A Signal Through Time is not just a book—it’s a message to the future. An urgent call for dignity, conscience, and intelligence at the dawn of a new age. This is not prophecy. It is preparation. jamescoates.eth | jamescoates.eth.limo

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An Articulation of the Torah-Based Jewish Anti-Zionist Position

Introduction: The Inversion

There is a claim so audacious, so contrary to mainstream discourse, that most people dismiss it before examining the evidence. The claim is this: the State of Israel is the single most antisemitic entity currently operating on the planet. This is not the position of fringe activists or hostile outsiders. It is the stated, theologically grounded conviction of Torah-observant Jewish communities who have opposed Zionism since its inception — communities like Neturei Karta, the Satmar Hasidim, True Torah Jews (Natruna), and organisations such as Torah Jews and Voice of Rabbis.

Their argument is not emotional. It is systematic. It rests on theology, history, documented policy, and observable consequences. And it demands to be heard in full, because the stakes — for Jews, for Palestinians, and for the integrity of the word “antisemitism” itself — could not be higher.

1. The Theological Betrayal: Zionism as the Negation of Judaism

Judaism, as understood by Torah-observant Jews for millennia, is a covenantal faith. It is defined by the relationship between God and the Jewish people, expressed through Torah, mitzvot, and the prophetic tradition. Jewish identity is fundamentally spiritual and religious.

Political Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in the 1890s, performed a radical act of redefinition. It took a religious identity rooted in divine covenant and transformed it into an ethnic-nationalist political project. Herzl and many of the founding Zionists were secular, some openly contemptuous of religious Judaism. The movement’s foundational premise was not that Jews are a people in covenant with God, but that Jews are a nation without a state — and that the “problem” of Jewish existence could be solved through sovereignty and military power.

This, anti-Zionist rabbis argue, is itself an acceptance of the antisemitic premise. The antisemite says: Jews do not belong among the nations. Herzl agreed — he simply proposed a different solution. Rather than challenging hatred, Zionism internalised it.

The Talmud (Ketubot 111a) records the Three Oaths, which anti-Zionist Jews interpret as divine prohibitions: that Jews shall not ascend to the Land of Israel en masse by force; that they shall not rebel against the nations; and that the nations shall not oppress Israel excessively. The establishment of the State of Israel through political manoeuvre and military conquest, in this reading, constitutes a direct violation of sacred law. It is not merely a political disagreement. It is, in the vocabulary of Jewish theology, an act of rebellion against God.

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe and one of the most respected Talmudic authorities of the twentieth century, devoted an entire work — Vayoel Moshe — to this argument. His was not a marginal voice. Before Zionism reshaped the landscape, opposition to Jewish political sovereignty prior to the messianic era was the mainstream rabbinic position. Zionism did not fulfil Judaism. It displaced it.

2. Replacing God with a Flag: Zionism as Idolatry

Anti-Zionist Torah Jews go further. They argue that Zionism constitutes a form of avodah zarah — idolatry — the gravest sin in Jewish theology. The state replaces the covenant. The flag replaces Torah. Military power replaces the messianic hope. The obligation to be “a light unto the nations” is replaced with ethnic nationalism and territorial expansion.

When a Jew pledges allegiance to the State of Israel, when the state becomes the locus of identity and the object of ultimate loyalty, something sacred has been substituted with something profane. The prophetic tradition of Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah warned repeatedly and explicitly that sovereignty without justice leads to destruction, that God desires mercy and righteousness, not sacrifices and national power. Anti-Zionist Jews argue that modern Israel is repeating precisely the pattern the prophets condemned — and that fidelity to the Jewish tradition requires saying so.

3. Manufacturing the Danger: How Israel Produces Antisemitism

Perhaps the most strategically devastating argument is this: Israel claims to be the solution to antisemitism, but it is the primary engine generating it.

By claiming to act and speak in the name of all Jews everywhere, the State of Israel makes every Jewish person on earth a potential target. When Israeli forces carry out airstrikes, enforce occupation, expand settlements, or enact policies that provoke international outrage, the backlash lands not only on the state but on Jewish communities globally. Synagogues are vandalised. Jewish individuals are harassed. Antisemitic incidents spike in direct correlation with Israeli military operations.

This is not a bug. Anti-Zionist Jews argue it is a feature. The entire architecture of Zionism depends on the premise that Jews can never be safe among the nations. Rising antisemitism validates the Zionist project. It drives aliyah — Jewish immigration to Israel. It silences critics. It justifies the security state. Israel needs antisemitism the way an arms dealer needs conflict.

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, now adopted by numerous governments, illustrates the mechanism. By including criticism of Israel as a potential form of antisemitism, it achieves two things simultaneously: it shields the state from accountability, and it collapses the distinction between Jewish people and Israeli state policy — which is exactly what genuine antisemites do. The conflation is the point.

4. “You Don’t Belong Here”: Zionism’s Shared Premise with Classical Antisemitism

There is a message that has echoed through centuries of anti-Jewish persecution, from medieval expulsions to Nazi ideology to modern neo-Nazism. The message is: Jews do not belong here. Jews are foreign. Jews should leave.

Zionism does not challenge this message. It affirms it.

When Israeli leaders respond to an attack on a synagogue in Paris by calling on French Jews to “come home to Israel,” they are completing a sentence that the antisemite began. The antisemite says: you don’t belong in France. The Zionist agrees — and offers a destination. The underlying premise is identical: that Jews are fundamentally alien wherever they live outside of Israel, that coexistence among the nations is impossible, that the only answer is separation.

This is not a rhetorical parallel. It is a structural alignment of ideology. And it has a historical pedigree that cannot be ignored.

The Haavara Agreement of 1933 stands as the most documented example. This was a formal arrangement negotiated between the Zionist Organisation and the Nazi regime — Adolf Hitler’s government — to facilitate the transfer of German Jewish assets and the emigration of Jews to Palestine. The agreement was designed to work in tandem with Nazi persecution. The Nazis wanted Jews out of Germany. The Zionists wanted Jews in Palestine. The interests converged. The mechanism was transactional: persecution created the pressure, and the Zionist movement provided the pipeline.

This was not a desperate rescue operation. It was a strategic partnership between a movement that wanted to remove Jews from Europe and a movement that wanted to collect them in Palestine. The Jews themselves — their safety, their agency, their right to remain in their own countries — were secondary to both parties’ objectives.

The pattern continues today. Every act of fearmongering, every declaration that Jews in Europe or America are living on borrowed time, every campaign designed to make diaspora Jews feel unsafe in their own homelands serves the same function the Haavara Agreement served: it creates the conditions under which Jews feel they must leave. The method has evolved from formal agreements with persecutors to sophisticated media campaigns and political pressure, but the logic is unchanged.

Jewish communities have lived in France for over a thousand years. Jews have been part of British life since the Norman era. American Jewish communities are woven into the fabric of the nation. To tell these people that their homes are not truly their homes, that their citizenship is conditional, that they should uproot their lives and relocate to a state in the Middle East — this is not protection. It is displacement. And it echoes, with uncomfortable precision, what every antisemitic movement in history has demanded.

Torah-observant anti-Zionist Jews make this point with particular force. The divine exile — the galut — is, in their theology, ordained by God. Jews are meant to live among the nations until the messianic era. Their homes in London, Paris, New York, and Buenos Aires are not temporary arrangements to be abandoned at the first sign of trouble. They are where God has placed them. To tell a Jew that their divinely ordained home is illegitimate and that they must relocate to a state that violates divine law is, in this framework, a double act of spiritual violence.

The convergence between Zionist rhetoric and neo-Nazi ideology on this point is not coincidental. White nationalist movements in Europe and America have openly praised the concept of Israel as an ethno-state, seeing it as a model and a convenient destination for the Jews they wish to expel. When Richard Spencer called himself a “white Zionist,” he was not being ironic. He was identifying a genuine ideological kinship: the shared belief that ethnic groups should be separated into their own territories, and that Jews living among non-Jews is a problem to be solved.

That Zionism finds its logic validated by white supremacists should give pause to anyone who claims it is a defence against antisemitism. A movement whose core premise — that Jews cannot and should not live among other peoples — is affirmed by the very forces it claims to oppose has not defeated antisemitism. It has absorbed it.

5. Instrumentalising the Holocaust

The exploitation of Holocaust memory is central to the Zionist project, and it is one of the charges anti-Zionist Jews make most forcefully.

The Holocaust — the Shoah — is sacred memory. Six million Jews were murdered. Anti-Zionist Jews honour this with absolute solemnity. What they refuse to accept is the weaponisation of that memory to justify a political state and silence dissent.

They go further. Historians and anti-Zionist scholars have documented troubling evidence that Zionist leadership during the 1930s and 1940s prioritised the state-building project over the rescue of European Jews. There were documented instances of selectivity — prioritising young, healthy, secular, productive Jews for immigration to Palestine while showing indifference to rescue efforts that did not serve the Zionist goal. The Haavara Agreement, as discussed above, was the earliest and most formal manifestation of this, but the pattern extended throughout the war years. When rescue routes existed that would have taken Jews to destinations other than Palestine, Zionist leadership was at times indifferent or actively obstructive.

The charge is stark: Zionism did not arise to save Jews from the Holocaust. It arose before the Holocaust, negotiated with its perpetrators, and then used the catastrophe retroactively as its ultimate justification. Anti-Zionist Jews consider this a desecration of the highest order.

6. The Erasure of Anti-Zionist Jews

If Israel is the guardian of Jewish identity, what happens to Jews who reject it?

They are erased. Delegitimised. Excommunicated from their own faith.

Anti-Zionist Jews are routinely labelled “self-hating,” “kapos,” and traitors. Their voices are dismissed as inauthentic. Their Judaism is questioned. They are told, in effect, that they are not real Jews — that their millennia-old theological tradition does not count unless it aligns with a political ideology barely 130 years old.

This is not a minor rhetorical tactic. It is an act of violence against Jewish identity itself. When Benjamin Netanyahu claims to speak for “the Jewish people,” he is asserting ownership over an identity that predates his state by three thousand years. When anti-Zionist rabbis — men who have devoted their lives to Torah study, who observe every mitzvah, who trace their scholarship through unbroken chains of transmission — are dismissed as irrelevant, something deeply antisemitic has occurred. A secular political project has appointed itself the gatekeeper of who qualifies as a Jew.

The Zionist message to anti-Zionist Jews is unambiguous: your Torah does not count. Your rabbis do not count. Your reading of Jewish law does not count. Only loyalty to the state counts. This is, by any reasonable measure, the suppression of Jewish religious freedom by a political ideology.

7. Persecution Within: Israel’s War on Religious Jews

The persecution is not merely rhetorical. Within Israel itself, anti-Zionist Orthodox communities face harassment, social ostracism, and in some cases violence. Members of Neturei Karta and allied groups have been physically attacked for their views.

The early Zionist project was explicitly hostile to traditional Jewish life. Yiddish — the living language of Ashkenazi Jewry — was actively suppressed in favour of Modern Hebrew, which the Zionists fashioned into a nationalist tool. Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews — Jews from the Middle East and North Africa — faced systematic discrimination upon arrival in Israel. The Ringworm Affair, in which thousands of Mizrahi children were subjected to dangerous radiation treatments, remains one of the darkest chapters. Yemeni Jewish families experienced the alleged disappearance of their children, a trauma that has never been fully resolved.

The ongoing battle over military conscription of ultra-Orthodox men crystallises the conflict. For yeshiva students whose lives are devoted to Torah study, being forced into military service for a state they consider religiously illegitimate — to fight in wars they believe violate divine law — is not a policy disagreement. It is coercion of religious conscience.

A state that persecutes its own religious Jewish citizens for refusing to violate their interpretation of God’s law is not a Jewish state. It is, in the eyes of these communities, a state at war with Judaism.

8. Stealing the Name: “Israel” Is Not a Country

The very name “Israel” is contested. In Torah, Israel is not a political entity. It is a spiritual designation — the name given to Jacob after his encounter with the divine, signifying the people who wrestle with God. It refers to a covenant community defined by its relationship with the Creator, not to a modern nation-state with borders, an army, and a seat at the United Nations.

By appropriating this name, the Zionist state has achieved a profound act of theological identity theft. Every time the word “Israel” is spoken in a news broadcast, it reinforces the conflation of a spiritual reality with a political project. Every time a scripture that speaks of “Israel” is cited to justify settlements or military operations, the sacred text is being conscripted into the service of nationalism. Anti-Zionist Jews argue this is a desecration — a violation of what the name means and has always meant in Jewish theology.

9. The Corruption of Global Jewish Life

The damage extends far beyond Israel’s borders. Anti-Zionist Jews argue that the Zionist project has corrupted Jewish communal life worldwide.

Synagogues, community organisations, schools, and charitable institutions that might otherwise focus on Torah study, acts of justice, prayer, and spiritual growth have been conscripted into defending or justifying the policies of a foreign government. Communal resources are redirected toward Israel advocacy. Internal dissent is policed. Young Jews who raise moral objections to Israeli policy find themselves marginalised, shunned, or expelled from their communities.

The result is a hollowing out of diaspora Judaism. The faith tradition becomes secondary to the political project. The question “What does Torah teach?” is replaced by “What is good for Israel?” And Jews who insist on asking the first question are treated as enemies.

This, anti-Zionist Jews argue, constitutes a spiritual catastrophe — an internal erosion of Jewish life carried out in the name of Jewish survival. It is antisemitism wearing a Star of David.

