Talking to myself

As I reviewed the posts I've written and the ones I've got in draft I thought, you know, who is going to read this?



Should I tell my friends about it? Some former murids want to warn the whole world. Some want to be left alone. Some want to talk about it with others who were there, some don't want to talk about it at all. People who weren't there don't get it. It's sort of like "What is the point, in what you are doing?"



I was shocked to see the tariqa being discussed on another blog, but in the comments section rather than a post. It was like an organic or spontaneous outpouring of the hurt, the emotion, the anger at what happened there. Not organized at all. Not controlled. It burned out kind of quick I think. Most of us waited in the wings, to see what would happen. I was told they were very upset about it in Jordan and wanted to know if they could trace the IPs of the people who posted! How crazy is that. The guy's blog who it was on isn't even one of their fans, but I guess someone thought they could influence him to get the IPs. I don't know if they asked him or anything, just that one of them wanted to.



One of my cousins is also a convert to Islam. That is how I was introduced to all of this really. That relative was in another tariqa. Well same tariqa, but different shaykh. About a year ago or a little more, all of their people fell apart from some craziness too. At the time I thought, "This is the nafs or egos of the people, they don't want to obey their shaykh. They should look past his faults." But I didn't know the realties then.



Muslims brag about not having priests and rabbis. What they have are scholars and shaykhs, and the truth is that we treat them the same way. If not worse, in the sense that Muslims - some of us - see them as infallible. They think a shaykh can not make a mistake much less commit the sorts of sins that cause people to gasp or shake their head. Some people, if you want to talk about this they will say "Have some adab with the shaykh!" It's like he is a god - astaghfirallah - and you can't make a peep about him that isn't 100% positive.



I think that is how some of these shaykhs get away with scam artist stuff. With sex stuff. With crazy stuff. Now I know some realities I really think that at least a few of these guys are seriously mentally ill. But because they have shaykh in front of their name, no one will say that, no one will give voice to their doubts or fears, no one will question them.



There shouldn't be anyone between you and Allah in Islam, but we put them in the place of the priests. Where in the Quran or Sunnah does it say that they are infallible, that they don't commit sins, that you should continue to learn from them or give them money or patronage when you know they are dishonest or hurting someone or completely out of their minds? Where? Pray for them yes, help them yes, but why empower them??? Because someone decided they should be called "shaykh"??



So I'm wondering, who will read this? Maybe I will let people find it. Maybe I won't share it with anyone, and it will just be a voice in the wind. What I hope is that it is around for the likes of my son and all the young little Muslims out there, so that if this is still going on when he is old enough, he can learn from our mistakes and our experiences.