and enter our new heroes: the ‘Dawah carriers’. On the face of it, an evolved form of talented amateurs such as Sheikh Ahmed Deedat, these new defenders had the beginnings of their current incarnation in Zakir Naik – an apparently gifted (gifted at what was soon to be made clear) amateur who rallied huge crowds in India and the Middle East by explaining Islam to ‘non-Muslims’ and taking their questions. Conversions and warm feelings invariably followed (the similarity between his conferences and Midwestern televangelists with people being possessed by the ‘Holy Spirit’ was of course lost on the Muslims).

Moreover, he had an affable style with his ill-fitted suit and constant smile, denied the existence of any Sunni-Shia split, made liberal use of scientific facts and used them to ‘establish’ the truth of the Quran. Muslims felt confident, they felt armed with intellectual weapons with which to not only fight back but to win, win converts. A television channel and millions of adoring fans followed.

And like Kurt Cobain’s suicide, he inspired a multitude of copycats.

His own Indian organisation, IRF (Islamic Research Foundation), gave birth to IERA in the UK, which rapidly rose to become a behemoth in terms of speaking engagements, ‘Dawah’ and ‘spreading the message of Islam’ on campuses and the streets. And the lesson had been learnt from the near Biblical exodus of the Muslim scholars: the front men were to people such as Hamza Tzortzis and Abdur Raheem Green – converts, with English as their first language and trained to be politically correct (that didn’t work out for Green though) and moreover raised on a diet of rhetoric, dialectic and debate. They would do what Naik had and the scholars had not – they would give the Muslims intellectual shields and offensive weapons. Not only would the Muslims defend themselves in university and in life but they would strengthen Islam with converts. And if these converts were photogenic ‘white people’, so much the better. After all, what better proof could there be for the truth of Islam then that a child of European civilization and materialism had overcome all of the obstacles placed in it’s way and embraced the TRUTH! (the fact that the same argument could be used to establish the ‘truth’ of Scientology was not forthcoming). And if this child of the Enlightenment that had found it way back to the truth, converted…no, REVERTED was a European woman, then so much the better, for what greater proof could there be against those who claimed that Islam oppressed women. If so then why were their own women embracing it!

That they did so usually through marriage was also often forgotten…

But there was one slight problem: the issue with not knowing anything is that you cannot know if you are being taught the truth. The feel good factor with Naik and the IRF crowd was immense…but the content was mostly for those who knew relatively little – little Islam and little science that is. But for those who dug deeper, serious problems were waiting. Often more serious than the questions they had had in the first place. Not only was no-one upfront in IRF a serious academic scientist, despite their ballooning support and wealth, they resolutely refused to hire any. A lot of questions (polygyny, jihad, was Islam spread by the sword etc) were answered, to varying degrees of satisfaction. But questions such as the age of Aisha (RA), sex with slaves, FGM and reliability of hadith that had been the mainstay of academic orientalists for years went by the wayside.

In fact, ‘academic’ it was not.

Which would have been fine. Except now, by debating and ‘doing dawah’ to non-Muslims, Muslims were exposed to these issues too. A slew of Evangelical Christians were also on hand to bring to light any strange narration or tafseer under the sun. Answers brought new, tougher questions. Debates against mediocre opponents incited the wrath of more serious and learned ones.

Matched initially against atheist and polemicist opponents who had only bothered with a cursory study of Islam (if that), and never at an academic level (see Christian apologists, and Richard Dawkins himself reminded us that not only had he not read the Quran, he does not need to), the Muslims speakers came to realise that if their opponents don’t know anything about Islam, well, they don’t need to either…

The Muslims had traded scholars with little or no cultural sense or secular knowledge for ‘dawah carriers’ with presentation skills, oratory but neither secular nor Islamic knowledge.

It was a bad swap.

But cousin, business was booming! Nearly all universities had ‘Islamic Awareness’ weeks by now, bookings for speakers such as Hamza Tzortzis and many others came thick and fast, international engagements, seminars, Islamic conferences and television engagements followed. They became not only ‘Dawah guys’ but ‘intellectual activists’, ‘linguists’ ‘political analysts’ (both Muslims and their non-Muslim brethren had to suspend disbelief as nearly all of these qualifications were achieved unsupervised in the speakers’ bedrooms). But of course the Islamic ‘scholarship’ was still there: the dawah guys were always referring questions to, checking with or even studying under ‘People of Knowledge’. In the case of the biggest and most prominent organisation, these ‘People of Knowledge’ were none other than the same ones who had so recently beat a hasty retreat from campus: namely Haitham Haddad. Behind the scenes, all sectarian affiliations were preserved – IERA, like Naik, would never talk about sectarian issues or shia/sunni – but they did that as a front only. Administratively, they were run by hardliners such as Haddad who would never be seen dead with an Ashari let alone a Shia.

The new ‘defenders’, the ‘Dawah Carriers’ had not learnt Islam nor secular sciences – they had learnt politics and misdirection.

But who cared about that when there was the next debate with the student ‘atheist society’ to organise or the next Islamic Awareness stall? We could only hope that Hamza and Co would be back from Malaysia or wherever they had gone to emancipate the minds of Muslims in time! In fact, being a dawah guy was like being a rock star, just without the sex, drugs and rock and roll…well, maybe not without the sex: the ‘Big Three’ speakers of IERA during this period (Hamza Tzortzis, Adnan Rashid and A R Green) were all (or had been) coincidentally polygamous, the sunnah they had entirely randomly chosen to revive, you know instead of others such as redistribution of wealth or adopting orphans. And only a cynic would say that they took any pleasure in this act (even, when, strangely, the second wife in some cases was thereafter divorced after a very short period – but of course, only a cynic would say again that what in the West is called a ‘fling’ of a few months by a husband is called by others a ‘second marriage’ or a ‘misyar’).

So the dawah carriers were doing very well for themselves: fame, world travel, bringing back polygyny (hey, someone had to do it) and speaking at the Cambridge or Oxford Student Union (and when they got well known enough, a wage from IERA or at least a speakers fee).

The model that these ‘dawah carriers’ used, whatever organisation they belonged to, was usually the ‘Naikian’ one of confronting and debating the non-Muslims – but whereas he was in India jousting with individuals of debatable credibility such as William Campbell, Hamza and Co. in the UK were debating Theoretical Physicists, Philosophers of note and even politicians. It was all very glamorous to start with and they had a good degree of success: most of the western intellectuals had not bothered to conduct a study into Islam specifically and would just deploy the same general arguments against religion that they had with Christian Europe in mind. This gave them a huge handicap. The applause and accolades from Muslims multiplied and emboldened speakers like Tzortzis even started to venture ‘research papers’, in his case in Embryology (not being a biologist himself, he neglected to get it checked by one, though reassuringly, Haitham Haddad was on hand to make sure it was ‘Islamic’). Muslims were now even producing research! It was an unbelievable step forward. One could almost forget that nearly all of the Dawah carriers, like Tzortzis, were directly under the tutelage of the same group of ‘expelled’ and even extremist and sectarian scholars and banned groups (at least on campus) such as Hizb Ut Tahrir. They just had a different packaging. And of course, they were ‘converts’ – which for Muslims gave them instant celebrity status.

What could go wrong?

Well, a lot: for a start, academics have a habit of ‘learning things’ and ‘researching’, no matter how bigoted and uninformed they are. Rather than answering the doubts of the Muslims, by their debates and confrontational manner (not to say posturing and producing ‘research’ which…wasn’t) the ‘dawah carriers’ painted a target on the backs of the Muslim community once again. Secularists, atheists and even political groups turned their focus away from Christianity and started to focus on Islam. They saw it for the threat it was. And they rallied.

These people didn’t do their research in their bedroom and then submit it to ‘authorities’ Haitham Haddad (whose most prestigious teacher Ibn Baz said that anyone saying that the Earth was not flat was a disbeliever. Happily, he changed his mind at the behest of the Saudi monarchy) or Akram Nadwi (a faux Sufi and closet Salafist) but at the Library of Congress, CERN or The Perimeter Institute and then submitted it to reputable peer reviewed journals.

Street dawah is a very different thing – take the same model into MIT and you may have a problem:

MY NEIGHBOUR BETTY: Hi, nice day isn’t it?

