Ultimately if we look at Ramadan and the events in Ramdan it brings an attitude to the individual in which one is demonstrating for oneself that there are things in one one’s life that if one really tries to administer one’s life around God’s divine instructions it it possible it is possible to abstain from those things which are natural life behaviours for a specific period of time.
If you take it in the natural life an individual if you tell someone for today, all day, from a particular time to a particular time you are not going to be allowed to eat anything he will probably tell us to take a walk. What do you mean? I am going to be hungry? I will have my natural life requirements, I am going to be thirsty, I am going to be all sorts of things? Why is it that you have told me not to eat? I am going to eat! I am going to drink!
What is it that is so specific that in the month of Ramadan that that whole attitude is re-adjusted. There is no one on top of the person’s head saying if you are going to drink I will beat the hell out of you. No one is saying if you do this you be reprimanded physically in front of others. There is nothing there. The only thing that does provide that element of recognition of the duty is that the individual is looking for the want to demonstrate obedience.
And that want for demonstrating obedience is seen from the outset where the requirements of obedience to be fulfilled and not being obedient were demonstrated when for example we look at the verses of how Shatan was expelled from the presence of the Almighty. The ayat from the Qur’an says that when Allah created Adam he asked the angels and everyone who was present in from of him to to prostrate in front of Adam. Angels prostrated. Shatan said “I am not going to prostrate in front of this stone that you have just created. So he abstained from taking on the duty of showing obedience to the creator.
Shatan demonstrated arrogance of what he is. What was the arrogance that Shatan was trying to demonstrate. In the ayats of the Qur’an relating to this particular issue it says that Shatan has several thousand years of prostrating in front of the creator. Several thousand years of ibadat in front of the creator, several thousand years of worship. So that in the whole worshipping process he had become arrogant.
And you can look at the conversation God says I created this, this is my creation and I want everybody else who is also my creation to prostrate. Shatan is saying ‘no’ – he is refusing that obedience. So you can see that disobedience has been a track record of those who have continued to go against the creator’s instructions. Ramadan dictates the want to be obedient to the creator. That is why I have selected that surah. “Help one another towards goodness and not towards aggression and disobedience”. So one aspect the obedience that it trying to conjure up in people’s minds is individual obedience” My own personal demonstration of obedience to the creator. I don’t eat, I do my utmost to supplicate more and to read the Qur’an even more. I do all those things that are demonstrating obedience. So that is an individual goal. That is an individual take on what I am meant to be doing in Ramadan.
But this ayat that I have selected is not giving me an individual take. It is giving us a communal take on encouraging people to do good. It is not saying encourage yourself to do good. It is saying help one another to goodness.
Islam is demonstrating that very important aspect of communal participation in goodness. And the second part of it is not to help one another towards aggression. In other words don’t be a group or party who are going to come together to encourage denial of the creator, denial of the instruction of the creator, being obstructive in the application of God’s command.
So we can see that as Ramadan is a spiritual month for Qur’anic teachings and the message is not that I should become overwhelmed that I have become so good. There is a want within the whole process of Islamic not that I have become good but that I have become a party to the goodness of the whole community. That is what Islam is aspiring for and that is why in Ramadan you see the wider meaning of how people get together to get their iftar. It is highly recommended that people go to the mosque and have iftar rather than stay at home.
These are the good things of communalness and togetherness. Imam Khomeini in one of his lectures says to show off is haram. But he says the only time you are allowed to show off is when you go to the mosque where other people are going to come together with the intention that you show to those who do not consider this is an important duty that Muslims gather in such a large number.
If you join the congregation for Friday prayers this wanting to join a congregation and wanting to join a congregation is not showing off. It is a duty you are doing and you are projecting to others that this is an important responsibility that Muslims have.
In the whole process of demonstrating this uniformity in goodness we see that it is duty incumbent on everybody that if they see and element of goodness they should pass it on to others. It is incumbent on everyone. You can’t say that because I have become good I am okay, Jack. I don’t really care about what others do or who they behave. The responsibility is blatantly on everybody.