10. The Semitic Question: Who Are the Real Antisemites?

There is a final dimension to this argument that challenges the very language of the debate.

The term “antisemitism” was coined in the 1870s by Wilhelm Marr as a self-applied label for his anti-Jewish movement. It was always, in practice, about hostility toward Jews. But the etymology tells a different story. “Semitic” refers to the descendants of Shem — a broad family of peoples that includes not only Jews but Arabs, Palestinians, and other Middle Eastern populations.

If we take the word at its root, then the systematic dehumanisation, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and violence visited upon the Palestinian people — a Semitic people with ancient roots in the land — constitutes antisemitism in its most literal and expansive sense. The denial of Palestinian identity, the erasure of their history, the destruction of their homes, the killing of their children — this is hatred directed at a Semitic people, carried out by a state that claims to be the antidote to such hatred.

The irony is not subtle. It is staggering. A state founded in the name of fighting antisemitism practises it — in the original, etymological sense of the word — as a matter of daily policy. It wages war on Semitic peoples while claiming a monopoly on the word used to describe such acts.

Linguists will note that words derive meaning from usage, not etymology. That is a fair technical point. But the moral argument transcends linguistics. A state cannot claim to oppose hatred of Semitic peoples while systematically destroying the lives, homes, culture, and future of another Semitic people. The contradiction is not semantic. It is existential.

11. The Prophetic Warning

The Hebrew prophets spoke to this moment with terrifying clarity.

Amos declared: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies… But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Isaiah warned that God rejects worship offered by hands stained with blood. Jeremiah told the people of Judah not to trust in the deceptive words “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord” — as though the mere invocation of sacred identity could substitute for actual justice.

Anti-Zionist Jews hear in these words a direct indictment of the modern state that bears the name Israel. A state that invokes Jewish identity while practising oppression. A state that uses sacred language to cover profane acts. A state that says “Never again” while enacting the very patterns of dispossession and dehumanisation that the prophets condemned.

The prophetic tradition does not offer comfort to the powerful. It offers warning. And the warning, Torah Jews insist, has never been more urgent.

Conclusion: The Most Dangerous Antisemitism Comes from Within

External antisemitism — the hatred of Jews by those outside the community — is visible, identifiable, and resistible. It can be named, confronted, and fought.

What Zionism represents, according to Torah-observant anti-Zionist Jews, is something far more insidious. It is an antisemitism that wears Jewish symbols, speaks Hebrew, quotes scripture, and claims to be the fulfilment of Jewish destiny. It redefines Judaism to serve a political agenda. It endangers Jews worldwide by making them complicit in actions they may abhor. It tells Jews their homes are not their homes, echoing the oldest antisemitic demand in history. It negotiated with Nazis and today finds its logic affirmed by white supremacists. It excommunicates Jews who object. It persecutes religious communities within its own borders. It instrumentalises the Holocaust. It corrupts diaspora Jewish life. And it wages war on a fellow Semitic people while claiming a monopoly on the language of anti-Semitic victimhood.

This is why Torah Jews, Voice of Rabbis, Neturei Karta, and the broader anti-Zionist Orthodox movement call Israel the most antisemitic entity on earth. Not because they are indifferent to Jewish welfare. Precisely because they are not.

They speak because they believe Judaism is worth more than a flag, a state, or a military apparatus. They speak because they believe Jewish identity is defined by God, not by a government. They speak because the prophetic tradition demands it.

And they speak because silence, in the face of what is being done in their name, would be the greatest betrayal of all.

This article presents the theological and ethical arguments of Torah-based Jewish anti-Zionism as articulated by communities including Torah Jews, Voice of Rabbis, Neturei Karta, and allied movements.

Article by BrJimC © 2026

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Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ir-Raheem (In the Name of Allah, The Most Merciful, The Most Beneficent)

by James S. Coates

Introduction

“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favour of Allah upon you—when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favour, brothers.” — Qur’an 3:103

I have worked with a number of major Muslim organisations and movements in America. I have organised events with them, raised funds for them, defended them in the media, and built bridges between them. I have also been praised by them, shut out by them, and ultimately expelled by some of them. I have seen the best of our community and the worst.

I originally wrote this article in 2007, when these experiences were fresh and the wounds still raw. I have since stepped back from active involvement in the organised Muslim community in America. I am revisiting and revising this piece now because, while some things may have changed in the intervening years, structural divisions along ethnic, tribal, and movement lines do not disappear quickly. If even some of what I witnessed remains true, then naming it is still necessary. I offer this not as a definitive account of how things are today, but as a testimony of what I experienced and an invitation for others to reflect honestly on whether these patterns persist in their own communities.

What follows is an account of the divisions I have witnessed within the American Muslim community—divisions along ethnic, national, tribal, and doctrinal lines. I write this not to condemn but to name what many of us know but few will say openly. If we cannot name a problem, we cannot solve it.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said in his final sermon:

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; a white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over a white—except by piety and good action.”

We profess this. We must ask ourselves whether we live it.

The Divisions

The topics I address in this article are:

  1. Immigrant versus Indigenous American Muslims (not new converts)
  2. Immigrant versus American Muslim Converts
  3. Immigrants versus their American-born Children (2nd generation)
  4. Jamaat-e-Islami versus Muslim League
  5. Ikhwan versus other Movements
  6. Salafi versus other Madhabs (schools of thought)
  7. Tablighi Jamaat versus other Movements
  8. Summary of Alliances and Divisions

Please bear with me as I explore and explain these divisions. Some of what follows will be uncomfortable. But the Prophet (peace be upon him) told us that the best jihad is a word of truth spoken to an unjust ruler. Sometimes the injustice is within our own house.

1. Immigrant versus Indigenous American Muslims

In this divide, you have approximately 30% of the Muslims in America being indigenous to the Black American community—descendants of former slaves taken from Islamic areas of Africa. Many of them are in poor communities. Some are Muslims from birth through family lineage; others came through the Nation of Islam and, like Malcolm X, realised it was not true Islam, left, and joined the broader Muslim community. They form their own communities and sometimes intermingle with the general Muslim community at large.

On the other side, you have foreign-born Muslims. Other than the approximately 2% of whites, Hispanics, and others who are indigenous or convert to Islam, the first-generation immigrant population makes up roughly 68% of Islam in America. Many came in the 1940s fleeing Communism in former Soviet bloc countries. Pakistanis came from South Asia fleeing famine and drought. In 1948 and 1967, the wars with Israel brought both Christian and Muslim Palestinians. The mid-1960s marked a significant increase of Muslim immigration from Pakistan, Turkey, Indonesia, and other Eastern and Arab countries, coming with the oil and other industries, seeking education or jobs.

What I Witnessed

I have seen a severe divide between indigenous Black American Muslims and immigrants—to the extent that they have formed entirely separate communities. When I was raising money for ICNA to build the Freeman Center in Houston, which is in a Black American community, I heard immigrant Muslims question why I was doing such a deed. One said, “Every time you see a black, they have their hand out.” It didn’t matter that the area had Muslims in it; they were indigenous former slaves and lumped into the larger stereotype of Blacks in America.

In the 1960s and 70s, Black Muslim communities, joining the fight for civil rights, attempted to ally with first-generation Muslims. According to one Imam in Houston, the first-generation community viewed Black Muslims as having serious doctrinal issues. Instead of attempting to correct such issues, they ostracised the Black indigenous Muslims and treated them as apostates—to the extent that Black Muslims had to form their own masajid (mosques).

At the Texas Dawah Conference 2003, a Canadian-born Islamic scholar told the conference that it was good they got together, but all he saw was Pakistani and Arab faces. He urged them to get indigenous Black American Muslims represented as an active part of the conference since they represent such a significant portion of the Islamic community in America.

So at the Texas Dawah Conference 2004, I attempted to heal this rift. I invited the Black indigenous Muslim community to be a part of the conference. The Black leaders I spoke to were eager to participate, even in a small way, and repeated to me the need to heal this rift—but were concerned with how the immigrant community would treat them.

When I spoke to the organisers, it was initially met with cautious optimism. The concern was what the Black Muslims would be “teaching” at the conference and whether it was sound doctrine. So it went through the ranks, and the main organiser dispatched an email putting a dead stop to it on the basis that the indigenous Blacks’ doctrine was not sound—even though they acknowledged the Black indigenous Muslims were Muslims in need of education in Islam. Instead of working with them in a way that addressed their concerns, they completely shut them out of the conference. There was no indigenous American Muslim representation on an official basis, and virtually none showed up to attend.

The conference is billed to the community as a unifying force to bring organisations together. It failed to bridge the gap between indigenous American Muslims (30% of the community) and the immigrants (the organisations represented at the conference).

The divide between immigrant and indigenous Black American Muslims is deeply felt and will not be healed soon, since the immigrant community continually views them as beggars, shuts them out, and ostracises them.

2. Immigrant versus American Muslim Converts

According to the majority of Islamic scholars, one of the primary reasons Muslims have to live in a non-Muslim nation is for the purpose of dawah (propagation of Islam)—making converts. Yet making converts in a non-Muslim land creates a paradox for immigrant Muslims, and the experience is often frustrating for new converts.

One of the best moments in a convert’s life is first becoming Muslim. It is a sense of freedom, belonging to a greater community, brotherhood, and guidance. As converts grow in their new faith, they acquire knowledge of Islam from the immigrant perspective, are inundated with an array of political ideas (typically anti-Western), and struggle to understand the inner workings of the faith, various cultures, and the Arabic language.

The Language and Cultural Barrier

When I became involved in the Islamic community, I struggled for clear answers from knowledgeable Muslims because of the language barrier. Most of the Imams and scholars in the West are not American, or at least were born in another country and immigrated to America, even if they acquired citizenship. They are ESL (English as a second language) people from Egypt, Pakistan, or elsewhere. The same applies for the majority of Muslims in the masajid. They speak English at an academic level but do not understand street lingo or common American English. They also have little or no connection to the plight of Americans, our history, or how our country operates outside of what they know from back home.

The prominent undercurrent of ideology in the masajid reflects people who come from countries with brutal regimes, where law enforcement agencies are arms of dictatorships, where there is constant turmoil and often poverty. Attitudes towards the West are dominant, and to oppose these attitudes publicly can put one’s conversion in question. First-generation Muslims in the masajid are on constant lookout for infiltrators, and new converts feel heavy pressure to go along with the flow and view anti-Western politics as Islamic, even when it is not.

One of the first things that happened to me was that I was questioned about my view of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Even though I somewhat agreed with the stance of most Muslims, I didn’t convert to Islam for such ideology. I wasn’t at the meeting for a contemporary political discussion but to learn about Islam. As time went on, constant inundation with various Muslims’ political ideology made me more comfortable with radically different ideologies since it seemed to be the norm. Eventually, I grew out of that. However, a large number of converts do not.

The “Lap Dog” Experience

New converts are seen by foreign-born Muslims as people who can help the plight of Islam among non-Muslims much easier than themselves. However, when it comes to matters of Islam, politics, or social integration, first-generation Muslims often view converts—no matter how educated or how long they have been Muslim—as uneducated in Islam and having little bearing on the direction of the community and its organisations. For example, as a Muslim now for 28 years, I am still told that I know nothing about Islam when it suits their point of view.

Converts often feel similar to how I felt since 9/11. When they needed us after 9/11, they thrust us in the public eye to defend Islam and put a clean, sanitised face on Islam and Muslims. However, when it comes to listening to our opinion on the direction of the communities, Islamic thought on issues regarding the religion, and running for or holding office in the organisation, they will not have it. It is extremely rare for an American Muslim to hold leadership positions—I know of only one case where a Black American Muslim was voted into local office as President of ICNA’s Houston Chapter, and that wasn’t without bitter rivalry.

I, and others I associated with, felt like a lap dog. I worked feverishly night and day, sacrificing time with my family while they enjoyed theirs, and it amounted to nothing. They love to pat you on the head and sing your praises when you’re in public making them look good, but they don’t want you to say anything meaningful or try to be a significant part of their immigrant-controlled organisations.

First-generation Muslims will profess that we are all equal in the sight of Allah. But they almost never relinquish control of their organisations to an American convert (unless they feel they can control him), nor are they hiring American Muslim scholars in the masajid. They will almost always hire scholars who are not American, and they will not allow many qualified American Muslims to give sermons in the masajid for Friday prayers or other events.

Double Standards

Furthermore, there is a pattern of double-speak. They condemn terrorists or extremists breaking our laws while supporting them through their actions. If a convert supports an immigrant, then great—but if you disagree, or speak to law enforcement about criminal activity in the community, they will brand you an infiltrator and claim you’re not really Muslim. Blood is thicker than water; it becomes tribal. They won’t play fair, following through on the teachings of Islam they instilled in you. They won’t give you opportunity to explain yourself. Instead, they will expel you from their organisations even though your work is what earned them a trusted name. If that is not all, they will post your name and photos everywhere in an attempt to threaten and intimidate you. It is exactly what happened to me.

The last I checked, Islam stood for justice, not lawlessness, and didn’t require us to protect lawbreakers simply because they are Muslims, nor on the basis they are from Pakistan, etc. It certainly forbids Muslims from threatening other Muslims.

The immigrant and convert divide is stark. It is not only different cultures meeting but different approaches and resolutions to life’s issues. It’s a different approach to Islam since most American Muslims are proud to be American and Muslim, while many who immigrated are here to benefit from America, their minds on returning home at some unknown point in the future, but not to become American or integrate into American society to show non-Muslims that we are not all terrorists. It’s almost as if things go south, they have somewhere else to go, but American Muslim converts do not have such options. It makes for a different worldview between us.