ME: Lovely. I feel all warm inside.

MY NEIGHBOUR BETTY: Yes.

ME: …

MY NEIGHBOUR BETTY: How come Islam sucks?

ME: Who told you that Betty?

MY NEIGHBOUR BETTY: I saw it on the news, you’re okay love, but Muslims are forever killing people and all that. Why don’t you find nice English boy and settle down?

ME: It’s not true. You don’t believe everything you see on the news do you?

MY NEIGHBOUR BETTY: Hmmm…good point…

ME: You should read the Quran, don’t believe ‘The Man’ Betty, he’s out to get you. Fight The Power! Decide for yourself!

MY NEIGHBOUR BETTY: You’re right! Allah-huakbar!

Because most people trust people they know more than  they trust ‘the News’.

DAWAHWARRIOR:Kufr/Capitalism/Secularism/Liberalism/Atheism/Deism/Polytheism and Science and everything else sucks.

You suck also. I challenge you to a debate. Or dialogue. With respect of course.

Also, the Quran is embryologically accurate.

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS: Young man, do you not think you are being a bit rash? Have you conducted a thorough analysis of these things that you speak of?

DAWAH WARRIOR: Of course I did. In my bedroom no less. I am a Intellectual Activist, Islamic Polemicist, Amateur Gynaecologist, Political Commentator, Blogger, Lover, Fighter, Linguist and part-time Thaumaturgist. I also practice Ikebana. I own the very hat that Che Guevara wore when he did that pose. And other cool stuff like that.

Also, I read about these things.

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS: Where?

DAWAH WARRIOR: In books of course! What kind of question is that!

We need to have a proper dialogue and get to the truth

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS:…Look, for starters, you cannot say that science is not ‘true’ and then use it to establish the truth of your religious text can you, I think that is perhaps an epistemic contradiction.

DAWAH WARRIOR: No it isn’t.

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS: Hmmm…why not

DAWAH WARRIOR: Because of ‘ontology’

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS: What do you mean?

DAWAH WARRIOR: I just told you. We need to have a proper dialogue and get to the truth!

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS: So are you saying that ‘Science’ is the criterion of truth?

DAWAH WARRIOR: It depends on ‘ontology’

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS: …

Did you perchance consult with any embryologists or scientists before coming to your conclusions?

DAWAH WARRIOR: I don’t need to – I researched it myself and besides, Professor Keith Moore said that Embryology proves the Quran. What more do you want? You need to check your ‘ontology’.

PROFESSOR BOFFIN McBRAINS: Look, just having the opinion of one authority, even if it is big one, does not prove the case definitively, especially not in science. Einstein was great, but if no-one else thought his theories were worthwhile he would have struggled. So it is indeed intriguing that Keith Moore said that, but it was a long time ago; would it not be worthwhile to sit down with some more embryologists and sort things out, maybe reach a kind of ‘consensus’. Don’t you have the same concept in Islam? I believe you call it ‘ijma’ right?

DAWAH WARRIOR: That would be a waste of time. Also, you don’t know anything about Islam, I don’t appreciate you talking about stuff you know nothing about.

We need to have a proper dialogue and come to the truth.

PROFESSOR BOFFINS McBRIANS: I’ll admit I have not looked into Islam very deeply, but can you give me some good reasons that I should?

DAWAH WARRIOR: Because kufr sucks and Islam is peace.

PROFESSOR BOFFINS McBRAINS: But if Islam is so great, then  how come Muslim majority countries have such problems and are relatively lacking in many spheres? I find it problematic to abandon a tried and working system, however flawed for one which is unknown.

DAWAH WARRIOR: It is because in those countries they do not follow Islam and thus also suck. Also, it is the West’s fault.

You need to sort out your ‘ontology’.

PROFESSOR BOFFINS McBRAINS: Why do you keep saying that?

DAWAH WARRIOR: Because we need to have a proper dialogue and come to the truth.

I remember as a second year student in Newcastle when I first came across Hamza Tzortzis. It was on a Satellite Television Islamic channel that time (though I saw and met him many times in person as well) and he was not that well known. I was from a Muslim family, living away from home with the struggles and challenges that any young girl of my age has. University was tough – I was what they call conventionally attractive and I was also smart enough to know that guys were to get into my knickers whether they had a ‘Ramones’ T-shirt and a piecing or a beard and a thoub. I had a lot of questions about my community and it’s behaviour as well as many more imposed on me by the media and Islam-baiters.

Tzortzis was a breath of fresh air: he lobbied for rational arguments for the existence of God, he said that morality had no basis without God and backed it up convincingly. And he could talk about how the ‘Big Bang’ proved Islam until the proverbial cows came home. I went to my computer and set up a ‘Paypal’ account just so that I could donate to his website. I chased up all of his talks. Okay, it got a bit same-ey after a while, but there were debates and he was a great rhetorician. I was in love (intellectually of course).

Imagine my disappointment when I learnt that he had taken his arguments largely from an Evangelical Christian called William Lane Craig and another less well known but more honest speaker called Adam Deen, as opposed to from Al Ghazzali or the Asharite theologians as I had assumed. I was shocked when I found he had absolutely no consistency – he would say whatever he had to to win. In short, the man I had mistaken for a Socrates was in fact a sophist. He borrowed arguments that were palatable for public relations purposes from sects of Islam, that he as a Salafist, deemed heretical (granted, these were on insignificant issues such as whether God exists or not, but still). He told people to read Ibn Taymiyyah, a man who had deemed the very ‘Kalam Cosmological Argument’ Tzortzis had borrowed from Ghazzali (via Evangelical Christianity) to be heresy (and cliterectomy for women to be a virtue, he was the ‘father’ of FGM amongst Muslims in one sense).

It made no sense. The more I looked into it, the more I saw that he and his contemporaries would only give a Salafist answer, even if it was the most incredulous and unbelievable and unpalatable one. On issues where his teacher Haddad held shocking views, such as FGM and suicide bombing, Tzortzis would duck the issue entirely. He was more Nick Clegg than Caliph Umar. Tzortzis had no respect for non-salafist opinion unless they could get him an advantage in a debate with an atheist (they in turn were blissfully unaware that he was a Wahhabi anthropomorphist and as such could not even justifiably use most of his Kalaam Arguments). He was usually not well versed enough in them anyway to deploy them with any degree of success. His gaffes started to become famous. He stumbled on an easy question about apostasy because he tried to present the extremist Salafist opinion as the Islamic one (whereas for most Muslims, Salafism = heresy). His embryology paper had to be withdrawn, but his self-publicising nature became evident when he tried to cash in on this momentous gaffe of his which afflicted countless Muslims by then taking it upon himself to be the architect of a ‘New Approach to Quran and Science’, despite his colossal error, exposed by atheists, and the fact that he is neither a scientist nor a Quranic exegete (don’t worry, he got it checked by Haddad and Nadwi, the same guys who signed off on the embryology, so it should be fine. Oh, wait…).

He was supposed to be making it easy for British Muslims but he and his organisation were all for forcibly segregated events, his organisation would allow him to speak to women only audiences (nice work if you can get it guys eh?) but would not even allow Yvonne Ridley to speak to a mixed audience. In short, it was Saudi Islam with faux science, massive investment by British Muslim money and arguments for morality and the existence of God borrowed from people they considered heretics or unbelievers. It was kind of…their own religion.

I had indoctrinated my brother into the cult of the Dawah carriers and he became a helper to one of the most famous dawah organisations (which must needs remain anonymous). From him I heard about the lifestyle of some of the well known speakers, especially how they made the most of shall we say ‘access’ to women at segregated events. Not only that, but the organisations themselves had an unspoken incentive to single men and women to become helpers so that they could ‘find a halal partner’. It didn’t surprise me in the least: despite my access to the original Arabic texts and the fact that I had undertaken Islamic Studies at university, I had seen how keen many of the ‘Dawah carriers’ were to explain their ideas to me at their talks and events, as if I had not understood them (this was their equivalent of ‘So…do you come here often blah blah’). They were similarly keen to engage in e-mail correspondences and gave out their e-mail address to girls like me like Smarties. Less so to the guys at the events. ‘Organisers’ and ‘helpers’ were also forever coming up to me to ask if I was ‘looking’ (they meant for a husband). They paid particular attention to the marriage needs of converts or non-Asian or mixed race girls (like myself). Very liberal of them. Or maybe, like many other men, they were just after the exotic and the fashionable.