Allah says :”And as for the believers, men and women, they are guardians to each other”. In other words there is interaction and the responsibility that if I do something good I will share it with the others. If the others do something good I will find a way of getting it for myself. This is the guidance. They becoming guardians in enjoying the good and avoiding the bad. That is the whole meaning of that communal interaction. One has to create a social fabric where the encouragement of the bad is not a norm and the discouragement of good is a norm. It should be vice versa. Belief is a tool by which one encourages people to do good and abstain from doing bad.
The ultimate association with the creator is the want to be good as Allah has defined it and badness is recognised as a distancing oneself from the things which belittle oneself in front of the creator. And that is the spiritual message of Ramadan. To want to belittle oneself to such a level that in front of the creator you are nothing. But with the strength of your body you have fought off the Shatan who encouraged you to drink, the eat and to all sorts of things which the creator has forbidden during that period of time.
So you become big somewhere else, humbled somewhere else. Your strength lies somewhere else. I have been visiting one of the scholars in south London and he raised a very important point and that is he says if an individual is able to make that control during this period of Ramadan then surely the individual has the ability to do that. It is not something else. The alieness is when they do not recognise the fact that the spirituality is a natural existence with us.
A lot of people misunderstand and use the term wrongly. The say Islam automatically calls a disbeliever ‘kafir’. In Arabic the word kafir comes from the word Kuf but this does not mean disbeliever. Kuf means to hide something. And what Islam says when it defines a disbeliever with this term is that that which is a natural existence of spirituality the disbeliever hides and suppresses from his natural life.
That is why the term is used. Not because Muslims like calling disbelievers kafir. Muslims believe that there is a natural inherent want to be spiritual. But when the individual starts performing repulsive acts that spirituality gets hidden and suppressed. And when it gets suppressed that when the individual starts performing other acts which are disobedient to the creator. That is the relationship between spirituality and belief. That is where the relationship is between the development of this month’s strength and the relaxation of oneself once this month has finished.
One feels during this month that he has an immediate audience with the creator but somehow once the month finishes one feels that this audience has subsided. But in reality the audience is every time. There is of drei kamal. It says there is no way that I can run away from your authority, from your kingdom. We feel in Ramadan that this kingdom is like a fortress that we have come into and once Ramadan is finished the fortress has been dropped and there is no where else that there is authority of the creator. But there is.
The more one demonstrates the authority of the creator the more one demonstrates obedience to the creator. There is a tradition from the Prophet in which somebody came to him and said how do I abstain from sinning. And he says ‘don’t lie”. How is that so? Every time you want to something you have to think that I have to cover up. Every time you say I have to cover it up you are committing a sin.
So the abstention from sinning is not to lie. And the biggest lie an individual creates for himself is the non recognition of the creator of himself, that being the Almighty. And once one has recognised the creator of oneself than for sure one will recognise to whom one must be obedient. Once this chain of operations are recognised there is no way one can feel that obedience only has to be demonstrated in Ramadan and it is all for God.
Sadly that is where the separation takes place. And we restrict ourselves. There is a saying in Farsi :”When you put me on the minbar I will not get up and speak”. That is why one of the most important things Islam talks about in the recognition of of the Creator is this recognition of wanting to enjoin people to do good and to deter people from doing bad.
Sometimes when we look at television and politics we ask why should we become a nanny state? Let people do what they want to do. It is not a nanny state. If the fact that if someone has a genuine recognition of what is obedience and what is disobedience than they will want to encourage people to do good and distract people from doing bad. This is not nannies work. It is work of those who recognise themselves as spiritually inclined to make sure God’s commands are put into play. It has nothing to do with nanny state. It has nothing to do with dictatorship, it has nothing to with wanting to suppress peoples freedom. It is do with making sure that evil does not gain hold in one’s behaviour and obedience is encouraged.