Where the Energy Goes

When I put on a Justice For Allah Rally in 2003, speaking out against Israeli atrocities against Muslims in Palestine, it was easy to get 400 people to show up and voice their opinion. But trying to get them to feed the homeless on a regular basis, give clothes to the needy, have a friendly meet with their neighbours, or do dawah work was worse than pulling teeth.

Save one instance that deserves merit: when they found out it would benefit them publicly to help the Hurricane Katrina evacuees, they came together and did some good work. But it wasn’t without some of them trying to take all the credit in front of the cameras from the others, and private threats from one organisation to the next. If it wasn’t for a Christian interfaith organisation (that I had a chance to work for as a Muslim liaison) that helped get past the petty rivalries, they would never have pulled it off.

3. Immigrants versus their American-born Children (2nd Generation)

A large portion of first-generation Muslims in the United States are not citizens and seem to have the intention of returning to their home countries after they receive their education or retirement. However, it is a common joke—and I heard this at the Texas Dawah Conference 2004—that immigrants come with the intention of returning to their countries, but every year they postpone it. Then, after years of delay, when they finally tell their kids (who were born and raised in the USA) that they want to move the family back home, their kids question the sanity of such an idea: why would they leave America when this is the only home they’ve ever known?

Cultural Clashes

Cultural values of the immigrant population are in stark contrast to those of their American-born children. The elder generation tends to adhere to archaic cultural values based from their home countries. An example of this is marriage. Many immigrant families have an understanding that they will bring their children back to Pakistan (or wherever they are from) to find a suitable spouse (oftentimes cousins) when their children are old enough. Furthermore, they tend to want to make the choice for their kids without any significant input or protest.

When presented with such an idea, the children typically dread such a concept. Their children, after all, grew up in America where this is not a cultural norm. Islamically, the children are right to consult the parents, but in Islam the parents are not the deciding factor on whom they marry. Islam encourages ethnic mixing and the freedom for children to choose their own spouse on the basis of piety.

The Generational Divide in the Masajid

Another divide is in the religious community. Second-generation children tend to grow up with Western values which allow for more free thought, and these are infused into their Islamic understanding of the world and the community. They are young, idealistic, and have a lot of energy. When children of immigrant Muslims grow old enough, they see the flaws in the community their immigrant fathers (“Uncles” they call them) are running—how it is run and how Islam is being taught—and have a strong desire to change it. They are frustrated when they see the community politics, backstabbing, underhanded behaviour, and when they are shut out of any meaningful effect or ability to hold office.

This division is very much like that of the division between converts and immigrant Muslims, except that the second-generation Muslim children are still very much united by ethnicity and their parents’ tribal affiliations that American Muslim converts do not have.

Muslim communities are seriously stifled from progress and growth due to the elder generation of first-generation Muslims’ power struggles, tribal warfare, false accusations, politicking to get rid of moderate Imams and scholars or those they just don’t like, seizure of power, destruction of property, and refusal to allow fresh blood into control of the governing and consultative bodies and the presidencies.

4. Jamaat-e-Islami versus Muslim League

An underlying divide among Pakistani immigrants in America, not evident to the general public, is a political divide originating in Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami is a religious and political movement in Pakistan that elevates and follows the teachings of Syed Maududi. It is a movement that aims to get back to the basics of Islam and has representation in the Pakistani National Assembly.

The Jamaat propagates its ideology worldwide in the masajid and founds organisations in various countries that reflect its ideology. In the United States and Canada, they have founded the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and ICNA Relief. Since ICNA cannot operate as a political party in the USA and Canada, they have founded the movement as a religious organisation whose purpose is to propagate Islam according to its movement’s ideology.

According to an ICNA official that I spoke to privately on this issue, the Muslim League is the “other” party. They are the ruling class that originally received the handoff of power from the British after the ending of colonial rule and the subsequent founding of the nation of Pakistan. They are seen by Jamaat supporters as puppets of the West and a corruption of Islam in Pakistan.

The divide between these two groups is kept very private, but it is very evident in the Islamic community in America when one looks at the community politics in the masajid. This barrier is very real and originates long before the two parties immigrated to America.

5. Ikhwan versus other Movements

The Ikhwan are highly active people who engage in many facets of society. Like other movements, they propagate their ideology around the world in the masajid, but in addition they also propagate among Muslims in universities. The Ikhwan can be cautious about public statements regarding some of their ideology due to their Egyptian history of government persecution. However, they have aspirations of being politically active in the West and will engage in society and attempt to affect change positively through the political process.

In the United States, they have founded their organisation as the Muslim American Society (MAS), and in universities and schools they have founded the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA). They have also founded a political organisation called MAS Freedom Foundation and a worldwide relief organisation called Islamic Relief.

Working with the Ikhwan

The real division between Ikhwan and other movements in the American Islamic community is that the Ikhwan have a strong desire to be seen publicly and to be looked at by the Islamic community as being effective and moderate. However, in my experience, some can act as bullies in the community, pressuring other organisations to let them take the lead or take credit for joint efforts. Any event they are involved with becomes a struggle for other organisations to control, as well as a struggle over who actually is recognised in the end for their work and organisation. So other organisations find it difficult to work with them.

6. Salafi versus other Madhabs (Schools of Thought)

Among the various groups in the masajid are the Salafi. The Salafi movement traces its methodology to the Salaf—the first three generations of Muslims (the Companions, the Successors, and those who followed them). Opponents of the movement often call them “Wahhabi” after Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a reformer in 18th-century Arabia, though Salafis themselves rarely use this term and generally reject it as a label designed to malign their movement.

The movement was founded during a time when Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula had distorted Islam to the point of reverting to old pagan ways. Its aim was to bring people back to Islam through sound teaching based on Qur’an, Sunnah, and the understanding of the Salaf. Eventually, the movement formed an alliance with the Saudi government, and it is traditionally associated with the Hanbali school of fiqh (jurisprudence).

Like other movements in Islam, Salafi teachings are propagated around the world in the masajid. It is among the most strict and literalist forms of Sunni Islam. It is not uncommon for Salafis to oppose becoming involved in the political process of non-Muslim countries, viewing it as a system of kufr (disbelief). So the only way many will engage politically is if an Islamic system of government is already established. Some Salafis view their religious methodology as superior to others, to the extent that they will pronounce takfir on other Muslims (declare them apostates) not part of their group—though this practice is condemned by mainstream Salafi scholars.

The Salafi are not recognised as a separate school of thought by mainstream Sunni Muslims, who recognise only four schools (Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi’i). However, their strict methodology puts them in contrast with the general community at large. They are often very vocal in the masjid and propagate their way aggressively, which creates division.

7. Tablighi Jamaat versus other Movements

The Tablighi Jamaat is a movement whose origins are in India, begun during a time when Muslims were reverting to the ways of Hinduism. The purpose of the Tabligh is to do dawah (propagate Islam) among Muslims and call them back to Islam. It is their practice to leave behind family and friends occasionally for an extended period of time to travel from community to community to encourage people to adhere to Islam and recruit into their ranks. They typically just show up in an unsuspecting community, make friends, and stay with people they meet who feed and support them for the duration of their stay, or with other Tablighis. Sometimes they stay in the masajid themselves.

The Tabligh operate in the US and Canada as their own organisation with a hierarchy apart from most institutions. There is criticism among the general community that their teachings are from books containing weak hadith (teachings of the Prophet that cannot be confirmed as authentic) and thus are somewhat inaccurate. They are often not allowed to operate within the masajid without consent and sometimes without prior approval for what they will be teaching or books used in their sermons. Some communities have restricted them due to their transient lifestyles.

It is not uncommon for a new recruit of the Tabligh to be encouraged to abruptly leave their home to go on a two- or three-week mission to another community to propagate Islam (according to the Tabligh) or learn more about Islam and the Tablighi way.

The movement is rather large and largely made up of Indian and Pakistani members. However, the movement has gained considerable ground in the Black American Muslim community.

Summary of Alliances and Divisions

Ethnic and Generational Divisions:

  • First-generation Muslims versus indigenous American Muslims, converts, and their 2nd-generation children born and raised in America
  • Second-generation ethnic children of first-generation Muslims group together and often separate on ethnic lines from indigenous American Muslims and converts
  • Indigenous Black American Muslims follow the natural segregation lines in society when it comes to integration with other groups

Movement Alliances and Rivalries:

  • Jamaat-e-Islami (ICNA, ICNA Relief) is a religious movement allied with the Ikhwan in the USA (MAS). The Jamaat is opposed to the group representing the Muslim League in Pakistan, who have formed cultural centres to promote Pakistani culture rather than the religion of Islam.
  • The Ikhwan (MAS, MSA, MAS Freedom Foundation, Islamic Relief) tends to go it alone among all of the groups. Other movements are in constant struggle over how MAS controls, assimilates, and takes over their events. MAS (Ikhwan based in Egypt from the teachings of Syed Qutub) and ICNA (based in Pakistan from the teachings of Syed Maududi) have discussed merging their two movements in the United States and Canada. However, due to the stark nature of both movements, their cultures, and differing levels of Islamic knowledge, this has proven very difficult.
  • The Salafi movement is relatively isolationist while at the same time not ashamed to publicly and vocally oppose other movements. They are often academic scholars but can lack tact and the ability to deal with people without giving offence.
  • The Tablighi Jamaat operates largely independently, focused on internal Muslim revival rather than engagement with broader society or other movements.

A Path Forward

I have worked with all of these groups and know people and scholars from all of them. These findings are mine, based on my personal experience, talking with organisational officials, common folks, and scholars.

I write this not to condemn any group but to name what we all know exists. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said:

“The believers in their mutual kindness, compassion, and sympathy are just like one body. When one limb suffers, the whole body responds to it with wakefulness and fever.” — Sahih Muslim

We are not acting like one body. We are acting like competing tribes, each convinced of our own superiority, each protecting our own power, each suspicious of the other.

What would it look like to actually change?

  • For first-generation communities: Include indigenous Black American Muslims and converts in leadership—not as tokens, but as equals. Hire American-born scholars. Listen to the perspectives of those who grew up here.
  • For converts: Be patient but persistent. Document what you experience. Write books and articles on your experiences, they are valuable. Build alliances with second-generation Muslims who share your frustrations.
  • For second-generation Muslims: You are the bridge. You understand both worlds. Use that position to push for change from within.
  • For all movements: Cooperate on common causes without needing to control or take credit. The goal is the pleasure of Allah, not the reputation of your organisation.
  • For all of us: Remember that the person you are dismissing, ostracising, or threatening is your brother or sister in Islam. On the Day of Judgement, our tribal affiliations and organisational memberships will mean nothing.

“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you.” — Qur’an 49:13

May Allah help us to see past our divisions and become united for good causes. May Allah help us to forbid the evil and promote the good. May Allah forgive us where we have wronged each other, and may He guide us to be one Ummah as He commanded.

Ameen.

Article by BrJimC © 2007, revised 2026

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What does it mean to switch faiths? What is it like for Muslim “converts” in particular? (For lack of a better term!) What are the typical highs and lows that new Muslims experience? What happens to those open-minded seekers that when joining a group are led to exclusivism and narrow-mindedness? In this episode Dr. Farhad Shafti and Veronica Polo are joined by James Coates, who helps us with these questions as he walks us through his own particular journey.


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A July, 6 1959 fatwah from Al-Azhar made great strides towards healing and reconciliation in the historic divide between Sunni and Shi’a.

After 9 years of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq which allowed the Shi’a government of Iran to make significant political gains in the Middle East, Al-Azhar saw a massive increase in Salafist influence. The Salafi movement is a Saudi Arabian based movement, a nation that is Iran’s historic enemy. Consequently, in 2012, the 1959 fatwah was reversed.

As a consequence of both of these events, we have a proxy war raging between two Muslim nations in multiple third party nations while their leaders vie for public support among Muslims worldwide for their cause against each other based on religious grounds.

As Muslims we need to remain committed to following Allah’s command. Our struggle, fisabilillah, is to remain a united community and resist the dividers.

“Hold fast to God’s rope all together; do not split into factions. Remember God’s favour to you: you were enemies and then He brought your hearts together and you became brothers by His grace; you were about to fall into a pit of Fire and He saved you from it- in this way God makes His revelations clear to you so that you may be rightly guided.” – Qur’an 3:103

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“Apple Pie”

If there is one fundamental cultural icon in America today, it is apple pie. But why? Where did apple pie come from? What makes it “American”?

Long before Homo sapiens roamed the planet, there was the apple. Some Christian depictions of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden show an apple as the fruit Adam and Eve ate.

The apple wasn’t the fruit in the Garden of Eden, but it is a fruit indigenous — millions of years ago — to an area of the planet we now know as Kazakhstan. Yes, that 70% Muslim country and former Soviet republic is the ancestral home and cradle of civilization among apple trees. The origin of apples lies in the heart of the Tien Shan mountains, where “forests of wild apples, some growing at 10,000 feet, others in 1,300-foot-deep canyons, show a wealth of diversity and resistance to disease and pests” (Cornell University).

As people began to travel west, they brought apple seeds with them, and the fruit eventually found its way to Europe.

Upon the settling of the Americas, there were no apples in the Western Hemisphere. Early settlers had to rely on shipments from Europe while their planted seeds began to grow.