‘You do know what you are doing by helping out at these events don’t you?’ I told my brother, ‘You’re just like those guys who control the ‘backstage access’ at concerts or Hip-Hop shows. You’re just hoping for the left-overs from the famous guys aren’t you?!’. He didn’t contradict me. What was most ironic was that he was helping enforce segregation at Islamic talks for the express purpose of getting ‘access’ to the sisters! It was a most bizarre inversion: exude a public face of segregation and then use it to get a chance to pull.

Of course, not all Dawah personalities were like this, there were notable exceptions such as Paul Williams and Shabir Ally. But these people were more public Muslim intellectuals than Dawah personalities. And neither availed himself of the need to reinvigorate the practice of polygyny like Tzortzis and Co. Sadly, Williams and others like him were the exception rather than the rule.

Having studied Islam, I was shocked by the amateurish antics of IERA and other speakers. They showed hardly any improvement over the years I followed them and would answer according to their ideological biases and not Islamic orthodoxy and scholarship (see Appendix). They were joined by a whole slew of HT and ex-HT and secret HT speakers whose main concern was political posturing and indeed politicising Muslims (to their own ends of course) and nothing relating to genuine Islamic theology, law or practice. Worse, they conjured up answers to controversies and questions which were shockingly banal.

But in the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Muslims, starved of answers and left to fend for themselves for so long, lapped it up. And they continue to do so. Until the inevitable exposure and backlash, which will leave them as unguided and adrift as they always have been.

I remember once explaining the issue of the age of Aisha to a famous Dawah carrier. His knowledge was rudimentary at best and he could not understand that just because a narration was classed as ‘Sahih’ by muhadditheen, it didn’t mean that we took it into belief. I explained some basic hadith sciences to him from a Sunni and Ash’ari perspective and tried to tell him that accepting that she was nine at the time of sexual intercourse was not necessary. He shocked me by announcing that even if I was truthful in what I had said, in dawah it must be defended that she was nine since that was what was the belief of some Muslims. I will let the reader fathom the stupidity of defending every view of every Muslim. Of course, what he in fact meant was that rather than educate people of the fact that ahad narrations do not give certainty and that there is ikhtilaaf about not only the age of Aisha but even Khadijah and Muhammad (pbuh) himself, he would just take the easy way. Or rather, he would continue to attract bookings and funding from Wahhabi and Salafist organisations and events.

So there you have it, most of the so called ‘Dawah movement’ is a feel good initiative aimed at under siege and under confident Muslims. There is no empiric evidence of ‘converts’ by these movements though there is lots of empiric evidence that most converts to Islam leave thereafter. They aggravate and offend powerful academic interests in the West and thus bring even more sanction, intellectual and otherwise, onto the Islamic community. Most of the ‘answers’ the provide are not logically correct nor Islamically licit. Further, they have left the issues which really need an answer, such as slavery, FGM etc, for which Islam indeed has good answers, as you can see on this very site, untouched.

Further, females need to be warned that famous speakers such as Hamza Tzortzis seemingly lead a polyamorous lifestyle which is facilitated by their ‘celebrity speaker’ status.

Because by now, thoughtful reader, you have understood what I am trying to say. Some of my girlfriends go to concerts hoping to get backstage. But most of them are very careful – they know what goes on at concerts.

Have a look at the lifestyle of most dawah carriers and you will be equally careful about getting backstage at their events too…

67 thoughts on “Dawah Carriers Are Destroying Your Faith…And Having A Good Time In The Process”

  1. Pingback: Dawah Carriers Are Destroying Your Faith…And Having A Good Time In The Process « Blogging theology

    • What, you are going to put your computer or ‘the Internet’ in the bin?! OMG!

      Or did you print it out first so that you could bin it? Ooohhhh, I guess you mean that ‘Recycle Bin’ on your computer!

      Not a very detailed response. I wonder how you would respond if someone dismissed your religion or intellect or morals in that cursory manner?

      Lets try it: Intellectually stunted troll. Ignore…

      • Wow. Change ‘mixed race girl’ into ‘mixed race guy’ and this is literally my story (albeit written more articulately then I could). I do agree with some of the arguments that some of the speakers mentioned use but I feel they are basically just being used to score points. Dawah carriers like Shabir Ally are much more intellectually honest and have a more nuanced view of reality

      • Adil, thank you so much!

        I wasn’t saying that they don’t have any good arguments at all, yes, compared to most of us sadly uninformed Muslims, they have some points: in the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king…but it is not adequate and most of it is borrowed from Chomsky, Left leaning critics and the Islamic stuff is just, well rubbish. All of these guys, Tzortzis, Green, Naik, Andalusi…they just make stuff up and then try to pass it off as an Islamic answer.

        I would love to hear your story and I am sure so would everyone else: please send it in, I am sure you write well, and in any case, it is sincerity and not eloquence which is valued in Islam. I am sure mmmclmru would love to publish it!

      • Yes Adil, I think our readers would be most interested if the number of hits Nikitas article is getting me is any indication!

        Please write to me, it would be an honour to put it up!

    • Amazing refutation. You see, this is why we have these guys representing us in front of the non-Muslims: they’re just so thorough, rigorous, reasoned…

    • I think the writer of this piece exaggerates normal human behaviour such as ‘muslim female attraction to muslim male celebrities’ as something abhorrent. Its a fact of life and should not be confused with what the dawah people are doing. Martin Luther King , who did some wonderful humanitarian work, was surrounded by many female admirers and according to some reports, became ‘involved’ with some of them. Does that mean he was wrong in what he was teaching? Of course not and therefore we need to separate these things. In the case of the ‘dawahists’ It would be very unusual if a single young man, who meets single young and attractive women, did not occasionally offer his e-mail address. I’ve seen many young muslim men do that and I feel certain that the majority do it with the most honourable intentions. I’m sure there are many muslim girls who do the same. That’s just normal human behaviour. This again reminds us not to “make haram what is halal”
      That aside, I agree that this modern ‘evangelical’ dawah is a new phenomenon and all things new can carry an element of suspicion.
      Islam can only be truly propagated by example. People should look at muslims and say “I want to be like them”. That means that the best dawah is to be the best of people, in everything, but especially in virtue. Muslims are consumed by things that will eventually produce nothing tangible. The debates about embryology and cosmology and such things will continue eternally, never won and never lost. Meanwhile the main tasks that muslims and indeed any human beings should address are marginalised. We don’t have to look very deeply into the Quran to find out what these things are. Lets look at what Sura Al Balad 90:13-17 says about the moral high ground..
      “it is the freeing of a slave ,Or feeding on a day of severe hunger,An orphan of near relationship, Or a needy person in misery, And then being among those who believed and advised one another to patience and advised one another to compassion”
      The debates are musings, something to while away the dark nights, but the true task is what is described in the sura above.
      That task I think would be the toughest , ask Bob Geldof (my sympathies to him for his sad loss) . I’m sure he will tell us it’s almost impossible to make a difference in the condition of the poor and downtrodden of this world. Maybe that’s why it is marginalised and instead we debate cosmology and embryology.

      • Dude, they ain’t ‘single’ and they ain’t ‘young’.

        I think the idea is that they are exchanging bodily fluids, not just e-mails. No one is saying that free mixing is not allowed…except these same speakers who have been enjoying the fruits of fame! IERA has been in trouble with the national press for enforcing segregation at their events…but THEY still manage to pull!

  3. April 10, 2014 • 8:40 pm
    I don’t know what to make of this piece,there isn’t much other than complaining about the lifestyle of IERA representatives and coming across as a pompous know it all.

    I have my issues with this article.

    Firstly even if Hamza Tzortis did take ideas from William Lane Craigs book “Reasonable faith” or the “Kalam Cosmological argument” Adam deen has done the same and moreover Dr Craig gets his arguments from medieval Muslim theologians. I don’t get why there is a problem if Hamza uses Craig but not when Adam uses him??!!