In the whole picture of understanding spirituality people sometimes say you are doing good yourself why do you want to impose it on others. It has nothing to do with imposing. We as a human creation want to acquire the most optimum state in everything in our lives. That want for optimumness is a natural behaviour in a human beings life. The want to acquire the status of kamalat, an optimum existence. We all want to acquire perfection. To acquire perfection means you must want to remove those things which tarnish your perfection. Any anyone who recognises or feels comfortable in defining those rules and regulations of perfection should be someone who encourages others to incline towards that perfection. And what is that perfection. That perfection is ultimately making sure that those things which distance you from he who you have recognised as your authority in front of you, you do not do. And those things which pull you towards him you make sure you undertake.
That is the sole formula for spiritual development that the imran is inviting people to. And that is why in any community where communities are just restricted to the mosques or the churches to make sure their religiousness is seen in there, you find that outside people just come to the mosque or the church, perform their spirituality and then go out and become a spiritual. They feel they have to be in the world and that is something else and now I have to be in the mosque or the church and that is something else. While in reality if we are genuine in the cause of our belief then we have to be that which are in the mosque outside and outside we have to be like in the mosque. Or in the church as outside. There must be uniformity.
Otherwise if that uniformity does not exist it is not uniformity, it is hypocrisy. You are saying to yourself while I am in the mosque or the church I am going to be obedient to the creator but when I am outside I will do whatever I want. You are finding an absence of the creator.
And the other important tradition is asking what is the best way of maintaining my taqwa and my piety. Don’t sin. You say I get dragged into this. Or if you must sin go and sin in a place where there is no audience of the creator there. If you can find a place where the creator is not there you can by your own means. That is the formula of spirituality. That the tools of existence for ones spirituality are based on the creator and the presence of the creator in one’s life not only in Ramadan but throughout the rest of the year.
There is a verse which says that if a person is a genuine believer and he has developed spirituality his taqwa increases. And when that taqwa increases happen, he performs salat, pays zakat. He recognises that Allah is aziz and hakim. Aziz in the sense that he is all honourable and hakim all wise. These two attributes are paramount in recognising God’s instructions. That is we do not recognise that in a particular act which may seem totally difficult for us to perform if we do not recognise that there is God’s wisdom in it then we will not perform it. And that is what ramadan is. If Allah tells us not to eat there is wisdom in it.
Allah says that women who are within the Islamic framework must have hijab, there is wisdom in it. These are the things that one must look at as being this continuous process of spirituality that continues in Ramadan and outside Ramadan.
Yasser Madani: First and foremost thank you very much for inviting me here today to speak about the Muslim Youth Help Line. The topic hopefully will be reaching out to the community. When I was asked to speak I had trouble thinking about what I was going to say.
I have been involved in this project since its inception for the past nine years. Working on the helpline is one thing but speaking about reaching out to the community is something different. So I thought the best way to do this was to talk about what the help line stands for, why it was established in the first place and I hope that by doing this I will describe how we are reaching out to the community.
So this is the doha that we read in the Qur’an before or after every salat. Allah install happiness to the followers of the creed. Allah satisfies every hungry person, Allah clothes every person, Allah helps those who are indebted to him. Allah will help every person who is distressed.
This is really the topic of our discussion today. The doha goes on. Jaffar Sadiq says he who relieves distress from a believer, Allah will relieve 70 distresses from him. In another hadith he says one who councils a Muslim and goes with him for every step that he takes Allah will erase from him a misdeed whether he actually succeeds in relieving the distress or not.
So the background to the Muslim Youth Help Line. Why was it established? How was it established. The founder of the organisation Brother Mohammed Sadiq was a dear friend of mine. He saw that there were problems in the community that the youth were suffering from: mental health, abuse, unemployment, family breakdown, lots and lots or problems.
We started thinking about this project in February and it was actually established in August, slightly before 9/11. When 9/11 struck these problems were multiplied. There were problems of discrimination, disaffection and also going to the extreme, extremism. And yet despite all these problems there is still the apathy of the community in dealing with them. As a result of this there are a lack of community support services.