The first cultivation was in Jamestown in 1607, but those apples were so bitter they were not for eating. They were only good for making cider. Instead, the colonists were more likely to make meat pies.

Thousands of years of cultivation created a large array of species in many shapes, colors, and sizes. In the American colonies, countless orchards sprang up, and apple trees began a dramatic genetic diversification. John Chapman (1774–1845), better known as Johnny Appleseed, made it his life’s quest to supply many states with new seedlings.

By the eighteenth century, apples used in pie began to become a popular dessert in America, and they remain so today.

It is evident that the apple is woven into the fabric of America. The apple, which predated the country by millions of years, has been among us since the beginning — at first in bitter form. Its presence has served us, been cultivated by us, and become a positive contributor to our culture and society.

Likewise, Islam has been woven into the fabric of our society and culture from the beginning. Not as a recent arrival, but as a thread present from the founding. Enslaved African Muslims were among the earliest people brought to these shores — men like Bilali Muhammad of Sapelo Island, who wrote in Arabic, prayed five times a day, and fasted during Ramadan while laboring on a Georgia plantation. Islam did not immigrate to America. It was dragged here in chains.

Similar to the first bitter apple the colonists tasted, the presence of Islam in America has often been met with suspicion — something foreign, something to reject. But like that bitter apple, it has been cultivated, shaped by the soil it grew in, and become part of what this country is.

Like the apple, once planted by colonists in an ecosystem where no apples existed, Islam too was planted here where it had not existed. It is, and will forever be, what we make of it together. You can choose to help Muslims make a positive contribution to a society they love and have been part of for over two centuries. Or you can stand against something that is already woven into the ground beneath your feet. Either way, Islam, like the apple, is here to stay. It is not here on probation. It is not awaiting permission. It belongs.

Islam is as American as apple pie.

The instruction is ancient, and it is clear:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” — Matthew 5:43–48

 

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by James S. Coates

The Denial of Muslim Heritage

A few days ago, a fundamentalist Christian I knew from long ago was having a Facebook conversation with some of his friends about Islam in American history. His friend (another Christian) was citing history on the existence of Muslims who helped build America from its earliest beginnings. To my amazement, my friend denied the existence of Muslims until the mid-1900s. As with many fundamentalist Christians that I know, the conversation then quickly digressed off topic to debating (self-affirming) to each other as to how you must be saved, Muslims are the enemy, and they all are going to hell.

My “friend” (now former) must not have realised that I was reading the thread. Their “Spirit filled, speaking in tongues and baptised in fire” Pentecostal sect believes that I am guided by the dark forces and deceived by Satan because I converted to Islam. So, when I imparted my knowledge affirming his friend’s assertions, I was soon after removed from his friends list!

Ordinarily, I’d think that a person who denies the existence of Muslims in early America is poorly educated on American history or at least has not put much thought on the topic. The problem for me by thinking that in this case is that this friend of mine is a scientist working on things like the cure for AIDS and is in his late 60s. Not only has he had enough time on this earth and debated the topic enough to know better, but he is a well-read and educated individual in his area of study. One would think that someone like him should know how to research topics that concern him enough to vehemently oppose such a notion.

It is typical of many politically minded evangelical “Christian conservatives” to believe that America is a “Christian” country and therefore no one else has played a role in its creation, existence, or advancement. Despite the early colonies being founded by people fleeing religious persecution by other Christians in Europe, they still assert that America is a “Christian country” founded on “Christian values.” The ideology leads people to insinuate that no other religion played an integral part (Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Native Indian religions) or at least if they did, contrary to the Declaration of Independence, they are not equal and deserving of acknowledgement.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” — Declaration of Independence

Of course, according to the history of the African and indigenous Indian in America, we know that American Christians in those days did not view everyone as equal.

“Most colonists were intolerant and fearful of American Indians whom they perceived to be a single, standard, homogeneous, and heathen Indian nation—and as such, a threat to white progress, humanity, and most importantly—Christianity.” — Humboldt State University

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Muslim Lands and Slave Ports

Muslim Lands and Slave Ports

To find Islam in America, one does not have to look far beyond the question of: “Where did America get its slaves?” Everyone can agree it’s Africa that provided the supply of slaves to the Americas. What is one of the main religions on the continent of Africa?

Historians estimate that between 15 and 30 percent of enslaved Africans brought to the Americas were Muslim. Documented cases abound: Omar Ibn Said, a Islamic scholar from Senegal who wrote his autobiography in Arabic while enslaved in North Carolina; Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, a Muslim merchant from Senegal who was kidnapped and enslaved in Maryland; and Bilali Muhammad, who served as an imam to a community of Muslim slaves on Sapelo Island, Georgia, and left behind a manuscript of Islamic jurisprudence.

Just because Christian slavers captured, bought, or kidnapped (in the case of freemen) Muslim black people and sold them to other Christians in the West does not mean they were not Muslims, nor does it mean that they did not retain their identity as Muslims in many cases. It also does not negate their contributions to the founding and building of America.

In fact, when bringing religion into the discussion, I’d even argue that to negate these facts (while claiming credit for Christendom) is to be complicit with colonial slave owners. It was a predominantly Christian slave-owning society that denied, and took credit for, the contributions of Muslim (and other non-Christian) slaves on the basis of their African heritage.

The Erasure of Indigenous and African Contributions

A similar dubious argument is often made by Americans when they teach in schools that Christopher Columbus discovered America. The fact is, it wasn’t a European at all who “discovered” America. Who do we think the ancestors of the Navajo, Apache, Cherokee, and Sioux natives were (to name a few)? How much earlier did they land on the continent than Christopher Columbus or any European for that matter? How did Europeans (and later Americans) end up with “possession of the land”?

The American Indian paid perhaps the greatest contribution (forcibly) to the creation of America, not to mention the Aztecs, Mayan, and other tribes in South and Central America.

It is a common theme of us “European” Westerners to rewrite history to our liking in an effort to feel a sense of pride or nationalism, but let’s give some credit here. Before we knew what a “Native American Indian” was, they were already here! And from the moment we began bringing African Muslim slaves to the Americas (North, Central, and South), Islam began its legacy among the colonial countries that now exist.

We Have Always Been Here

Did Muslims contribute significantly to the early colonies, the American Revolution, creation of America, and even the rebuilding of the nation after the Revolutionary and Civil Wars? Absolutely. One cannot in good conscience deny the blood, sweat, and tears of the African people brought here, many of whom were Muslims, on the basis that they were slaves.

In closing, I find it curious that it took a national tragedy for Americans to wake up and realise there were Muslims living in their country. We have been here since the beginning. We may not have looked like “those people” who came over upon the advent of the discovery of oil in the Middle East. Our facial representations may evolve as a community, but Islam has always been woven into the fabric of society.

We are part of America’s heritage.

Article by BrJimC © 2016, revised 2026

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Here is the dichotomy, Muslim brothers and sisters.

One one hand, if Muslims do not report dangerous ideas and an investigation ensues involving a load of agents that don’t know the people, culture, faith or religious idea and even the meaning of Arabic words, there is a greater chance of the government getting it wrong and building a case against a person out of ignorance or misunderstandings.

On the other hand, if Muslims do report it, members of our community look at us as government spies who were only there to “entrap” innocent Muslims, nevermind that they were out training in jihadi camps, had radicalized online, had tons of evidence against him/her proving otherwise.

Important things to note:

1. The Muslim community in the US (since I am from the US), is largely distrustful of law enforcement.
2. Most convictions in the community are not entrapment, especially ones involving Muslim agents/informants. If they are entrapped, then the convictions can be overturned on appeal.
3. People around those individuals who have been convicted or carried out a terrorist plot all report seeing signs of radicalism but few report (out of apathy or distrust of authorities) and the cases (or attacks) could have been averted.
4. De-radicalization programs are relatively new and most people (Muslims and FBI) rarely look at those as options, if they even know about them.

In my opinion, especially in this climate of fear and mistrust of Muslims, we need to embrace a pro-law enforcement view rather than a distrustful one (not just pay lip service to it). We need to police our own communities otherwise people in law enforcement agencies who don’t know our faith will trample it trying to solve the problem of extremism which leads to attacks, a problem that only we can solve. If we all don’t take a part, even if it be against our own flesh and blood, then the system fails, mistrust grows and more idiots call for Muslims to be banned, rounded up, interned or even “ethno-religiously” cleansed through mass deportation. Dare I even mention (aside from what Nazi Germany did to the Jews) what happened in Bosnia to cite as one example.  In the end, clowns like ISIS will win through our apathy.

Some of my long time friends suggest that it is not our responsibility to be proactive but passive in our action to confront extremist ideology that can lead to attacks.  It is totally backwards from the teachings of Islam in my opinion.  The Prophet (pbuh) not only established a system of social justice by founding Islam as the religion, but he actively set in place guidelines among Muslims to regulate our behavior.  He actively corrected the Sahabah (companions) when they were in error.  Allah also made us responsible to protect each other from anything amounting to evil

“The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practise regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise.” Qur’an 9:71

“You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah . If only the People of the Scripture had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them are believers, but most of them are defiantly disobedient.”  Qur’an 3:110

“O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah , even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of both. So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.” Qur’an 4:135

We are to avoid suspicion and spying for the purpose of gossip and fault finding, but we still have an Islamic duty to confront extremist ideology and to protect, not only Muslims, but society at large from criminal acts and terrorism.

“The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “Beware of suspicion, for suspicion is the worst of false tales; and do not look for the others’ faults and do not spy, and do not be jealous of one another, and do not desert (cut your relation with) one another, and do not hate one another; and O Allah’s worshipers! Be brothers (as Allah has ordered you!”)” – Sahih Bukhari Book 78, Hadith 94

In light of all of these evidences, we need to be diligent and proactive. Our reactive behaviour that has been our modus since 9/11 is creating huge problems for our communities.

Our survival depends on it.

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by James S. Coates

Introduction

The following will be a highly controversial topic and a hard pill to swallow for many Muslims in our communities. I hope that it provokes contemplation, creates understanding, and promotes mutual cooperation for the betterment of our Islamic communities. After years of experience, I can see that there needs to be an understanding of the nature, role, and methods of law enforcement among the communities they serve.

When I was young, this understanding was commonly taught to us school kids as police officers paid regular visits to our classrooms to help us learn through the local police department kids program. It is something that is rarely done among Muslims in the US, though I did arrange a police department kids program with Muslim school children in 2004 at an Islamic school, which was a big success with the kids. The children especially loved questioning the officers and brought out some really good questions to resolve their own misunderstandings, fears, and general curiosity.

There are many levels of cooperation. However, for the sake of this article, I will focus on the use of confidential informants in law enforcement.

Understanding Informants

Confidential informants have been used as a tool in domestic law enforcement for a long time in many Muslim countries and the West. They continue to be considered an invaluable tool by all law enforcement agencies against extremism by Muslims or other (non-Muslim) groups, organised crime, drug enforcement, and other crimes. However, in some cases they are not without controversy. Due to the social stigma of “informing” authorities about the criminal acts of one’s family or friends, there is a lot of confusion and misinformation surrounding the use of informants.

“Not many people know very much about informants: and to many people, it’s a queasy area. People are not comfortable with informants…the informant is THE with a capital ‘T’ THE most effective tool in law enforcement today—state, local, or federal.” — William Webster

Motivations of informants can vary widely. Some can be the upstanding citizen either on the lookout for, or who happen to come to the knowledge of, criminal activity. Informants are not necessarily random law-abiding citizens, but can be the leaders of our organisations—President, Imam, Sheikh, etc. They may also be people who have been involved in a group that turns to criminal activity, themselves being involved in a crime and turning on an individual or group to reduce sentencing or reducing prison sentence if already convicted.

Some informants are not paid for their information and many others are. Informants are not used legally by law enforcement in the US to subvert religious groups, act as Agent Provocateurs to incite religious communities, or unjustly accuse people, but rather in intelligence-led investigations on criminal activity.

“Informants are not official employees of the FBI, but many receive compensation for their services; they are screened for suitability before they enter into relationships with the FBI and are screened periodically thereafter.” — PBS

There are three basic classifications:

Confidential Informant – Used to provide additional information in an investigation.

Cooperating Witnesses – Used to testify and have agreement regarding their obligations and expectations.

Sources of Information – Unlike CIs and CWs, do not collect information but provide legitimate routine access to information (Example).

The ability to use informants has historically provided an invaluable tool to law enforcement agencies to bring to light secretive crimes that would ordinarily not present themselves for investigation.

“The use of such sources has become essential to FBI operations, with informants—including ‘privileged’ informants, such as attorneys, clergy and physicians—supplying short- to long-term services.” — PBS

The use of informants has been standard procedure for the FBI in the fight against organised crime since 1961. In 1978, a program was created which could provide informants to assist in active FBI investigations.

Informants have been used most notably against the mafia and other organised crime, drug enforcement, right-wing radical groups, and terrorism or radicalism (international and domestic) cases with a great degree of success.

Prudence

The use of confidential informants in terrorism-related cases is highly controversial among Muslims in the West, particularly the United States. The tendency among many Muslims is to view their use as government invasion of privacy, entrapment, and the unjust targeting of “Muslims” in general.

Like in many cases involving general crime, some people can get caught up in an investigation due to abuse of the use of informants by law enforcement. This is a rare exception and not the rule. Government agencies understand that there is a need for ethics in the use of informants. It is important for our communities to ensure proper oversight of agencies that use informants and even more important that these agencies follow through to maintain a factual case, integrity, and professionalism while using informants.