    Secondly this line really gets me “I remember once explaining the issue of the age of Aisha to a famous Dawah carrier.” There never has been an issue until very recently as explained by Dr Jonathan Brown,even you brother Paul,if I remember correctly have posted the video of Dr Jonathan Brown defending the belief of Hazrat Ayesha’s ra age. Here is a video of him responding to a question by Adam deen at why the age of Ayesha agitates him.

    Thirdly this author calls Shaykh Akram Nadwi a faux sufi and closet salafi, strongly disagreeing with that description I would like to know who the author thinks measures upto his immense knowledge and authored works including his monumental 57 volume work on female hadith trasmitters and how is he a fake sufi?

    Fourthly the author had this to say about Dr Zakir naik “made liberal use of scientific facts and used them to ‘establish’ the truth of the Quran” I have also heard Dr Shabbir Ally make similar arguments for the authenticity of the Holy Quran as being a divine revelation and yet she praises him and you (brother paul) and rightly so but dismisses Dr Zakir Naik for making similar arguments?? sounds contradictory to me. Also Dr Shabbir Ally has used the numerical miracles in the Quran approach in his lectures,a approach that was first founded by the heretic Rashid Khalifha and is somewhat like the science in the Quran method. Are we going to dismiss these arguments as well?

    Fifthly,whats the big deal if some of the IERA representatives practice polygyny? if their wives are okay with it why should it matter to the author? It seems that this is the major problem for the author of this piece,she just goes on about their alleged behaviour at some these conferences. I didn’t see no advice or solutions for this behaviour she witnessed.

    I would like to know which scholars and organisations would meet this sisters criteria for dawah work? Are there any out there she would recommend? AND why and how are they different from IERA?

    I would also like to make an observation,something that occurred to me while reading a excellent piece by Muhammed Ghilan here http://mohamedghilan.com/2014/03/26/its-hard-out-here-for-a-saudi/. It seems that our salafi brothers are getting the same backlash recently like saudi arabia and in many instances unfairly so.

    • 1) The ‘Age of A’isha’ is not a matter of ‘belief’ in Islam. No one is going to be asked how old she was on the day of Judgement and no-one is going to be punished for not thinking she was 9. Except in Wahhabi and Ahlal Hadith beliefs. Which you seem to share (insert denial: here)

      2) It was an issue from the earliest times, including for Imam Tabari and Ibn Hisham, who are bigger authorities than Jonathan Brown, who is not an Islamic authority at all but an academic.Unless you agree that academics have sway in Islam and then also give the same leeway to people like Goldziher etc

      For people wanting a scholarly perspective on the Age of Aisha, they can compare this four hours of material with the off-hand remarks by Brown, who in any case is a modern Muhaddith and follows their approach that Sahih in Isnad =Sahih in Matn (to an extent). Further, he follows Shafi mustalah of hadith and thus accepts all of those hadith at face value without cross checking with mashoor or muttawatir narrations etc

      https://asharisassemble.com/2012/11/01/the-age-of-hadrat-aisha-ra-a-detailed-and-balanced-answer/

      3) It’s 53 volumes, not 57. And he collected it, not ‘wrote’ it. Do you know anyone who has written a 53 volume book? Gibbon and Needham spent most of their lives on ‘Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire’ and ‘Science and Civilization in China’ respectively and did not reach that length (unless each ‘book’ of Nadwis collection is 10 pages long or something). Do not be so foolish. Further, it has never been published anywhere and you have not read it. Stop your fanboy banality.

      You are further shown to be ungrounded in the fact that being a biographer of female hadith transmitters (an unnecessary pursuit and not one of the branches of Islamic knowledge, further, hardly any of the main Muhaditheen or narrators after the first generations are female anyway) does not make one an expert in Islamic creed or law. It merely makes one an expert in biographies female hadith transmitters, which is not a branch of Islamic science. Except for Ahle Hadith and Wahhabis like Nadwi (and presumably yourself).

      Further, Nadwi has rudimentary knowledge of aqeedah, he lies about being both Hanafi and Maturidi and this is clear from his insistence on presenting the heretical and anti-Maturidi/anti-Hanafite views of Ibn Taymiyya at all and every opportunity. Further, he claims there is no such thing as Ashari or Maturidi aqeeda and works for a Wahhabi organisation (IERA) and advises Tzortzis on his ‘Papers’ (which then had to be withdrawn under atheist criticism).

      Nadwi is such a ‘great scholar of Islam’ that he promotes as an ‘Imam’ a man who openly insults Ali, Fatima and says God swings around the universe. On ropes. Like Tarzan.

      https://asharisassemble.com/2013/11/06/the-strange-case-of-ibn-taymiyyah/

      If that’s your definition of ‘immense knowledge’ then, frankly, you are an idiot.

      4) You are employing the utterly banal technique of all Wahhabis by taking something stupid that a Wahhabi does (in this case Hamza apeing Islam bashing Evangelical Christians) and then saying ‘but XYZ also did it!’. So what? It doesn’t make what they did any less stupid. Likewise, you have no understanding of the work of Ally: he uses none of the same ‘;science in Quran’ arguments as Naik and there is no overlap. In any case, you are unfamiliar with his work and are name dropping in the stereotypical manner, As for your labelling someone a ‘heretic’, we will withhold judgement, given what you consider to be ‘Islamic’.

      5) IERA is not an Islamic Dawah organisation but an organisation that promotes Salafism

      6) They don’t practice polygyny, they get married to other women and then after a (usually very short time) get divorced (always from the second wife though). It seems to be ‘Misyar’ or a ‘sunni’ form of temporary marriage (which differs from Shai m’uta in that these guys don’t tell the girls that it’s temporary). Read the article properly before spamming us. You don’t know how their wives feel about it (unless you are one of them).

      7) Our criteria for a good dawah organisation is one, for starters, does not produce grossly inaccurate ‘papers’ on Embryology (which they admit was rubbish. Then why publish it?). Secondly, they answer questions about Islam according to the majority opinion of traditional Islam and not Wahhabism. Not taking their arguments for the existence of God from Christians would also be a good start.

      7) As for Mohamed Ghilan, he is the best writer on the net second only to Williams himself and his article is about how not all Saudis are Salafis, and false propaganda in the West, not that Salafis don’t deserve the backlash. Your reading comprehension needs work. You also need to read his work on Muslim theology where he views people like Wahhabis and Nadwi as anthropomorphist heretics.

      • I really don’t know how to reply this,if my first comment came of as rude to you then I am sorry it was not my intent. I am not what you would call a wahabi/salafi. Just a lay hanafi who’s aqidah is that which is articulated in Shaykh Hamza Yusufs translation of aqida at-tahawiyya.
        As for Shaykh Akrams standing as a scholar we disagree but to call him a liar?? isn’t that a bit harsh? btw its a 57 volume work as stated here http://courses.meoc.org.uk/p/teacher.html and I never claimed I have read the entire work but i do have the extremely watered down version of it called Al-Muhaddithat,still a very enlightening book to me.
        Dr Shabbir Ally does use the same method,I have heard him drop the names of Kieth Moore and Maurice Bucaille in a few of his videos. Again im not against this sort of dawah my only objection is why the double standards between Dr naik and Dr Ally.
        As for the the Age of Hazrat Aisha ra,I will give preference to a muslim academic over people like the honorable shaykh whose videos you posted a link to,but I will not give leeway people like Ignác Goldziher,David Samuel Margoliouth and Joseph Schacht (see i can name drop to,want a few more Gerd R.Puin,Patricia Crone,cristoph luxenberg although the last one is not his real name.) For me its not an issue until very recently as mentioned by the good Dr.
        Lastly you say that Muhammed Ghilan is one of your favourite writers and yet you do not heed his advice. The article posted below will show you why.Look at the way he mentions,with respect,the salafi scholars.
        Lastly please do not try to pigeon hole me,just because I wrote a disjointed response to the article doesn’t make me a salafi or in their camp. I try my best to take the good from all scholars of Islam and not engage in sectarian point scoring.

        http://mohamedghilan.com/2011/10/12/my-shaykh-vs-your-shaykh/

      • If you don’t know how to reply, then…don’t.