And to this day I think the Muslim Youth Help Line is the only national organisation that dedicates its efforts to this cause. In addition to all of this there is a fear of being misjudged, fear of being criminalised, a fear of being misunderstood and discriminated against.
Looking closer to home at the Muslim community there was and there is still is a fear to trust the elders because there is a fear of being judged. And at the same to compound everything all this is happening and they have no one to go to. They do not trust the elders due to fear of being judged but when they look to mainstream services they fear discrimination. These were the influences to do something.
So the MYHL was established at the end of August and we have just had our ninth anniversary. We did a pilot study. What really is MYHL. It is a free and culturally sensitive support service. That is it in a nutshell. It is free and it is confidential. These are some of the advantages.
The aim is to provide support services to the community, especially the youth in general, not just Muslim youth through different mediums: email, telephone, letters and more recently web chat 0- MSN, yahoo messenger. Live messaging. It is a youth organisation, a youth led service run and dominated by the youth.
So what are the principles and the ethos that guide the work. One of the unique features of the helpline is that is non judgemental. And that is really one of the qualities. It is the reason why people come to us. They do not need to fear they are being judged. We don’t tell people what to do. We listen. We don’t advise, we don’t give guidance. We explore options and we leave it the client to decide what to do. Again this is what draws people in.
We try to engage in empowering Muslims. We try to support the emergence of a strong Muslim British identity and again it will become clear as to how we do this. We try to look for the root causes of this disaffection so that all this anger – for example post 9/11 people are angry at the community because it did not do anything for them. People are angry at society because of the discrimination and the negative media portrayal.
What we try and do is to channel this anger in a positive and constructive way through social action. Essentially we are non judgemental, we listen, we discuss options, we provide another perspective and where necessary we will refer to other professionals: Muslim and non Muslim.
Imam Jaffar Sadiq says whenever one of you is affected by distress and sorrow he must bring it to the attention of his brother so he may remove the grief and gloom from his heart. This is a beautiful saying and essentially this is what we are trying to encourage. We are not trying to encourage dependence. No.
Let us take a simple example. I want to go and apply for a job and I do what I can. I am not successful. So I go to professionals, those who can help me. I go to recruitment agencies. I go to citizens advice bureaux. I need help. Or I may be much more capable and successful in finding a job.
There is no shame in needing help and this is why the MYHL was established. All our councillors are trained. They all have to complete a particular course and generally they attend one three hour shift per week. Shifts are between 6pm to 12am at night every day of the week. On weekends it is from 12am – 12pm, so four shifts. There is always a supervisor who is more experienced.
In March we had almost 400 inquiries. The number of unique users in the last year was 1700. That is just in the space of year. The two highest categories of calls were relationships and mental health. These are the two largest categories. In 2007 the MYHL published a report. Essentially it helped to reiterate those points.
First of all there was the quantitative approach of the research. A lot of issues and statistics – different issues divided by gender but again relationships and mental health are the two biggest issues that people call us about.
So what did this research find? It found a lot. Just a couple of points. What did clients value? They valued someone who they could relate to and this was a recurring theme. Talking to someone that can understand their cultural and religious sensitivities. If I see a patient in hospital – I treat all my patients the same – but if I am to say salam aleikum to that patient I see a smile on their face. And if they say salam aleikum to me I smile. We are able to use that extra vocabulary. In sha Allah, bismallah etc.
Of someone comes to us and says I am dating a girl, if they were to contact the Samaritans, the Samaritans would support them but they would ask what actually is the problem. But for us this is the problem. He is seeing someone outside the framework of marriage, which is prohibited in Islam and that is causing an internal conflict. On the one hand he has this person who he is dating and the pleasure he is seeking out of it and on the other hand he has got his religion. He is disobeying his Lord, and moreover his family, his community. What if someone sees me. I have to get married to her. This is just a very simple example but something that lots of clients contact us about.
Islam is not just something on the side, an addition. Islam is integral to and interwoven with their identity and their everyday lives. Next to their identity the next thing is recognition. It is one thing to be a Muslim but for someone to recognise you as a Muslim.