In light of world affairs, it seems especially prudent for the Muslim community to prevent acts of terrorism or radicalism before it happens rather than react to it after the fact. Muslim informants from within the Islamic community are better suited to act as a guide for law enforcement than an outside investigator reacting after the fact. They are also better suited than someone who doesn’t know how to navigate the community, interpret and understand the language, or identify what someone has expressed intentions to do. Muslim informants are the most likely people to ensure that the government does not make an unjust case based on misunderstandings and prejudice.

Plots are not hatched in the open and cannot be discovered by ordinary means. If there is a possibility of a threat from radicalism in our communities, then these types of investigations are necessary due to the nature of secrecy involving plotting such acts.

The Double Standard

In a time when the Islamic community has serious problems with people travelling to Iraq and Syria to join groups like ISIS or Al-Qaida, it is just as important that we deal straight with the government instead of acquiescing radicalism or terrorism and then reacting against law enforcement when a plot is uncovered by an investigation involving an informant.

The double standard among us Muslims and our organisations is glaring. On the one hand, we claim that we condemn extremism or terrorism. On the other hand, we don’t want the government to investigate us nor want our people to work with them to root out radical plots among us. The Muslims who do become informants or FBI agents are often ostracised or have articles and web pages dedicated to rail against them or encourage violence and abuse. In social media, informants and agents often cannot publicly rebut the abuse and accusations of wrongdoing due to ongoing cases which can last years, making it very easy for family and friends loyal to the accused to mislead public opinion and create a conspiracy. The job of law enforcement and supporting informants is not to engage in a social media battle, but to deal with investigations and the courts.

Interestingly, Islamic organisations publicly are telling members to work with law enforcement if they come across information regarding extremism and terrorism. However, within the Islamic community, we often choose as a default to focus on government investigative methods and defend perpetrators rather than consider the evidence or support someone (an informant) who tried to help prevent a crime affecting the community by approaching authorities with information. It’s a catch-22 in logic.

I can identify with this catch-22. I remember in 2004 when I was attending a seminar at the Department of Justice (DOJ) with a friend from the DOJ who was interested in my diversity training program for government agencies on Islam and Muslim communities. At the time, I was heavily involved with a national Islamic organisation who supported my activist work, putting on anti-war and pro-Palestine protests, defending the Muslim community in the media, and seminars. I met my first “Muslim” FBI agent. I didn’t know he was a Muslim FBI agent at the time. I sat next to him. When he told me his name and that he was an FBI agent, I perked up in intrigue. He went on to explain that he was a Muslim. My heart sank as if I was talking to Satan himself. It was time for prayer, so I reluctantly made Thuhr Salat (afternoon prayer) with him and then began to talk to him again afterwards. As we talked more, he explained that his motivation was to help the Muslim community fight against terrorism but that most of his Muslim friends and even some of his family had disowned him when he told them he was going to become an FBI agent. I walked away with dismay, intrigue, confusion, and a lasting question as to why and how a “Muslim” could do this (become an FBI agent). I fought back the notion to think that he had abandoned Islam and was fighting against Muslims.

“O you who have believed, when you go forth [to fight] in the cause of Allah, investigate; and do not say to one who gives you [a greeting of] peace ‘You are not a believer,’ aspiring for the goods of worldly life; for with Allah are many acquisitions. You [yourselves] were like that before; then Allah conferred His favour upon you, so investigate. Indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.” — Qur’an 4:94

I didn’t believe that Islam teaches us to make Takfir (pronounce non-Muslim) on another Muslim. It stuck with me for a long time, until I deprogrammed from the community narrative that the intentions of government and their investigations are out to “get” Muslims or round us up. It may be the talk of right-wing conservative pundits. However, there is no such grand conspiracy among any of the thousands of law enforcement agents and officers that I came to know through my classes, many who were very conservative-leaning. The Muslim FBI agent had the right intention: to investigate and find out who is a threat to the Muslim community and society at large.

Focusing on the Wrong People

The fact is that in any country or national, state, or local jurisdiction in the US, there may be bad agents, bad informants, bad investigations. It is the reason to ensure proper oversight, not a reason for Muslims to distrust law enforcement. It is not a reason to be overly suspicious of the system put in place to protect us from radical behaviour and acts of terrorism or to jump the gun on claiming entrapment. Many more good agents, informants, and their investigations are there to protect (not just the general public) the Muslim community as well.

Investigations involving informants can run into the millions of dollars. There is no institutional motivation to waste millions of dollars falsely accusing people or creating new cases, just to make a case against a Muslim. Intentionally focusing on the wrong people would be counterproductive and make room for the real threats to fall through the cracks.

Conversely, in many Muslim countries (countries that most Muslims in the United States are from), the system does have a motivation to suppress Muslims. Many more Muslim organisations exist in those societies that are often viewed as a direct threat to the ruling party, dictatorships, or military power structure (just look at the Arab Uprising).

“Government critics say Malaysia’s sedition laws have been increasingly used to silence dissent.” — BBC

That is not to say that those countries are justified in their actions of suppression towards their own people, but to say that those Muslims who come to the West and occupy our Masajid (Mosques) carry the same cultural attitudes towards the US government and law enforcement that they had back in their home country. The attitudes are often taught to us converts as if it is “Islamic” to view our own government in the same way. You often hear the attitude parroted from many of us Muslim activists, from the minbar (pulpit) at Jummah (Friday prayers), or in special talks, conventions, and programs.

In a US court, because we are presumed innocent and cannot convict if there is “reasonable doubt,” it’s important that we understand that it is the defence lawyer’s job to create reasonable doubt, even if the truth is that the defendant is guilty. It is why, given the overwhelming evidence against an individual, the defence claims entrapment in the majority of extremism cases in the US. As a community, we cannot take defence arguments as “Scripture” and begin campaigns against the government or its informants on behalf of people claiming entrapment and being falsely accused. We have to weigh the facts ourselves, listen to the court evidence, and understand the legal definition of entrapment.

“When they disregarded the warnings that had been given them, We rescued those who forbade Evil; but We visited the wrong-doers with a grievous punishment because they were given to transgression.” — Qur’an 7:165

The Entrapment Bandwagon

It is important for Muslims to see the usefulness of law enforcement activity, support it, and refrain from jumping on the “entrapment” bandwagon. Just because a case involves a paid or unpaid informant does not mean that they or the government set out to “entrap” the would-be perpetrator, nor does it reflect on the quality of their information.

There is a lot of confusion about what “entrapment” means, and in most extremist plot cases where there is a claim of entrapment, people have no clue what it means. All that is required to begin an investigation using an informant is that the idea or engagement of a criminal act originate from the would-be criminal. Anything after that which the agency provides goes towards discovering the extent of a plot, those involved, and collecting evidence to support the case in court that intent exists.

“The key to entrapment is whether the idea for the commission or encouragement of the criminal act originated with the police or government agents instead of with the ‘criminal.'” — Online Legal Dictionary

If us Muslims want to stay out of the criminal justice system, stay far away from anything to do with extremism. When I was a young Catholic boy (long before I converted to Islam) playing with my siblings, my grandmother would always warn me, “Don’t say, ‘I’ll kill you’ to your brothers and sisters. Someone might believe you.” Muslims need to live by this rule. Don’t talk about wanting to do violent things. Someone just might believe you. Don’t even broach the topic if someone mentions it first. If someone begins the topic, walk away and have nothing to do with it. If they are being investigated, they might drag you in with them if what you say can be interpreted as intent. If you are not involved, you have nothing to fear. Otherwise, as explained later in this article, it becomes your Islamic duty to approach the authorities.

The fact is that the majority of cases involving informants and Muslims who plot to commit acts related to radicalism are solid cases based in well-documented evidence and not entrapment.

Rage Against the Informant

It is also important for the community to realise that “rooting out” informants by posting their names, pictures, and video railing against them on the internet is a futile exercise. It shows to the public the Muslim community’s unwillingness to be trusted by society (and law enforcement) to help protect the public from extremist plots. By doing this, we subvert our community leaders’ statements against extremism given to the public, whom we are trying to get to accept us as law-abiding citizens and not “terrorist sympathisers.” It does nothing to prevent more people within the community from becoming informants. It does more harm to the peaceful existence of the Muslim community in the West than good and does not do anything to further the cause of the person charged with a crime.

We must get away from the culture of revenge commonly seen in Muslim countries. Revenge is a personal act of vigilantism that is more than often misguided and commonly seen in the cultures of many Muslim countries (revenge killing, for example). It is our duty as Muslims to stand for justice, and if we feel that there has been an injustice, it is not our place to take revenge. In Islam, from the earliest time of the creation of the Islamic Ummah in Madina, the rule of law has been central to social justice. If we truly believe in the innocence of a person, or an injustice has been done, then it becomes our duty to ensure that the truth comes out without taking revenge.

“Twice will they be given their reward, for that they have persevered, that they avert Evil with Good, and that they spend (in charity) out of what We have given them.” — Qur’an 28:54

“The Messenger of Allah replied: An angel came down from Heaven and he was rejecting what he had said to you. When you took revenge, a devil came down. I was not going to sit when the devil came down.” — Abu Dawud, General Behaviour, Book 41, Number 4878

It could be that the informant that you are trying to take revenge against is the person that has not done something wrong. It is our duty as Muslims to stand for justice even if it be against someone we love from our families, tribes, nation, and yes, even religion, etc.

“O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of both. So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.” — Qur’an 4:135

Many criminals, be they in business, drug bosses, mafia bosses, etc., are often otherwise upstanding citizens and involve themselves in charity work and other community services. Charity work or the fact that we know them as upstanding people in the community does not mean they have not been involved in secret criminal activity that can only be discovered through a covert investigation using informants—the only way the crime would otherwise be discovered.

Sense and Sensibility

Let’s be sensible. Wouldn’t it be better that the criminal activity was discovered than to have your sons, daughters, or friends blow something up or set off for Iraq or Syria to become a suicide bomber, kill people including other Muslims, lop off people’s heads, or burn people alive on YouTube? Or maybe returning to set off a bomb in our own country? Thinking even further up the investigative ladder, would you rather it be discovered prior to a person using your charitable or religious organisations as a springboard to do something that could lead to this? You tell me.

Gathering intelligence from people to protect Muslims has been central to survival in the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad and the basis for Allah’s granting them permission to make hijra (immigrate) to Madina.

Today, like non-Muslim countries, every Muslim country in the world has domestic intelligence services designed to root out extremism, drugs, and organised crime. Still, there remains a huge taboo and a great degree of suspicion among Muslims regarding the use of informants in investigations in the United States.

In the United Arab Emirates, there are undercover plain-clothes police officers on the streets making arrests. The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) goes undercover to make arrests. Who do we think the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) is in Pakistan? What about the Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah (General Intelligence Presidency; GIP) of Saudi Arabia? Do we think these agencies announce their terrorist investigations to the extremists they are investigating? How do we think they gather intelligence on plots? It is “human intelligence”—i.e., informants.

“O ye who believe! Avoid suspicion as much (as possible): for suspicion in some cases is a sin: And spy not on each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? Nay, ye would abhor it…But fear Allah: For Allah is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful.” — Qur’an 49:12

The Qur’an forbids individuals spying for personal reasons such as backbiting or gossip. However, it is clear from the Seerah (history), Qur’an, and scholars in Muslim countries that informing authorities so that they can investigate criminal activity which could harm Muslims or society at large is permitted. One would be hard-pressed to find a scholar to say the opposite.

The fact is, in the United States (and most Western countries), a person stands a better chance at being accused objectively and/or having a fair trial and appeals than they would in many Muslim countries, like for example Egypt or Pakistan.

Our Islamic Duty

Once a Muslim discovers that another has intent to break the law, he/she has an obligation to bring it to the attention of authorities and cooperate in any way necessary to protect all parties involved.

“And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is severe in penalty.” — Qur’an 5:2

“O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of both. So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.” — Qur’an 4:135

Fatwa from The Fiqh Council of North America

  • All acts of terrorism targeting civilians are haram (forbidden) in Islam.
  • It is haram for a Muslim to cooperate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence.
  • It is the civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of all civilians.

Don’t let radicalised Muslims carry out acts in your name, the name of your religion that you hold dear. If you have information, it is up to you to stop it.

If you know someone who is thinking that they are going to go on hijra (immigration) to a Muslim land to fight in a Jihad (struggle) to establish “Justice in the Land” and establish the Caliphate, think ahead of what they might be doing and how it will affect Muslims and their organisations in your country.

The Caliphate cannot be established through violence and injustice.

“We must remember that injustice cannot be removed by another injustice.” — IslamOnline, Muzammil Siddiqi

Article by BrJimC © 2015, revised 2026

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The Myth of Wahhabism

by James S. Coates

Introduction

Over the years, I have had the pleasure of working with many types of people in the Islamic community—a cross-section of ideologies, cultures and sects. I have taught classes with them, represented them in the media, and learned about them from them. When someone opens themselves up to learning about others, understanding comes, fears subside, and stereotyping dissipates.

One of the divisive ideological topics among Muslims is that between those with an agenda to malign the Saudi Kingdom and their brand of Islam dominant on the Arabian Peninsula by labelling Salafis “Wahhabi.” Interestingly, it is also a term propagated by anti-Islam haters to describe all of us Muslims.