        I already explained in which way Akram is deviant. If you want to follow someone who promotes the views I mentioned then up to you. but don’t expect us to honour guys as ‘Sheikh’ that promote ideas such as God swinging on ropes, insulting Ali, Fatima etc.

        No-one said that mention of Moore or Bucaille makes Naik problematic, rather it is his gaffes which you know nothing about. Ally has avoided these gaffes. Unless you have looked into the Quran and science issue do not lecture those who have on Naik or Shabir. For people who actually want to learn, here are resources:

        https://asharisassemble.com/2013/10/29/science-in-the-quran-the-truth/
        https://asharisassemble.com/2013/10/20/muslim-scientists-and-scholars-not-impressed-with-ieras-new-approach-to-quran-science/

        No-one cares what a person as confused and inconsistent as yourself ‘gives preference’ to anyway: giving preference to an Academic who happens to be Muslim over a classically trained scholar is an innovation (though Sheikh Atabek is also an academic, though disagreeing with him, you don’t bother to look into his background), though it is even more stupid to say that ‘academics are better than Islamic scholars, but only if they are Muslim’. But we have established your level of consistency and credibility with this idiotic statement:

        ‘For me its not an issue until very recently as mentioned by the good Dr.’ So you are the barometer by which to decide what is and is not an issue. So although it was an issue for Imam Tabari etc, you and Brown don’t care or know about it so the rest of the classical scholars can go to hell.

        You again have not understood Ghilans article. However, if you want to ‘show respect’ to Ibn Taymiya while he fails to ‘show respect’ to Allah, Ali and Fatima as I showed, then it is up to you. Go and show respect to hard-core extremist Shia who also insult Sahahbah as well then. Go an call Khomenie ‘Imam’ also.

        Or is the ‘get out of Jail’ card only for your favourites such as Ibn Taimia etc?

        It is just strange that a self proclaimed Hanafi Maturidi like yourself would demand that respect be shown to someone who insulted not only the esteemed personalities mentioned but both Hanafism and Maturidi aqeeda. But I guess many people are same as Nadwi then: telling the whole world you are Hanafi and then believing in Ibn Taymiyya etc. It is a bit like me saying I am Muslim but I follow the Pope as well.

        Basically, it is a mish mash of whatever you like from the people you like. So it is your own individual version of Islam and you decide what is right or wrong and who should be followed or not. No problem, but that’s my problem with Nadwi as well – don’t then tell the world that you are a Hanafi/Maturidi. If you are Hanafi, Ibn Taimia is a deviant: in fact, if you are Muslim and you think it is okay to insult Ali or Fatima (something even Shia don’t do) or to say Allah swings on ropes, I can’t help you dear boy.

      • whether an argument for the existence of God is from a muslim or Christian doesn’t matter; if you are happy with the strength of the argument than adds to your conviction – what does it matter who said it: the truth is the truth – if a black man says 2+2=4 or a white man says 2+2=4 ; what difference does it make;

        papers need to be published in respectable journals if of value, not posted on blogs for the largely illiterate; Most of those papers are not peer reviewed in any case (hence the reason why they are withdrawn – I guess)

      • id like to know who defines something as a branch of Islamic science and by what authority ? many of them talk about the linguistic miracle of the quran , but unable to demonstrate it to an English speaker – just take it on faith

        its just views views views …..’I think this’ and ‘ I think that’ …

        Academics attempt to look at facts without the bias of belief; orientalists (are dishonest academics)

  4. Maratsafin…what a dunstun!

    If the big three speakers of IERA are polygamous yet IERA is so strict about segregation that they have been in the national press over it, then it is fishy isn’t it? How do they meet these girls? How many of your friends have more than one wife? If 100% of people in ANY organisation had two wives people would be scratching their heads. if that organisation was a ‘lower your gaze!’ segregation fest that does not even allow women to address mixed audiences then it is even more weird.

    I’ll bet that the speakers are having their cake and eating it: women are not allowed to address men in IERA or even address a mixed audience, but men in IERA address female only crowds.

    They got burnt for this big time before and could not answer:

    http://thesultansjester.com/2013/03/12/who-do-iera-think-they-are/

  5. Hmm how shall I say what I shall I say when what I shall say I know will offend everybody…

    -First of all right of the bat who the is the new age messiah Adam Deen? The next modernist superstar ? His lady did a nice job cooning “respected” Islamic scholars, but wait I guess there is nobody that can’t get ethered these days. Burn the lot of them these scholars! I saw the video where he gets Dr. Brown agitated over the age of Aisha (R). She was 9 or 19 or 29, can we stop kissing Western apologists?

    -Second of all, being across the Atlantic, we don’t have too many of these dumbasses to deal with, but then again I honestly think Muslims in America tend to be a bit more intelligent than the ghetto that is Britain. We have to deal with American born imams who love to sell out quickly once their fire douses when they reach middle age. Guess a wife and a couple of teenage kids slow your piety as well; they get complacent.

    -Damn girl your right! It’s a racket, this dawah business. That is why I never got involved. The kids that I knew in the masjid that were thobs or whatever “religious” clothing that they thought would make them super Muslim, them who were handing out notices and wrestling ti give azan and grabbing stuff from others like me because they thought it was haram, well. One of them just served his second sentence for drug peddling, another has bastard children (Did you know boys and girls that it is okay to be gay? Yes and also have bastard children. But you BETTER LOWER YOUR GAZE). So this Salafi burnout is expected on all Salafis sooner or later. So they can preach their televengical to the deluded and unwashed masses, but sooner or later that trickle down mega church pseudo apologetics and ever pseudo-er proselytism will simply stop working.
    Not to say that I have not befitted from Naik, Deedat and even Green and Hamza, but mostly it’s their coming to Islam story and or their manner of speaking. If I can listen to an azan of a Shia, I can certainly listen to non-theological stuff from anybody.
    Akram Nadwi is too not scholarly enough, or wait is scholarly enough to be shammed. Oh well so much for that.

    -Oh the uni was hard? Boo Hoo…it was hard for all of us. Girls are not the only ones that are “conventionally” good looking whose “knickers” are a waiting to be looked under. Men don’t have it easy either. And yeah if Muslim that wearing guys can be horny, so can be these perfect little ho-jabis. Ironically, and this goes for the faith in general, I got be a better Muslim with my non-Muslim friends. Atheist, Jews, Catholics, etc. seem to have more knowledge, especially from a conservative point of view, than most Salafi burnouts that I used to know growing up. Lest I am wrong, it is not incumbent upon a person to only hang with Muslims.

    -So Yeah we get your point, that you proved by empirical evidence. It’s same but not the same all-round. We look to fit in, find someone (“hero worship”), and then bam, we find out they are a fluke. Boo-Hoo. The IERA and their types will eventually burn out as their “Chomsky” driven harangues become slippery (though Shaykh Hamza Yusuf also uses much from Chomsky/Buchanan) but who will come in their place. Please write on that too, What the Deen Institute?

    -Good Essay though

    • We may as well consider the current “dawah carriers” to be a challenge to do better.
      They will continue to attract attention until someone better qualified steps up to the plate, in some form or other.

  7. Interesting article. I can fully understand the points raised within your article. And unfortunately a lot of Muslims these days have rose tinted glasses and don’t recognise what’s going on in front of them. The work of dawah in my opinion is beautiful, but from my personal experience it has been a lot about the number of conversions and the quick proclamations of success. Indeed, the whole intention of those involved in the process needs to be reaffirmed as anything we do, should be for the sake of Allah… If truly it’s his pleasure that is sought. Furthermore, I disagree strongly with the current format of the Islamic awareness format, speakers who have no extensive knowledge, whether Islamic or Western, fail to appease the crowd. Which is vastly muslim, than non muslim. Unfortunately not much classical Islamic scholars have the vigour, where I’m based anyway, to help fight this rhetoric. But you’ve mentioned several problems, what solutions do you propose? I for one disagree with the tone of the article, which fails to mention the countless good which also occurs, Allah knows best.

    • yes, it is the numbers that count (to be honest) ; can you imagine if we tried to polish every convert – how many muslims would there be in the world ; egypy, Syria Lebanon were chritstians before – For the Saudis, im afraid that’s true as far as the rulers are concerned

  8. To be honest Hamza Tzortis and Adam Dean both suck.

    Maybe Sayyid Hosein Nasr might be a true intellect, all these kids are just a joke. Cant and wont ever take any of them seriously.