What we found that Muslims were afraid that if they contacted mainstream civil services they would not be recognised as such and the care and the support they receive would be different. There is a lack of recognition of their personal difficulties from the Muslim community.
Here are some quotes from clients: “Recognition fosters a sense of belonging”. This is what many young people do not have from the community. When I think of the community I go back to college days. I used to go to Westminster Community College in Edgware Road when I was young. At that time Hizb Al Taheer was very strong. Why were they successful? Because they gave that sense of belonging to those people, they invited them out to lunch. They took them to Regents Park Mosque. They had an identity that they are part of this Islamist political organisation.
And for clients seeking support from within the Muslim community it fosters their identity and for the volunteers working together with it fosters a sense of community. That goes a long way to empowering and engaging. This is one way of reaching out to the Muslims community.
The message of Allah is help a man whether he is wronged or he is a wrong doer. A man asked how can I help a wrong doer? I can help a person who is wronged. Allah says you can prevent him from wronging. And you can see our work in this light. If what we are doing prevents at least one person committing suicide or feeling isolated – as the Qur’an says reaching out to one person or saving one person is as if you have saved the whole of mankind.
The Ramadan prison campaign is really powerful. Muslims constitute approximately 3 – 4 percent of the population of Great Britain according to the census of 2001. And the Muslim population of Britain is 12 percent. When we started this campaign in 2001 it was 11 or 12 percent. So a Muslim is 12 times more likely than a member of another faith group to enter prison. That equates to about 10,000 Muslims in prison.
We launched this campaign behind bars it was so successful and powerful that we have continued. It was designed to reach out to those in need – Muslim prisoners. We are asking the community at large to help us to help them. And at the same time to be part of the Muslim ex offenders rehabilitation process. In 2004 we sent just over one thousand gift packs that arrived to the Muslim prisoners on the day of Eid.
Every year since then we have received a surge of letters from Muslim prisoners who have continued their contact with us and have become clients of the Muslim Youth Help Line. In 2005 it was awarded an award for the most heart warming campaign from the Community Services Volunteers Organisation.
The number of gift packs we have sent has increased each year. This year, in sha Allah, we will send 4,000 gift packs to Muslim prisoners in 47 different prisons. Each gift traditionally contained a Qur’an, a message of support from the Muslim community. So we are encouraging the Muslim community to send out messages of support so that a Muslim prisoner sees that there are people who care about them. We also include postage paid envelopes and pens to encourage them to write to us. In the past we have included a life journal to encourage to write.
One prisoner wrote: “My prayers have been answered. When I came back to my cell after prayers I received a gift box from you. You made my day beautiful and joyful. After reading your letter my heart was filled with joy. Thank you very much for the Qur’an. With all this time on my hand I have started to read the Qur’an”.
The Holy Prophet says that he who makes a believer happy has made me happy and he who makes me happy has made Allah happy. The best way to make a believer happy is to remove hunger, distress and sorrow. Even if it is as little as giving him a date.
I remember a Muslim prisoner who wrote to us. One day in our gift pack we sent a sweet which has a date inside it. He said when he opened the gift pack and ate the date it reminded him or his mother who gave him this date.
I remember one year after the prison campaign the office staff opened the prison letters. Each of them sits in one corner of the office. They started crying as they read the letters. Tell me that is not powerful. If you have reached out to the heart of one person that is enough.
This year in sha Allah four thousand gift packages will be prepared for prisoners in 47 prisons. A gift pack only costs three pounds to sponsor. We have the Home Office, we have Comic Relief, we have different grants but we wanted to reach out to to the Muslim community and get volunteers from the community. I will end here as time is limited.
* Syed Taqi Razvi is currently based in Qum where he he is pursuing further Islamic studies and is also extensively in translating projects. He was the vice principle of Islamic College of Advanced Studies, Willesden, UK.
** Br Yasser Madani is the co-founder of MYH. He has been involved in various capacities at MYH. Mainly as a helpline supervisor and now as a trainer.He is a doctor by profession and at present a speciality trainee in internal medicine.