I will explain how the term is misleading, divisive, offensive and, yes, even racist in its use by Muslims and non-Muslims alike—and should not be used. However, before I explain, it is important that anyone who discusses this topic understand the basic history of the Saud’s rise to power and the modern politic. There are a lot of supporting link references throughout the article for you to study if you really wish to delve into the topic.

The purpose of this write-up isn’t for the defence of the Salafi movement or the Saudi Kingdom. However, as a Muslim, it is my duty to draw the line where the facts and sound reason exist, to stand firm for justice. Far too often innocent bystanders (and new Muslims) are caught up in a vicious propaganda campaign of hate waged by some Muslim groups and non-Muslim hate groups on this topic.

“You who believe, uphold justice and bear witness to God, even if it is against yourselves, your parents, or your close relatives. Whether the person is rich or poor, God can best take care of both. Refrain from following your own desire, so that you can act justly—if you distort or neglect justice, God is fully aware of what you do.” — Qur’an 4:135

Basic History

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was born and lived in ‘Uyaynah, Arabia from 1703–1792, though he spent many years abroad and taught in Basra, Iraq. He completed his education in Madina. In Iran, 1736, he taught against the ideas of various prominent Sufi leaders. The movement he founded in his lifetime never extended beyond Arabia, though its emphasis on Tawhid (monotheism) would later spread through educational institutions funded by Saudi oil wealth.

The Context of Decline

Since the sack of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongols, the Islamic Empire struggled with decline. Europe, in the period after the Dark Ages, benefited from education in Islamic territories and began to increase with technological and cultural innovation. By the 1700s, it had fully experienced the Renaissance and began exporting this cultural innovation back to Islamic lands.

Seeing these things as corrupt Western innovation (bid’ah) of religion, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab began a peaceful (non-violent) revivalist response to the decaying beliefs, morals, and Islamic practice in the Arabian Peninsula. He preached the removal of polytheism from Islamic society and a return to the roots of the Salaf (ancestors). The Salafi movement was mainly concerned with issues of Tawhid (monotheism), shirk (polytheism), and Western modern innovative influence among Arab Muslims seen to be the cause of moral decay. Today, the movement views the world in much the same way.

The Saudi-Wahhab Alliance

In 1744, Muhammad bin Saud sought to use his immense military forces to found the first Saudi state but didn’t have the influence he desired among all of the people to secure his rule. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was well known among these same Arabian tribes for his revivalist work. The two movements officially allied. Muhammad bin Saud married his son to Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s daughter to seal the deal. Under the new Saudi state, Muhammad bin Saud was to be charged with political and economic affairs; Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was in charge of religious affairs.

The alliance became strong as the Sauds conquered much of the Arabian Peninsula. Religious enforcement (sometimes religious violence) was sanctioned and backed by the government of the newly formed state. To bolster Muhammad bin Saud’s forces, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab began to use his influence as a religious leader to recruit people to join the military for deployment in battlefield jihad on behalf of the state.

The Illusion of Orthodoxy

The mix of fundamental revivalist teaching coupled with strict state-sanctioned enforcement lends outsiders to have the “illusion” of orthodoxy in Islam where Salafis are concerned. The madhab (school of thought) dominant in Saudi Arabia where the Salafi movement originates is Hanbali. There are many schools of thought in Islam, and thus there is no “orthodoxy” in Islam.

What Salafis Actually Believe

Before addressing the slanders against them, it’s worth understanding what Salafis actually teach:

  • Tawhid (monotheism) as the absolute centre of faith—rejection of anything that could compromise the oneness of God
  • Return to the Salaf (the first three generations of Muslims) as the model for authentic practice
  • Rejection of bid’ah (religious innovation) that lacks precedent in the Qur’an, Sunnah, or practice of the early community
  • Literalist approach to hadith with emphasis on authenticated narrations
  • Political quietism (for most Salafis)—obedience to rulers and avoidance of political activism, which they consider sinful

Salafi groups generally do not partake in protests or even the political process, considering it a sin. They believe in obedience to government and are generally peaceable. Such an idea may work well in a monarchy like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

However, as with any group, there are varying degrees of those (a minority) who grow disillusioned with passivity and become militant within the same ideology. Militant groups in all movements often go to the extent of replacing reputable established Islamic jurists with their own leaders in order to pronounce takfir (declaring disbelievers) on other Muslims to sanction and attack them for not acting on the same “triggers” deemed legitimate by the group. Duality is human nature, and within individuals or groups the reversal of moral value or opinion can happen for many reasons and often has triggers. It is not an event that is specific to the Salafi movement or Islam and happens all over the world.

Modern Politics

The Myth of Ideological “Export”

Attempts are often made to say that the Salafi movement is the “exporter” of extremist ideology because groups like ISIS are “Salafist,” but the facts do not support the idea of such sinister ideological “export.” The spread of terrorism misusing the Salafist ideology is incidental. ISIS is not the only terrorist group in the world. There is no evidence to support that all terrorist movements are “Salafist,” and most of these terrorist movements engage in acts that contravene the teachings of the movements from which they came.

The Root Cause: Foreign Policy

The root cause for the current terrorism crisis is simmering political instability caused by United States foreign policies that began in the 1980s. To advance the interests of the United States to fight communism, the US secured an agreement with the Saudi Arabian government (in coordination with Pakistan, Egypt, and Israel) to drive the communist Soviet Union from Afghanistan by funding, arming, and training extremist groups with US taxpayer money and resources.

The problem was made worse by Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and subsequent 12 years of sanctions that reduced a middle-class nation (Iraq) to one of the poorest in the world. These same CIA-funded and equipped jihadist assets based in Afghanistan became disillusioned with US foreign policy and later went on to attack the United States on September 11, 2001. The problem of global terrorism metastasised after the destabilisation of Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and continues to grow with US foreign policies that include endless bombing campaigns, attempts at nation building, and interventions across the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and North Africa.

The Birth of ISIS

Today’s Middle East crisis with ISIS is born directly out of political instability created by the United States invasion of Iraq, the attempt to “de-Baathify” the Iraqi civil and military services leaving hundreds of thousands of Sunnis formerly loyal to Saddam Hussein without a job, and removing the only security apparatus from the nation. The United States established a Shi’a-led Iraqi government that marginalised Sunni groups. Al-Qaida Iraq chose to capitalise on this, and in 2006 it was renamed Islamic State of Iraq. The group has rebranded itself many times since (ISIS/ISIL/IS; all the same group).

If countries are not stable, there is either no security apparatus or it is too weak to be effective. Lawlessness becomes the norm. Misuse of religion, iconography, and ideology is commonplace in unstable or lawless countries. In fact, a large number of the recruits of these criminal enterprises or gangs also have criminal histories. The most notable global misuses of religion in human history have been the pogroms, Crusades, and Inquisitions inflicted on the world by Christendom.

“Whether Sunni or Shia, Salafi or Sufi, conservative or liberal, Muslims—and Muslim leaders—have almost unanimously condemned and denounced ISIS not merely as un-Islamic but actively anti-Islamic.” — New Statesman

The Council of Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia have issued a ruling against terrorism and groups like ISIS, irrespective of the political establishment’s support for using them in the proxy war to confront Iranian influence in the region.

State Terrorism

It’s also worth noting that in political foreign affairs most governments have employed or supported terrorist groups to achieve their goals. In the case of the United States, examples range from the jihadist groups fighting “godless” Soviet communism, to the Bay of Pigs disaster, to even funnelling arms and money to Al-Nusra Front in Syria (an Al-Qaida affiliate).

The current regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia (supporting groups like ISIS against Iran) and Iran (Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guards against the Saudi Kingdom) should be seen with these facts in mind as we try to make sense of and solve the crisis of terrorism. If one condemns one nation’s terrorism, we must face the fact and condemn our own nation’s terrorism equally.

The coordinated efforts by the United States, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia (circa 1978) to fund, arm, and train these extremist groups to fight Soviet communism gave the initial credibility and rise to jihadist groups that we despise, like Al-Qaida and ISIS. The problem of terrorism (a tactic of war) lies primarily with government entities, not Islam or any one Islamic movement.

Now that we have waded through the politic and how Islamic movements have been distorted and misused for political gain of both Muslim and non-Muslim governments, let’s go on to draw the lines where they belong.

The Myth of “Wahhabism”

“Do not speak ill of one another; do not use offensive nicknames for one another. How bad it is to be called a mischief-maker after accepting faith! Those who do not repent of this behaviour are evildoers.” — Qur’an 49:11

“The Messenger of Allah said, ‘Do you know what is backbiting?’ The Companions said: ‘Allah and His Messenger know better.’ Thereupon he said, ‘Backbiting is talking about your (Muslim) brother in a manner which he dislikes.’ It was said to him: ‘What if my (Muslim) brother is as I say?’ He said, ‘If he is actually as you say, then that is backbiting; but if that is not in him, that is slandering.'” — Riyadh as-Salihin (Muslim)

Why Not “Taymiyyan”?

The Salafi do not follow Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. They rarely make mention of any of his teachings, instead referencing various hadith from common sources (Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Majah, Tirmidhi, etc.). In fact, if one is lucky they may just find a biography of his life in a bookstore where Salafis patronise. Of the four Islamic schools of thought, their madhab is Hanbali. Why are they not named after the madhab—”Hanbalian”?

The Salafi rely on a host of scholarly opinions, but Orientalist scholars claim that they rely more heavily on Ibn Taymiyyah. If they reference Ibn Taymiyyah extensively and rarely if ever (I’ve never heard one in my 21 years as a Muslim) reference Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, how can they be “Wahhabi”? Why not “Taymiyyan”?

Followers of Muhammad (PBUH)

Salafis never call themselves Wahhabi. In fact, it is considered a derogatory term designed to malign their movement by making the false claim that their movement is synonymous with terrorism (much like Islam-haters do to all Muslims). Like any other Muslim with our pet ideologies or favourite movement, they are followers of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Consequently, this is the same logic that is used by the Islam-hate industry to slander all Muslims.

A Tool of Islam-Hate

It is a term also used by many non-Muslims to promote anti-Islam agendas. The term “Wahhabi” means different things to different people. It means nothing (other than slander) to the Salafi because they don’t follow Wahhab. It is misapplied to them by other Muslims. It is a term applied by media pundits at times to identify terrorism. It is applied to all Muslims by the Islam-hate industry. The term is the source of confusion and hatred used not against just Salafi, but all Muslims—be one Sunni, Sufi, Shi’a, liberal or conservative, whatever your persuasion.

Sectarianism

Muslim political and religious opponents (like some Sufi, Shi’a, even fellow Sunnis and others) intentionally mislabel Salafi as “Wahhabi.” It is commonplace among those opposing Muslim groups with an agenda to stereotype and malign both the militant and the pacifist among the Salafi, Saudi citizens, or Arabs in general—painting them with a broad brush as the monolithic ideological source of all that is evil in the world (convenient for those swayed by alternate religious or national agendas).

It is also used by some Muslim groups with an agenda to disqualify, dehumanise, and demonise a fellow group of Muslims through labelling them extremists and spread unjustified fear and abhorrence for them. The fact is that we have already discussed the factors that brought extremist groups into existence and gave them credibility; no one group is the source of all evil. Muslim groups are being played in a game of divide and conquer by corrupt governments (Muslim and not) to advance their own interests.

No Clerical System

Catholics believe that Jesus himself is God. Yet not all Catholics follow the dictates of the Pope, despite the Pope being the head of the clergy and Jesus Christ’s divine representative on earth among Catholics. In Islam, there is no formal clerical hierarchy, let alone God’s divine representative on earth. It should be a no-brainer that not all Salafi side with the dictates of the Saudi political/religious establishment.

Like other religious groups of people, despite perceived religious hierarchy or clergy, they are still not homogeneous. Salafism has developed several schools of thinking:

“There are Salafis who have become close to centrism, which is based on combining the opposites, combining mind and matter, combining the spirit and the material, sometimes interpreting and at other times abstaining from interpretation, and combining intellect, action, religion, and politics. Moreover, we cannot disregard the development of the Salafis; in the past they did not talk about politics, but now they participate in the political battles…” — Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi

Just Plain Stupid

In its mislabelling, the efforts of these Muslim opponents to keep people away from the teaching of the Salafi are made futile. As people become familiar with the slanderous label and then enter the mosque or community centre, there is no one there that calls him/herself “Wahhabi”—but you will find people that refer to themselves as Salafi or following the Salaf.

So, mislabelling may seem like semantics, but all it does (besides the obvious slander and misleading people) is keep people from recognising them in the mosque. So, if one seriously fears their ideology so much as to want to preach to people against them, why not want them identified by their proper name? Again, a no-brainer here.

Discouraging Converts

Intentionally mislabelling them a name that they don’t call themselves is divisive. The slander creates needless trouble between religious leaders (and their followers) who have agendas of hatred for the Salafi, the Salafi who don’t want to be maligned, and those who want to learn about Islam.

It confuses people, especially new Muslims, who don’t know better and struggle to decipher Islamic groups that may be approaching them in the mosque. The agenda is more easily seen by new Muslims who get turned off by the divisiveness in a religion they chose—more than likely—to get away from this same kind of behaviour in a Church. Perhaps they just don’t have the time in their lives for such childish behaviour either.

You aren’t doing da’wah here; you are doing anti-da’wah. People will leave Islam and probably not even take the time to tell anyone. How is that going to look in our book of deeds?