    • Agree. I don’t think dawah has ever been so comical. Bunch of thirty year olds who think they can make a difference, Most of them only bring more negative attention to the Muslims themselves. It’s only the hype. Once they reach middle age they’ll go back to their normal ill fated pre destined lives living and unliving at the same time. Their youthful ballyhoos will last as long as their youth.

  9. I thoroughly enjoyed this, found it insightful, though could not agree with all of it . Suede, you have a sharp mind (and, should I add, a sharp tongue)!

    I really think that there is some good stuff here. You should consider rewriting this but making it shorter so its accessible to a wider audience. This is a very long article – perhaps if you could just ho on the main point: how ill-equipped these pseudo dawah carriers are. I’m not sure how important the polygamy parts are (especially as it is unsubstantiated in this article), and seems like a more personal attack

    Keep it shorter and more focussed, then spread it out there – you will get a wider audience. You’re a brilliant writer with some great ideas, but at the same time you want to win people over to your thinking, without alienating others with ad hominem attacks.

    Keep up the good work!!

  10. I thoroughly enjoyed this, found it insightful and find it eye opening. I could not agree with all of it – Suede, you have a sharp mind (and, should I add, a sharp tongue)!

    I really think that there is some good stuff here. You should consider rewriting this but making it shorter so its accessible to a wider audience. This is a very long article – perhaps if you could just ho on the main point: how ill-equipped these pseudo dawah carriers are. I’m not sure how important the polygamy parts are (especially as it is unsubstantiated in this article), and seems like a more personal attack. Your central points about these guys/Haddad saying stupid things about Jews/women etc. is strong enough.

    Keep it shorter and more focussed, then spread it out there – you will get a wider audience. You’re a brilliant writer with some great ideas, but at the same time you want to win people over to your thinking, without alienating others by seeming like that you are making ad hominem attacks.

    Keep up the good work!!

    Your comment is awaiting moderation.

    • Thanks so much for the advice and you are quite right and all counts …and it is rather long!

      The only caveat I have with taking your otherwise eminently sensible advice is that sadly the polygyny stuff is most relevant for me and some of the people who encouraged me to write this – the named and other speakers polygynous behaviour is a matter of public knowledge – the only dispute are their reasons for doing so. Public knowledge proves that it is common for speakers (those named and others) to take other and even in some cases ‘serial’ wives. But I could and will get more specific depending on the stance that people take on this.

      It may just be that these relationships do not work out – anyone can have a divorce. But why is it only the second wife that seems to get divorced and why so quickly. And so often?

      In my role as a female ustadh as well as running clinics for Muslim women/converts on spiritual and fiqh issues, I’ve had many testimonies and e-mails, texts from women who have been on the sharp end of this – and believe me, I do try to take it with a pinch of salt – but when young girls (including converts) come to me with stories, pictures and intimate texts and e-mails, I get a good idea of what is going on.

      Some of these women have followed what they thought was Islamic protocols and taken up the issue with the employers and scholars of ‘dawah’ carriers involved, and in all cases have been ignored. I myself have seen the crisis of women caught up in these types of relationships with well known dawah carriers and how they are caught in the shame of exposure (‘she must have wanted to be with a famous daee, it’s her fault’) and the lack of censure of the practitioners. Frankly, a lot of dawah carriers seem to think that they are ‘saving’ Islam and sexual recompense is their just desserts (along with a hefty speakers fee – tens of thousands for some mid-range speakers).

      Although the polygyny stuff was a small part of the article, I wanted to put it in there and I wrote this with these girls in mind and since then many others have come forward. Many have even given me permission to use their stories, including texts and photos. I have chosen to protect these women and not make specific claims – but if people named or unnamed wish to make denials, then I am happy to present my evidence for public scrutiny.

      Though, as I have seen first hand, the behaviour is too common for them to deny, so the best ‘practitioners’ do is hide behind accusations of backbiting and ‘hiding the faults of your brother’, whereas they could say that and also add ‘what proof have you of this?’, though when, pardon my French, you have been shagging your way around Europe and Asia, you can never quite know which of the large body of ‘evidence’ you have left behind was the source, so denial is risky.

      The situation resembles the behaviour of the Elijah Muhammad and the disgust that Malcolm X felt at discovering his secreted wives and illegitimate children. I have deliberately left out details – including anything about children.

      When some famous Islamic speakers (in the West) have 50 children, you can’t stay quiet or do hussan ul zann.

      Mick Jagger doesn’t even have 50 children.

      And these same speakers are all over the media for enforcing ‘gender segregation’ (not a ‘thing’ in traditional Islamic fiqh). You couldn’t make this up – and then famous Salafi speakers and scholars follow the opinion of ‘misyar’, which is a Wahhabi form of temporary marriage (and the way it is apparently now taught is that they do not need to tell the girl that it is temporary). We have Haddad allegedly teaching this ‘opinion’ – and then his strangely polygynous students – Tzortzis and Rashid, as well as his employer Green. You don’t need four reliable witnesses to see that this is something that needs to be brought up.

      Polygamy is allowed in Islam – ‘hit it and quit it’ isn’t.

      • Whaaaaaaaaaa?!

        This needs to be in the main article dear! Or a separate article, not in the comments section!

        I think the comments here need to be turned into a new post or posts.

      • So we get it there are pimps in this racket. I agree. I have heard some stories and even witnessed first hand (back when I “relgilious”), but here is my question; Why are women so dumb to follow this nonsense ? Why ? Why is that when highly intelligent, educated women become Muslim, they seem to transform into dummies ? Why fall for their charm ? Men view sex higher then anything religious, so why can’t these “simple bumpkins” see that ?

  11. Dear Suede NIkiita – thanks for your response, and I do appreciate where you are coming from.

    I actually have never seen your blog before today, and it has been an interesting place for me to explore. Like I say, I do think your original article was very insightful, and I showed a number of my friends who agreed. It crystallised some of the thoughts that had already been lurking in my mind, but you articulated it much better than I could.

    I hope your article, or a version of it, can wake Muslims up to the following: these pseudo-intellectual ‘da’wah carriers’ are hollow; whilst I am sure that some are well-meaning, they have nevertheless watered the discourse down to the level of a 12 year old. This whole charade of pulp-polemics is cringeworthy, and is (probably – Allah knows best) doing more damage than good. Islam as a meditative, thoughtful and profound tradition has been completely brushed to the wayside to make way for fake scholars sprouting utter trite.

    I just wanted to add at the end as my own personal conviction – I’m not even sure the Muslim community should even do ‘dawah’ – in the form of apologists/street preachers/grand debates. Like your example with the conversation with “Neighbour Betty” tried to show – Muslims acting in a dignified manner and maintaing good friendships with those around them would be so much more meaningful, and purposeful for ‘dawah’ than any ‘dawah’ stand or debate. Perhaps I’m a bit snobbish, but public responses (in the form of apologetics / media contribution / writings etc ) when they MUST come, should come from authorised/trained students and scholars with a level of quality assurance – or none at all. The problem is, these jokers actually believe in themselves and love an audience…

  12. Hamza Tzortzis, may Allah strengthen him in his efforts and bless him with a pleasing struggle, is fulfilling a very legitimate need; if people do not think he is doing a good job, then why are they not actually coming forward and showing us all how to do things better than he is?
    Notice that brother Hamza is putting his own name and reputation on the line, unlike certain people who can only throw out unverifiable rumors about him while hiding behind anonymous screennames.
    “SuedeNikita” is not a reliable source; we have not the slightest idea who he or she or whatever actually is. Anything we hear from “SuedeNikita” alone is at best “da’eef”.
    Hamza Tzortzis is making a serious effort; so let us build or improve on his efforts, rather than wasting time with gossipy trash-talk like this article.
    I am ashamed to have spent some of my time taking this article seriously, may Allah pardon me.

    • ‘May Allah strengthen him in his efforts?’

      With Viagra you mean?

      I’m sure lots of people are happy to ‘step up’ and shag their way around the world on an all expenses paid trip.

