Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Muslims, grooming. Muslims, grooming. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.It's
your brother Taji Mustafa here. Woke up this morning, Friday, and these two words, Muslims
and grooming. Switched on the BBC, Press Association, it was on the TV, it was all over the place.
And I was wondering; what's going on here? Why am I hearing this association. You don't
feel comfortable as a Muslim hearing your Deen connected with something so terrible.
It turns out there is this initiative, you may have seen it 'Muslim religious leaders
to condemn child sex grooming', and that there were going to be some khutbahs in some of
the masajids. What do people think about this? I went on twitter, I went on facebook and
I put a status update asking for people's thoughts. So what is clear is that people
raise the issue of 'collective guilt'; why should Muslims talk about the issue and play
into the existing narrative - there's a popular narrative out there - that Muslims and Islam
are to blame, somehow, for this issue, and that we should be careful not to fall into
that by our actions, by our words. And I agree with that sentiment. Afterall, Stuart Hall
was a white guy, Jimmy Savile, well known child abusers who abused numerous people.
Nobody is saying that churches have to give sermons, the BBC has to apologise, has to
condemn. People say, look, these are the actions of two people, two people, and you can't blame
a whole community for it. Likewise, the same with these individuals who happen to be Asian,
or who happen to be Muslims, you can't blame the Muslim community for it. The majority
of abusers are white and nobody's saying the white community. This is a societal issue,
it's not a Muslim issue. So collective blame, we need to be careful of not perpetuating
that. Secondly, what people need to be aware of is; blame, they 'blame Islam to change
Islam'. John Humphrys was interviewing an imam from Oxford about this issue of grooming
and he started to suddenly talk about "your Islamic attitude towards women". I thought
to myself, what's that got to do with grooming? So, if you accept blame, if you accept that
it is somehow that Islam is guilty or Muslims are guilty, then the follow up to that is,
well you know, if Islam is the problem then we need to change Islam; maybe it's the values
towards women, maybe it's your segregation, maybe it's sexuality, maybe it's this... and
it's to say well, actually, everybody knows that Islam absolutely is far away, the Islamic
values are the complete opposite of the idea of plying some young underage girl with alcohol,
with drugs and abusing them. And that brings me to the third point. The real cause, the
real cause of these are the liberal values in the society we live in, it's not the Islamic
values. Unfortunately, we live in a society, we need to highlight this, which unfortunately
demeans women in many instances. Page 3, the recent editor said it's good for making money.
There's the objectification of women, the sexualisation of young girls. These values
promote women being seen in a terrible light and unfortunately, some men, of all types,
races and colours and religions - brought up here - end up behaving towards women in
this particular, terrible and heinous way. So people need to question the liberal values
which have lead us to where we are and which is creating an epidemic of such types of cases
of abuse of young, vulnerable girls in our society. Fourth, final point. For us as a
community, what can we put forward to this is actually more Islam, Islamic values. How
are you going to stop, insha'Allah ta'ala, a young Muslims man or boy from engaging in
such heinous activity is that we teach the values of Islam: that says you respect women,
Muslim or non-Muslim; that says you should have taqwa of Allah (subhanahu wa ta'ala).
Today is Friday, when we recite Sura Kahf and Allah (subhanahu wa ta'ala). He reminds
us in the very first ayah; alhamdililahi ladhee anzala ala abdihil qitaba wa lam yajallahu
ewaja. That, this is the book that was revealed to Rasul (sallallahu alaihi wa salam) and
He has clarified everything, He's answered every question, He's given all types of guidance
in this Qur'an. So it's actualy by teaching its values of; how to treat women, how to
behave towards the opposite sex, it by teaching and explaining all of these things; that Allah
is watching you. You may get away with the crime but you will answer for it on the Day
of judgement. It's actually by teaching the wholesome values of Islam, from the Qur'an
from the sunnah, that people will not engage in this behaviour. If they imbibe and drink
in the secular values that are prevalent around us, unfortunately, we will not be surprised
if some Muslims end up engaging in the most un-Islamic activity because they are far from
Islam. I pray to Allah (subhanahu wa ta'ala) that me and you will be part of that effort
to instil these values in our community, in the Muslims, so thate we'll be an example
for the wider non-Muslim, the wider society that we live in, insha'Allah. Let's carry
on the conversation. Give me your thoughts. This is my twitter ID @tajimustafa. Connect
up on facebook. Leave a comment on this video below. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa
batakatuh.