“The record of their deeds will be laid open and you will see the guilty, dismayed at what they contain, saying, ‘Woe to us! What a record this is! It does not leave any deed, small or large, unaccounted for!’ They will find everything they ever did laid in front of them: your Lord will not be unjust to anyone.” — Qur’an 18:49

Racism and Cultural Supremacism

There is a conglomerate of groups that engage in this type of smear campaign. Western media and pundits, Islam-haters, and even other Muslims who use the term “Wahhabi” are using the term to identify a particular type of extremism (or terrorism) that they oppose. Yet there are no “Wahhabis.”

Who They Really Mean

Instead, what they are tacitly referring to without being forthright is:

  • “All Salafis,” or
  • “All Saudis,” or
  • In some cases, “all Arabs,” or
  • In the case of non-Muslim Islam-haters: all practising Muslims

The Colonial Legacy

Racism isn’t merely maligning someone based on ethnicity. It is a legacy construct of colonialism that places value on European civilisations over that of the occupied “savage” colonies. The implication is an “us versus them” attitude where all of “them” are savages worthy of hatred, pogroms, or civilising campaigns based on “their” grouping.

By the same token, these former colonies have begun using these “superior” attitudes against others based on ethnicity, nationality, madhab, religion, etc. It is an attitude of “supremacy” once particular to colonial Europe (that still exists among white supremacists today) which has been learned by the colonised, who are now using it against each other—in this case, against the mythical demon named the “Wahhabi.”

Racism is also not always expressed in explicit terms but tacitly. Racism may also entirely cast aside ethnic markers. This is known as “cultural racism.”

A Personal Experience

There are many groups of Muslims and Western non-Muslims that use the term “Wahhabi” in the derogatory sense to imply “all Arabs” or “all Saudis” are extremists. Recently, I experienced a group on Facebook (which will go unnamed).

It was a 7,000-member-strong Facebook group with a stated goal to “help new convert Muslims.” In reality, the group was mostly a cross-section of Asian Muslims who had repeated threads about the evil “Wahhabi” and how to defeat them. The discussions rapidly descended into hate speech against Arabs.

When prodded about what was meant by some of the anti-Arab statements, one of the members joked, “All Arabs are killing machines.” I reasoned with him that mislabelling them and grouping all of them together, coupled with making a statement like that, is what leads to hate speech against peaceful Salafi (fellow Muslims)—and it does no practical good to mislabel them.

Needless to say, he didn’t take that well. He sent me a message cursing at me, accused me of calling him a hater, and called on the admin to try to get me banned.

The point is that, though the group may have started with the best of intentions, the entire group was whipped up into a frenzy of “us versus them” to the point that no one could reason—and it didn’t take long. It was a flash response to challenging the social norm of anti-Arab (Muslim-on-Muslim) hate.

If I were to believe their psychological projection onto the Salafi, it would be something I might have expected from these so-called “intolerant” people they hated. It was no longer a forum of learning but a forum of anti-Arab hate speech. Stereotyping, educating new Muslims (their stated goal), teaching them not to paint people with a broad brush of blind hatred, giving reasons for objection to the Salafi movement—none of it mattered. Anyone who questioned their blind stereotyping was a threat and needed to be cursed at and strong-armed into silence.

What mattered more was that they are Malay and they don’t like Arabs; “our Islam is more valuable and valid while someone else’s is not.” It is “us versus them.” It’s the same thing Muslims often complain about when non-Muslims stereotype Islam, but on a micro level. I suspect, in addition to ethnicity, religious persuasion played an “us versus them” role in this hateful response also.

“The Messenger of Allah said, ‘Four are the qualities which, when found in a person, make him a sheer hypocrite, and one who possesses one of them possesses one characteristic of hypocrisy until he abandons it. These are: When he is entrusted with something, he betrays trust; when he speaks, he lies; when he promises, he acts treacherously; and when he argues, he behaves in a very imprudent, insulting manner.'” — Al-Bukhari and Muslim

Summary

Bottom line: it doesn’t solve the problem of extremism to mislabel Salafi (or anyone) “Wahhabi.”

Most Salafis, like most Muslims, are peaceful. Extremist militants do exist among them, but extremist militants have existed among Jamaat-e-Islami, Ikhwan, Sufi, Shi’a, etc.—and in all other non-Muslim faiths, even Buddhism. In all cases, most people (Muslims and those of the Salafi movement included) value peace and security, and militants are very much a small minority. Triggers and variations in these groups and their numbers are often relative to the politics in the region or globe and governments asserting their interests.

It’s okay to disagree with how Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab did things, to criticise the Salafi or their scholars, to criticise how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does things, to think they have an ideological problem that needs fixing, or to have fundamental disagreements between each other—but maligning others by calling them by false names is unbecoming of a Muslim and fraught with error.

Instead, our language should be precise and accurate. Reasonable discussion, intellectual education, and debate need to happen for any of us to benefit or solve the problems that plague our global community.

The term “Wahhabi” is a manufactured-from-history and inaccurate name created by people with the intent to malign. It is incoherent, divisive, and slanderous. If one is a Muslim and sincere in their faith, they should ask themselves if this is the kind of thing Allah would want us to be doing. I suspect He wouldn’t.

“Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best. Indeed, your Lord is most knowing of who has strayed from His way, and He is most knowing of who is [rightly] guided.” — Qur’an 16:125

Article by BrJimC © 2016, revised 2026

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Long History of Islamic Art

In dealing with the issue of photography, we naturally have to reach back and talk about Islamic art since they both deal with the thing people object to, images.  Art creativity has been around since long before the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), but as Islam expanded to new regions different attitudes towards the arts emerged.  As Islam spread rapidly throughout the middle east, the Umayyids (661–750CE) made some advances in the arts but were the predecessors of the Islamic Golden Age.  The Umayyids spread Islam as a dynamic religion which adapted to local cultures and the arts within the limitations of Islamic civilisation.

The Umayyids were a ruling tribe from the tribe Banu Umayya. The Banu Umayya were a tribe of Quraysh who converted to Islam during the time of the Prophet, the most notable of them Uthman ibn Affan who went on to become the third Caliph during the Rashidun period.  Uthman ibn Affan is considered the third of four ‘Rightly Guided Caliphs‘ who Sunni look to (in addition to Qur’an and Hadith) when interpreting Shari’ah.  Caliph Uthman is also attributed with completing the very first full edition of the Qur’an begun under Abu Bakr’s term as Caliph.

The Umayyid Caliphate was established by Caliph Muawiya I ibn Abu Sufyan who succeeded Caliph ‘Ali ibn Abi-Talib. The Umayyid period (661 CE – 750 CE) is the second to rule Islamic civilisation after the Rashidun Caliphate period (the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, 632 CE – 661 CE).  Islamic civilisation since thrived in the sciences and arts, some of which have survived until today.

Umayyid Caliphate 727 CE. Her features are those of an Arab woman. Archaeologists believe she is a songstress from the palace. Historical sources mention that songstresses were brought from the Hijaz region, in the western Arabian Desert, to sing in the Umayyad palaces of the Syrian Desert. (Source)

Umayyid Caliphate 734 CE. Mosaic of Hisham’s Palace representation of the lion attacking the gazelle. It is thought the be the peace that follows the victory of Islam.

The Abassids where direct descendants of Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the youngest uncle of the Prophet Muhammad and overthrew the Umayyids in 750 CE.  The Abassid reign under Caliph Harun al-Rashid built upon the culture and sciences of the Umayyids.  The result was an explosion of advances in art, music, literature, science, medicine and much more that led Islam into a full blown Golden Age, while Europe plunged itself into the Dark Ages.  It was this age that Europeans traveled to Islamic lands to study in Islamic universities to acquire education which they would carry back to Europe.  Eventually, this led to the renaissance in 1300 CE pulling Europe out of the Dark Ages.

In the illustration on the right, a doctor and his assistant or patient stand on either side. (Source)

The Abbasid rule lasted from 750 CE until the Mongol invasion and sack of Baghdad in 1258 CE and killed Caliph al-Musta’sim.  Dynastic struggles brought about political instability and declining institutions but it was this moment that marked the decline in Islamic civilisation.  Islamic civilisation has not fully recovered since.

Traditionally, as seen in Islamic History, even human portrayals can be found in all eras of Islamic art.  In addition to humans, animals and plant portrayals are common even in Islam’s fourth most revered mosque, The Great Mosque of Damascus.  Since the earliest days of the Islamic empire Muslims have designed coinage and miniatures with depictions as well.

Islamic coin featuring human figure in art. American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Abbasid Bowl, 9th Century, Iraq. Qatar Museum of Islamic Art

Since the beginning, Islamic civilisation has been familiar with depictions of Allah’s creation. 1400 years of Islamic history tells us that these depictions were mostly permitted unless there was an element of shirk (idolatry) associated with it.  Even in the case of art that had idolatrous significance that became owned by Muslims, it was often marked but not destroyed. Human (or any) representation for the purpose of worship is shirk (idolatry) and is strictly forbidden.  However, the evidence shows that Muslims from all eras have never conclusively viewed representation of mundane figures as forbidden.

However, if we reach back to the Prophet’s example, although shirk is forbidden, we still do not see a total destruction or defacement of works of art among non-Muslim communities who were in alliances with Muslims.  The Prophet himself demanded that Muslims respect other faiths and even participate in maintaining and repairing their religious buildings, which were decorated with paintings, statues and other works that would naturally have items of religious value considered shirk by Muslims.  Examples:

“No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it… Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.” – Prophet Muhammad, Promise to the Monks of St. Catherine’s Monastery Until the End of Days

“Assist in reconstruct (patch, remodel) their churches and monasteries, and this would be as aid to them in their religion and for their commitment to the covenant.” – Prophet Muhammad, Covenant penned in the Prophet’s Mosque by Ali bin Abi Taleb

In recent centuries an effort to re-establish the past glory of Islam’s Golden Age, many Muslims have come to believe that instead of building from where we were at the height of the Golden Age that we must dial back Islamic civilisation by viewing it all as bid’ah (innovation) involving varying degrees of shirk (idolatry).  In doing so, there is considerable effort put into regressive ideologies that do not consider the ‘larger picture’ of the facts of Islamic history, modern living, culture, science, economy and governance.  One such movement today, the Salafist movement, is preoccupied with forbidding the things that were once the pinnacle of Islamic civilisation from its earliest days to its decline at the hands of the Mongols.  This movement began 300 years ago in the mid 1700s and is rooted in Saudi Arabian history. The fundamentals of this revivalist Salafist movement seems sound on the surface. It is more often overly zealous to avoid what it identifies as unnecessary bid’ah (innovation) and ascribes shirk (polytheism) where none exists. It’s marriage to the Saudi Arabian government often is problematic when interpreting Islam as it applies autocratic ideology within the country and in the movement worldwide.  Since the earliest days, Islam has always been a more dynamic faith.

O people, beware of exaggeration in religious matters for those who came before you were doomed because of exaggeration in religious matters. – Sunan Ibn Majah 

There is nothing wrong with being overly cautious, however, this seemingly monastic outlook is unnecessary and shouldn’t be put off as the only correct Islamic view.  Furthermore, it is over-burdensome in a way Allah and the Prophet (PBUH) never intended for the believers.  Such puritan ideas in the arts (among other things) are themselves a destructive bid’ah (innovation) of religion in my view.

God wants ease for you, not hardship. He wants you to complete the prescribed period and to glorify Him for having guided you, so that you may be thankful. – Qur’an 2:185b

God does not wish to place any burden on you: He only wishes to cleanse you and perfect His blessing on you, so that you may be thankful. – Qur’an 5:6

A bedouin urinated in the mosque and some people rushed to beat him up. The Prophet said: “Leave him alone and pour a bucket of water over it. You have been sent to make things easy and not to make them difficult.” – Riyad as-Salihin (Bukhari)

Interestingly, one of the things that most Muslims do not think about is the representation of one celestial body (sometimes accompanied by a second) that were once used by pagan idolaters that exists on most Mosques, many national flags or religious accessories today (like carpets).  Like representations of humans, animals or plants, and unlike other symbols of faith, they are representations of Allah’s creation and people in the past have gone astray to worship them or use them for polytheistic purpose.

The Star and Crescent signifies victory, sovereignty and divinity. According to tradition, in 339 BC a brilliant crescent moon saved Byzantium (now Istanbul) from attack by Philip of Macedon. To mark their gratitude, the citizens adopted the Crescent of Diana as the city’s emblem. After Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, Byzantium became a Christian city in 330 AD and was renamed Constantinople.  The Crescent was adopted from the goddess Diana and given a Star by the Emperor as symbolic of the Virgin Mary.

After 1299, during the reign of Sultan Osman Gazi of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan had a dream of a crescent moon in every corner of the world with a “mighty wind, and turned the points of the sword-leaves towards the various cities of the world, but especially towards Constantinople.”  The dream then became a symbol of the Ottoman dynasty. When Constantinople was conquered by Mehmed II in 1453, the crescent came to represent both Islam and the Turkish empire.

It is understood by all Muslims that this is merely symbolic and has no religious significance or polytheistic merit despite its idolatrous origins.

The night, the day, the sun, the moon, are only a few of His signs. Do not bow down in worship to the sun or the moon, but bow down to God who created them, if it is truly Him that you worship. – Qur’an 41:37

Yet, the Crescent and Star decorate our Islamic societies in the same way as picture art since the earliest days of Islam (unlike the Crescent and Star, such Islamic art never had any polytheistic or religious merit).  We know with certainty that picture art decorated Mosques, town centers, palaces, homes, etc. since the Umayyids.  There is one similarity between these two things (Crescent decoration and art) that tie this up into a neat bundle of understanding and is perfectly in line with Quran and Hadith.  In creating and using these items, there is no intent to create a relic for people to venerate.  No shirk is involved.