      Plus I heard he’s on £2500 or so from IERA PER MONTH.

      We owe him nothing for his poorly informed refusal to study Islam or Science or his skirt chasing.

      • 2500 for a man with his capabilities is far below what I would expect him to be paid. Its clear he is not doing this for money. In London 2500 is not far away from minimum wage. You do understand the man has to eat and feed his family and have a roof over his head? I have had some mixed feelings about this IERA movement. Thanks for dispelling one of them:They don’t do it for any financial reward.

      • 1) Minimum Wage in the UK is £6.31. You do the math. £2500 is well above the national average wage for a graduate even.

        2) You never had any doubts about IERA, your reverse psychology skills suck. I know you are another one of the IERA recruits spamming this and other sites.

        3) ‘They don’t do it for any financial reward’: but you admitted he gets paid so…

        4)’A man of his capabilities’: Please state his Islamic and academic capabilities (apart from his awesome Evangelical Christian plagiarising ‘capabilities’: https://asharisassemble.com/2014/04/18/10-problems-with-dawahmen/

        5) It is good that you did not deny any of the sexual stuff – no one seems to want to as it is too many girls by now to deny isn’t it? Don’t know what texts, what photos are out there

    • Salam alaykum brother Hugh,

      Allah knows best, but it seems to be a colossal communal failure that we have only amateurs treading the path of Islamic propagation.

      Yes, the Saudis have money to fund organizations and they will do things in their own methodology, but why don’t we [traditional lay Muslims] wake up, and either learn Islam properly so that we can engage in proper Da’wah, or fund the true scholars, so that they can free themselves from the worries of daily living, and can carry out research, bring specialists of other fields into the fold, and have more robust Da’wah according to the traditional ways.

      From my limited experience, this is a very big issue: Many ‘Ulamaa simply do not have the means to be free in order to carry out such type of work, since they are busy and have to teach, etc., just to be able to make ends meet. In order for them to be able to truly help this cause properly, they will to have free time for this cause, and it is our responsibility as Muslims to help them in this case.

      (I know some may disagree, but this is what I have noticed from my recent experiences).

      • I am supporting traditional islam against salafist and wahhabist islam. However I do not understand why the methodology on this website is considered traditional. We have seen on some examples that here revivalist and modernist ideas are promoted. For example Dr. Timothy Winters is considered as a reliable source on the religion although we have seen from him an appreciation of the abrogation of the islamic law in the Ottoman Empire during the “Tanzimat” reforms.
        Promoting traditional islam is a good cause but one should first define what is exactly “traditional”. In my opinion not being wahhabist does not make one automatically a traditionalist sunnist.

    • Hamza Tzortzis, may Allah strengthen him in his efforts and bless him with a pleasing struggle, is fulfilling a very legitimate need; if people do not think he is doing a good job, then why are they not actually coming forward and showing us all how to do things better than he is?

      //how come indocrinated people with fanboy mentality could criticize?//

      Notice that brother Hamza is putting his own name and reputation on the line, unlike certain people who can only throw out unverifiable rumors about him while hiding behind anonymous screennames.
      “SuedeNikita” is not a reliable source; we have not the slightest idea who he or she or whatever actually is. Anything we hear from “SuedeNikita” alone is at best “da’eef”.
      Hamza Tzortzis is making a serious effort; so let us build or improve on his efforts, rather than wasting time with gossipy trash-talk like this article.

      //so anonymous critics is no-no huh?
      just because you don’t agree your dakwa idol being criticized doesn’t mean suedenikita is wrong//

      • Sukka Fool, what ‘name’ and reputation is he putting on the line? He doesn’t have any. He got famous by putting Islams name and reputation on the line and damaging that.

        It is like saying that someone who has no qualifications and is a bad surgeon should be allowed to operate, even if he kills the patient because he is the ‘only one’ to do it. Even though there are many other qualified surgeons.

        Where is your proof that Tzortzis is the only one and no one else is stepping up? Dear Idiot, the Salafi organisation have million of Saudi money and they only allow their own speakers to speak.

        First the Salafis stopped you from studying philosophy as ‘haraam’ and then people like Hamaza teach you a little bit of it as ‘Proof’ of Islam and you guys fall, in love with him. It is the same as appreciating the same doctor who made you sick in the first place.

        Don’t even dream that Tzortzis can help you from the atheists and secularists – he can’t even help himself. If you didn’t study these subjects just shut up and don’t give anyone advice. That’s the problems with Muslims – they all have an opinion but hardly any of them have knowledge. So the opinion is just based on emotional and biased garbage.

        Also, you are so stupid that you don’t even know that Hamza Tzortzis is not even his real name. And since he wants to be famous and sleep with lots of girls, obviously he is not being anonymous or ‘hiding’ his identity. You absolute plonker, go live in Saudi or Qatar and see how the people who fund and teach Tzortzis treat people who ‘show their identity’

        Finally, this comment was so dumb that it gave me a migraine. Please wise up – if you continue to be this stupid and gullible you will fail the exam for village idiot.

  13. Pingback: 10 Problems With ”Dawahmen” « Blogging theology

  14. Dear Author. Your article gave me a lot of pause for thought and I ended up agreeing wholeheartedly with your article. What would be your advice to those who want to study Islam in a way that leads to sort of independent thinking you are advocating in this article. e.g. Ibn Taymiyyah’s views on the Kalam cosmoligical argument aren’t going to be found in any bog standard Islamic course….

    • You are very right. I have spent years on alim and ‘Islamic’ courses. All are rubbish and basically almost no one teaches Sunni aqeeda or correct approach to hadith answers to tough questions such as slavery in Islam etc anymore. That’s just how it is IMHO

      For example, Ibn Taymiyyah views are considered idol worship by Sunni and Shia Islam (may he be saved from his statements). It us clear from the Imams of aqeeda and kalam. But it took me, with lots of time and money, ten years to sort out these issues. Most of the authentic books are not translated or may even be in manuscript form. All courses and instructors are willing to endanger your iman to protect their favourites, whether it is Taymiyyah, Ahmad Ridha Khan, or Deobandi scholars or todays guys etc. And it applies to practically all ‘sects’. Ordinary people have hardly any chance.

      So my advice is:

      1) try your best and never delegate your thinking to others even if they seem pious:God has no reason to misguide you. Aql is commanded in the Quran in no less Than 70 places and with synonymous terms in many more. The same intellect that brings us to Islam is still to be used once we are Muslims. Islam does not fear the use of intellect: Don’t let people who say it is a religion if aql not naql fool you. Brain is used in Islam for everything other than on the essence of God.

      2) Read books: yes they can misguide but so can a teacher, same risk is there from both. Tim Winters reading list is really good.

      3) Avicenna Academy via Sheikh Atabek are the only reliable body teaching courses I have found in the UK. All the rest refuse to teach mantiq, philosophy etc and skew the course to mislead about their opponents, non Muslims, political stuff or to attract funding from Saudi.

      4) The hadith and Aqeeda and Sheikh Atabek/Mahmut talks on this site are actually more or less exactly the same as what I learnt but in a much better way. It sufficed me for the concerns and doubts I had as a Muslim in the UK involved in dialogue.

      Please feel free to email the team of we can be if any help or for any further questions: mmmclmru@hotmail.com

  16. Both Hamza Tzortzis and Adnan Rashid have previously agreed to debate me, specified their terms, and then subsequently backed out.

    This isn’t by any stretch of the imagination because I am brilliant, but more because they are actually crap at what they do. Mr HAT only debates people with no knowledge of Islam, or those with knowledge who desire only to “have a nice chat” to show that Muslims can discuss Islam without having to be defensive.

    Here are some of the unpleasant things iERA members have said over the years
    https://vimeo.com/user6306139

    And here is the video footage of Adnan Rashid that kicked off the whole embryology mess

    Mar HAT’s “New Approach to Quran and Science” is merely iERA reverting back to the original approach to Quran and science. Don’t try to tie them together, and where science seems to show the Quran is wrong just ignore the science.

    • Yeah, so?

      We already did a couple of talks and articles about their ‘new’ approach to science and Quran (‘Muslims Scientists Not Impressed With IERA’s New Approach to Science and the Quran’). They represent Wahhabism and not mainstream Islam anyway.

      Anyway – you do something a little similar to IERA – you get the dumbest, most uninformed but loudmouth Saudi backed loon jobs (Rashid et al) and debunk them thereby acting like you tackled Islam which is the same as me getting a very stupid person who says they are an atheist and happens to be a bit famous (say, Richard Dawkins), exposing him publicly as a whack job and then saying I refuted atheism.

      ’tis foolhardy.

    • Also PZ Meyers is not an Embryologist. At all. But rather he is a slightly better BS artist than Rashid (not difficult), as you well know: ‘Developmental Biology’ (and he does not even have a degree in that but in ‘EVOLUTIONARY developmental biology’) is not Embryology. It is like your GP claiming to be a brain surgeon because ‘Neurosurgery’ is a subspecialty of his degree (i.e medicine). Rubbish. Ditto me having a degree in physics and claiming to be a string theorist. Or in biology and claiming to be an ‘evolutionary biologist’. You get the picture.

      Rashid and Co BS with Arabic and theology to fool the uninitiated. People like Meyers do it with science since most people who are not biologists (and I am before you ask) would be taken in by his ‘I’m an embryologist’ routine: his undergrad degree is in Zoology (again nothing to do with a specialisation in Embryology) and his PhD topic is curiously vague but appears to be in neuroscience.

      If you can find me any professor or associate professor of Embryology at a UK university med school or Royal College who say that Meyers is in any way an ’embryologist’ I will eat my computer.

      It is always easy to pick faults with our opponents and to gloss our friends isn’t it dear boy?

      • get a life! It’s Ramadhan, stop digging in someone’s dirty laundry and concentrate in your ibadah this this blessed months. Hamza Tsortiz doing brilliant job, May Allah reward him and strengthen him even more in calling for Allah’s deen.

      • You really need to sort out your spelling and grammar.

        Calling to Wahhabism = moral carte blanche? Nice work of you can get it…

        Who put you in charge of Ramadan enforcement? Whatever is haraam outside Ramadan (for example, shagging your way around Europe) is haraam inside as well.

        Silly celebrity fangirl.

    • Libel is only for specifics not for stuff like ‘rock stars shag a lot back stage’ etc. Anyway, the evidence is rather well known for a lot of the famous individuals as is their polygamy (greens is on public record).

      If anyone wants to get libellous then go for it and we will see Nikitas evidence. Frankly, denials were not exactly pouring in. I have seen some of the evidence myself for some well known individuals so I had no qualms publishing this.

      I think you took the backstage thing too literally though.

  18. Seems abit silly to complain about a sect bot accepting you, but then you rejecting them.

    This whole article reeks of an inferiority complex. Whilst there are issues in the dawah world, you’ve shown you’re no better.

    Congrats dude.

    • well, dakwah actually spreading a knowledge, nikita just point out that there is kind of self proclaimed dakwah activities that actualky not dakwah at all, a business based on creating fanbase

  19. There is no such thing as “secular knowledge”. An understanding of Tawhid gives us the realisation that all knowledge is in some way connected to The Ultimate Reality – God. But yes, these scholars have no understanding of “secular mechanics”. That would be a better way to put it.

    This is a pretty nice blog. Just discovered it. Keep it up.

    • There is no such thing as “secular knowledge”. An understanding of Tawhid gives us the realisation that all knowledge is in some way connected to The Ultimate Reality – God. But yes, these scholars have no understanding of “secular mechanics”. That would be a better way to put it.

      //tawhid is about a personal covenant about one-ness of “causa prima”, the judgment of how the tawhid accepted or not is by Allah alone.not by humans covenant.
      meanwhile secular knowledge is simply a way to define reality that humans itself admit it is material knowledge, that has nothing to do with god//

  20. Well what irony then. Because of Hamza i liked rationalism and came about Ghazzali read some of his most known work and ventured on to find about Ashari’s. Always thought Hamza was one. However, i do not exclude so called salafis, due to different understanding of things.

    I wish i had an alternative to the way you go about things. You come of as slightly repugnant, by demeaning these men in this way. Because in someway i feel bad for them.
    If it is as you say(other articles wherin some of them have plagiarised) it seems they did it for the sake of winning an argument. Where the hadith from the prophet salalahu aleyhi wa salam: “Whoever does not argue when he is in the wrong will have a home built for him on the edge of Paradise. Whoever avoids it when he in the right will have a home built for him in the middle of Paradise. And whoever improves his own character, a home will be built for him in the highest part of Paradise”.

    Then the story of imam maliki:
    “As for me, I’m in a state of certainty from my Lord about what I’m doing. As for you, you’re in doubt, so go find someone else in doubt like yourself to argue with”

    Beautiful statement.

    Imam shafi’i “I never once argued with anyone hoping to win the debate; rather I always wished that the truth would come from his side”

    • Yeah, you don’t actually understand what you are talking about. No one takes that hadith literally since it means that even if you have the right religion, don’t tell people about. You Muppet.

      This is the usual emotional blackmail about ‘arguing’ and ‘respecting difference of opinion’ (*which you clowns never practice with people of mother religions or Shia). You are hypocrites. You ask for adhab (‘manners’) and then cal people ‘repugnant’ and accept hadith where the Prophet and Shahabah tell people to ‘suck their dads penis’ (Allah forbid). So all you do is take a few hadith that ‘prove’ what you believe in (actually, yourselves and your own version of how people should act AKA your ego) and ignore all the other crap you believe.

      You say we should regard Salafi anthropomorphism (you are a Deobandi probably) as a difference of opinion. Okay, what else can we regard as a ‘difference of opinion’? Ghazzali, you you laughably mention, says anthropmorphism is wrong because it means worshipping an idol, yet none of you guys would give a Hindu the benefit of the doubt. Basically, you guys are a weird form of nationalism: anyone with a Muslim name should be tolerated and anyone without should be…well, we know that fatwas which you tolerate as a ‘difference of opinion’.

      So what are you even talking about? Not arguing with people? Have you read that ‘beautiful’ statement of Imam Malik (you claim)? How is that good manners? ‘I’m ignoring you because I am certain you are wrong PS, I’m not telling you why’. This is why, and believe me kiddo, if your kids are unlucky enough to have you as a dad, when atheists and others take your children’s faith from them like candy from a baby, you will just have to sit and watch. Don’t argue. It’s bad.

      As for Imam Shafi, why did he engage in a debate without knowing the truth in the first place, which is the only option if he was TRULY hoping to lose? Are you saying he is crazy or something? Or ignorant? Anyway, before using Imam Shafi as a proof, tell me, do you agree with him that you can marry your biological daughter?

      And do you agree with Shafi AND Malik that there is no punishment for killing non-Muslims or Muslim slaves?

      See, that’s why I called you hypocrite.

  21. Hmmm…

    The hadiths i took were in contrast with, arguing for just winning, not directed at you.

    Now i am one of the clowns who dislike shia for some reason, for what you know i could actually be Shia.
    Hadith i believe in? The hadiths i put were for reflection, due to me having come across
    them and them seemingly being relevant to the post.

    I said the way you write could be viewed as repugnant, not that you are repugnant. I do not accept anthropmorphism, and no
    i am not proposing anything, regarding anthropmorphism. Where do you get this from?

    Again you obviously got the wrong,i wrote “i wish i had an alternative way” not that i have one. The change in my first post is, when i talk about plagiarizing.

    I am actually in the wrong on this one, with the statement of imam malik there is a story behind it. So a bit unfair for me to take some part and leave the rest of the story. I believe my kids, will have me as a dad, since they are my kids.
    If god wills it and i have kids, may i be equipped with strengthening their way of reasoning and thinking.

    The one with imam shafi’i should probably have had the context too.

    Marry your biological daughter? No. But that is a claim that i would like to see evidence on.

    Where i live you are not allowed to kill anyone and get away with it, that is that.
    If they did propose this,well ok. Does that mean i am not able to cite anyone who has another opinion on anything else?

    Do you think this makes them unreliable, as islamic sources?

  22. Well written. I’m going to read more stuff from here in the future because of it Insha’Allah. Criticism and intellectual dialogue seem to me to be sorely needed in the community. Peace!

Leave a comment