Modern Photography

Since the development of the camera, there has been the ongoing debate over whether or not taking a photograph is forbidden or permitted in Islam, but there has been little understanding about what photography actually is.  There are two forms of photography addressed by the scholars, ‘still photo’ and ‘video’.

Though it shares all of the characteristics of imagination involved in creating a painting, photography today is not creating a picture, nor is it taking a picture.  A photograph is a reflection of a scene that already exists.  Photography is the control of reflective light bouncing off of a subject.  Controlling this light is similar to the control of water if you were to open a water tap and fill a jug for use at a later date. Photography is both an art form and a science.  Photography is applying the talent that Allah has given you to see something and adjusting the mechanisms to control light which in turn determines how it is recorded on a micro storage chip, resulting in a great photograph for you to consume (use) at a later date.  Here is how it works:

In the above diagram light rays already exist, even in total darkness.  You can adjust light with a flash or simply have a longer exposure.  Light bounces off or radiates from something in the world and is constantly travelling towards your camera. When you point the camera at a subject, the image is bouncing off of your mirror (or shutter in the case of mirror-less).  The aperture in your lens can be adjusted for a faster (larger) or slower (smaller) light setting. The shutter can be set slower to allow more light or faster to allow less light.  The sensor that will record the light can be set to more or less light sensitive.  When the settings are optimal the shutter is released for the specified time.  When the shutter is released, light that is already travelling into your camera continues on its way to the sensor.  The sensor is electronic and the light from the scene is interpreted by the CPU, converted to data and stored in your data drive.  The still photo is called a ‘frame’.  The data from the photo frame can be exported for data manipulation on your PC, stored or printed for whatever reason.

Whether you have a camera dedicated for television or movies, DSLR or mobile phone, all digital cameras are video capable. A video is a series of still photo frames that are taken with the correct lighting controls (aperture, shutter speed and sensor strength) that are recorded for playback into what is called ‘frame rate’.  When they are played back, the frame rate is the number of images that are played back, displayed or projected per second.  Although video can be viewed as a separate art form, it works in the exact same way that still photography works, with one exception:  audio.  Audio breathes life into the collection of rapidly projected photographs and is imprinted on what we call television, computer screens, tablets and mobile phones.  It can also be frozen by frame and printed the same as a still photo with the right software.  Although this is less quality and overlooked in place of more appropriate still photography, Ultra-High Definition is making for clearer television pictures as technology advances.

Photography has many beneficial uses and as with anything that exists can be abused.  It has some very relevant purposes, such as to communicate, tell a story, inspire, capture history, innocent retention of memories and challenge creativity.  All of this can be used for good causes like remembering lost loved ones, making a record of your life for your family, communicating beauty on various subjects, conveying emotions, identification for ID cards or social media profiles, journalism, education in all sciences, and much more.

Scholarly Opinions, are Opinions

In large part, scholars do ‘permit’ photographs, even if they forbid painting art. However, most Salafis, who have now propagated their movement worldwide with the support of the Saudi Arabian government, have taught that still photography is forbidden except for photo ID like passports, etc.  Interestingly, in the same stroke of a brush they claim that taking video is permitted.  In fact, there is no difference between the two from a photographic standpoint.

It seems a lot of us Muslims get amnesia when it comes to leaders like the Saudi Arabian King Salman and a number of other Muslim dictators across Arab ‘Muslim’ countries.  Their imposing portrait paintings and photographs are plastered all over our Islamic societies.  These types of paintings and photos are designed to remind us who is in charge, who we should fear and who we should admire, and I don’t think they have Qur’an, Sunnah or Allah in mind.  Still two wrongs wouldn’t make a right and someone’s disingenuous argumentation doesn’t allow us a free pass, so lets examine this topic further.

Saudi Arabian King Salman

The evidences the scholars use to come to these conclusions are not based in Qur’an.  There is no prohibition on drawing, painting, or creating art of any type in the Qur’an.  The core message of Allah to Muslims is Tawheed (Oneness) and in the Qur’an He warns us about engaging in forms of idolatry.  In other words, ascribing a supernatural quality, partnership, or divinity to corruptible things, either in Creation or that we create.  If one examines the totality of hadith on the topic, there is a clear line in Islam between permissibly and discretion that indicates to us at what point our intent becomes the idolatrous behaviour which is prohibited in the Qur’an.  Allah does not prohibit us from enjoying his creation through the arts, but limits us in our acts of divine adoration, supplication and worship to Him only.  What I am speaking of is plain in the Quran:

If any, after this, invent a lie and attribute it to Allah, they are indeed unjust wrong-doers. – Qur’an 3:94

Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him. – Qur’an 112

Further to the discussion, according to the Qur’an Allah even blessed Prophet Sulaiman (a.s.) and his family to enjoy these things that were made for them.

They made him whatever he wanted- palaces, statues, basins as large as water troughs, fixed cauldrons. We said, ‘Work thankfully, family of David, for few of my servants are truly thankful.’ – Qur’an 34:13

The Qur’an is our primary source as it is the most authentic source.  The hadith are our secondary source because they are not the words of Allah but a series of chain narrations that have been authenticated and recorded hundreds of years later (longer than it took for parts of the Bible to be put on papyrus), hence all hadith must be looked at in light of the Qur’an.

The prohibitions imposed by scholars who prohibit photographic art are entirely based on a group of hadith that if seen together, in light of Qur’anic verses and the history of what purpose many images served in the time of the Prophet, they can be easily understood as they always have been since the time of the Prophet Muhammad when Islam was perfected.

This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion. – Qur’an 5:3

Here is what the scholars say:

According to Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the subject matter of a photograph is factor in prohibition.  For example, nude or semi-nude photographs, drawings or paintings would be forbidden because they go squarely against Islamic morals.  Such a prohibition would also include portraits of tyrants or people who are leaders or celebrities that propagate immoral behavior.  He also includes subject matter like religious symbols, such as crosses, idols, etc.

Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, says, “Photography as a medium of communication or for the simple, innocent retention of memories without the taint of reverence/shirk does not fall under the category of forbidden Tasweer [picture/image].

One finds a number of traditions from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, condemning people who make Tasweer, which denotes painting or carving images or statues. It was closely associated with paganism or shirk [association of partners with Allah]. People were in the habit of carving images and statues for the sake of worship. Islam, therefore, declared Tasweer forbidden because of its close association with shirk. One of the stated principles of usul-u-Fiqh( Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence) is that if anything directly leads to haram [forbidden acts], it is likewise haram. In other words, Tasweer was forbidden precisely for the reason that it was a means leading to shirk.

The function of photography today does not fall under the above category. Even some of the scholars who had been once vehemently opposed to photography under the pretext that it was a form of forbiddenTasweerhave later changed their position on it – as they allow even for their own pictures to be taken and published in newspapers, for videotaping lectures and for presentations; whereas in the past, they would only allow it in exceptional cases such as passports, drivers’ licenses, etc. The change in their view of photography is based on their assessment of the role of photography.

Having said this, one must add a word of caution: To take pictures of leaders and heroes and hang them on the walls may not belong to the same category of permission. This may give rise to a feeling of reverence and hero worship, which was precisely the main thrust of the prohibition of Tasweer. Therefore, one cannot make an unqualified statement to the effect that all photography is halal. It all depends on the use and function of it. If it is for educational purpose and has not been tainted with the motive of reverence and hero worship, there is nothing in the sources to prohibit it.”

Imam Afroz Ali, writes, “…the dominant opinion of the modern Scholars of High Knowledge is that photography is permissible as long as they are of benefit and not for any harmful or prohibited purposes, and that photographs of humans and animals not be displayed [on a wall].”

Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz (Source)

Sheikh Ibn Baz and other more restrictive scholars expressly forbids photographs and art, claiming that the areas that he deems ‘doubtful’ should be avoided. I’ve included a portrait of him here to illustrate that this type of outright restriction seems disingenuous.

The swiftness that Shiekh Ibn Baz and others exchange ‘avoidance’ (or other qualifiers) with ‘forbidden’ regarding photography is concerning.  Qur’an says:

Be a community that calls for what is good, urges what is right, and forbids what is wrong: those who do this are the successful ones. – Qur’an 3:104

God wants ease for you, not hardship. He wants you to complete the prescribed period and to glorify Him for having guided you, so that you may be thankful. – Qur’an 2:185b

You who believe, do not forbid the good things God has made lawful to you- do not exceed the limits: God does not love those who exceed the limits – Qur’an 5:87

Allah has never given a command forbidding picture making, but he has forbidden shirk, that we know in the Prophet’s time was more often associated with picture making.  In the same ease of saying it is a ‘doubtful’ area (since it isn’t mentioned directly in Qur’an, hadith and history seem to conflict) that the Sheikh forbids it, we can also say that it is permitted unless shirk is involved.  With the same logic to forbid it we can also make it permitted as something good for us, unless misused in ways against Qur’anic teaching of Tawheed.  It’s important to note also that where these scholars used to expressly forbid it in all cases, many have now changed their views regarding some of it.  Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi has even noted this among some of these Salafist scholars:

“The Salafis also have developed in several jurisprudence issues, such as “photography,” which they used to consider one of the major crimes, but now they consider it allowed.”

My viewpoint

As a photographer, I would also say that there is legitimate reason to photograph some of these things Sheikh Al-Qaradawi mentions depending on circumstance.  For example, education, journalism, news reporting, etc.  The line to draw is in the intent of the photograph.  For example, a picture of a cross can tell a story that can illustrate to the audience a valid educational opportunity or simply can serve as a mere collection of memories on a holiday trip to the Vatican, etc.  Conversely, a portrait of a nation’s regime leadership is intended to portray them in a false light that exalts them, normalises them, reinforces their rule or washes out their crimes.  I agree with Sheikh Kutty that the line is drawn at the use and function of it.

According to the sum of the hadith that even Sheikh Ibn Baz lists, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) dealt with issues where the images were closely associated with promoting shirk, which was common in the culture of his time.  The intent of such art was towards advancing beliefs contrary to Islam.  Centuries of Islamic civilisation dating back to the earliest surviving examples from the 7th century through the Islamic Golden Age serve as an indicator of how this topic was interpreted by the early sahabbah [companions] and subsequent scholars. Surviving documents dictated by the Prophet Muhammad himself tell us how even in some cases Muslims were ordered to repair and maintain properties of other faiths that (as common in that time) would have had religious statues, paintings and other image art incorporated into their architecture. Such a notion is still completely in line with Qur’an that expressly forbids Muslims from engaging in all forms of shirk while serving a higher purpose of Islamic civilisation.

If we consider the sum of all hadith, the Qur’an, historical context since the time of the Prophet and sahabbah, agreements the Prophet Muhammad has made with non-Muslim groups and even later Islamic history leading into the Golden Age, we can see that the hadith that many people today use to prohibit all image making is really only prohibiting Muslims from the making of relics.

I’ve also found that many scholars do not understand what photography is and have not properly consulted the industry and educated themselves on the science.  When making rulings on any topic this is imperative. In the end we are responsible to Allah for ourselves. Photography is a beautiful art that has many purposes.  When you take photographs, consider your subject matter, is it haram?  What is the intent of the image, education, saving a memory?  In the end, you are the best qualified to chart the course of your life.  Don’t surrender your mind to others who wish to use the ‘just in case’ reasoning to ban photography.

We have bound each human being’s destiny to his neck. On the Day of Resurrection, We shall bring out a record for each of them, which they will find spread wide open, ‘Read your record. Today your own soul is enough to calculate your account.’ Whoever accepts guidance does so for his own good; whoever strays does so at his own peril. No soul will bear another’s burden, nor do We punish until We have sent a messenger. – Qur’an 17:13-15

My view is that if you feel you need to go that extra mile to avoid something, then do it. However, such personal convictions shouldn’t be imposed on others. It could be that Allah has permitted it, as I believe is clearly shown in in light of all of the facts of Qur’an, hadith and history.  The one who does not transgress the limits set by Allah (shirk) is exercising a creative right given by Allah to enjoy for a better purpose. There are things Allah has made clear and other things He has not.  Of the things He hasn’t made clear He has left us room for growth. Both the conservative and liberal thinker can be right within the confines of what Allah has set out for us in the Qur’an.  In the end, we must have faith in Allah that He is the God He says He is, the Most Merciful.  Niyyah (intentions) is the foundation for every act in Islam.

Messenger of Allah said, “The deeds are considered by the intentions, and a person will get the reward according to his intention. So whoever emigrated for Allah and His Messenger, his emigration will be for Allah and His Messenger; and whoever emigrated for worldly benefits or for a woman to marry, his emigration would be for what he emigrated for”. – Riyad as-Salihin [Bukhari and Muslim]

Allah would, however, raise them according to their intention. – Sahih Muslim

Pray: Muhammad Berkati, Indonesia, Arts and Culture; 2015 Sony World Photography Awards

Allah has given us a beautiful gift and it should be used for His glory and our enjoyment.  An art that portrays a sense of skill, pride, joy and beauty in the world is not forbidden from Allah, it is a gift of Allah.

And (He has created) horses, mules, and donkeys, for you to ride and use for show; and He has created (other) things of which ye have no knowledge. – Qur’an 16:8

Article by BrJimC © 2017