Cult checklist - BITE model of kharabsheh k-town

this is 4 your sake. Some people who are ex-tariqa or currently in the tariqa had a problem with the bite checklist or any comparisons of the sufi cults to cults. Mostly poeple said it about the Nuh Keller group but also last year I was speaking to a fellow survivor and she said that this same model of the BITE and the cult checklist can easily be applied to Yaqoubi, the Naqshbandi groups (the many of them), and other problem sufi groups. Many of the sufi group, at least in the west, have cultish tendencies and practices, in her opinion. So take what benefits you and leave what doesn't!

The people who were upset said said, "This same things can be said about the religion, so you can't say it about tariqas." In other words, you could apply these same negative things to socalled "traditional Islam" (the bigger cult) or to Islam or christianity, etc. so therefore you shouldn't say it because they want to hint that you could be making a big sin with Allah.

I can see where they are coming from, but that is a terrible reason to try and keep people quiet. They're just trying to stop the criticism of their idols, their shaykhs, and the path that they have chosen. Maybe their choice isn't strong enough to withstand criticism and questioning. The tariqas are cults. Maybe religion is just cults that have come to be accepted by society, but the point is that if your faith is too weak to withstand an examination of negative, destructive factors that certain religious or other groups have in common, then maybe you should work on yourself instead of trying to censor and shut people up. Maybe you should rely a little more on Allah and a little less on trying to bully people or on your so-called shaykh. I have read the BITE checklist many times and thought about it and I am still Muslim, so alhamdu-lillah, I don't think that it will make you have a bad thoughts about your imaan as a Muslim if you are committed to it.

About 8 months ago, I received this checklist in email from a fellow survivor; it was written by another ex-Kharabsheh person as a means of examining and realizing what we had been involved with. Saying the word "cult" about the tariqa, or anything to do with Islam, was difficult. Partly because we believe that these are things that happen to other religions and partly because it is difficult to understand why Allah might give us a test of this magnitude. In talking to other former members, it seems that the moment we realized it was a "cult" and used this word was a momentous one. One of awakening, in a way.

For some people, the reality of its existence as a cult does not take value from whatever positive or enlightening experiences they had in the tariqa. For others, nothing that was good about the tariqa can overcome it's problems. This journal which is now a blog is meant for the survivors, the parents, the siblings, the friends who are concerned about someone who is in the cult and are concerned about them. Who miss them. I want to reassure you that I do not think that a single person in the cult other than those who have pre-existing mental illnesses are in any physical danger or serious psychological danger. I don't think it is a Jonestown type of situation, and I don't think that the murids or the leaders would have people physically harmed. At least I hope they wouldn't! But there will be long term psychological, spiritual and financial damage for many people who go to Kharabsheh or who are otherwise involved in the cult. Others suffer financially, professionally and socially. There is harm and it's taking place. It's just not as urgent as poisoned Koolaid.

One thing is for sure, until the members of the cult are at the point where they are ready to recognize it as such, then all of this is pointless. For example, when I made the choice to share my journal here as a blog, I wanted to share it for the sake of other ex-members, not as a means of trying to wake up those who are still in it, whether they are in Jordan or not. I think those who are in Jordan have a better chance of waking up, because you are in the heart of it right now. It's all around you. But as we know, it is Allah who guides and misguides one along the paths of life. You may be a Muslim who is misguided. Certainly, we are taught this in our masjid and in the tariqa itself. And I am telling you this and it is nothing you've not heard before. People who don't want to believe, who have turned their hearts against the truth, then no truth will be recognized by them.



Originally, I had planned to post it back at the beginning, but then I held off while the story developed. Then my friend emailed me and said that the original writer was okay with it being used by any ex-murid who finds it useful, but that she wanted to fix it up a bit. She sent me back a "cleaned up" version of it and here it is for you.

BITE Model Applied to Kharabsheh

by Amatul-Hadi

Steve Hassan is a counselor who specializes in dealing with those who are recovering from cult movements. In his book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, he lays out the BITE model of cult control. B stands for Behavior Control, I stands for Information Control, T stands for Thought Control and E stands for Emotion Control. Hassan explains that the cult leader or leadership employ a broad range of manipulative techniques to exact total or near total control over their followers. I recommend this book to anyone who is leaving the Kharabsheh tariqa or any other destructive Sufi tariqa or who has a family member or friend in an Islamic cult. Until the day that our Muslim leadership recognizes and develops methods to recognize, deprogram and help heal survivors of Islamic cults, then there is no problem referencing the beneficial works of non-Muslims. This is even something that the tariqa itself teaches, as Um Khayr teaches people how to conduct themselves in marriage using the works of non-Muslims.



Note that Hassan says that it is not necessary for every single component of the model to be present in order for the group to be recognized as a cult movement. My comments highlighting what parts of the BITE model I found present in Kharabsheh are interspersed.



Behavior Control

• Regulation of individual's physical reality, including: "Where, how, and with whom the member lives and associates, what clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears, what food the person eats, drinks, adopts, and rejects, how much sleep the person is able to have, financial dependence, little or no time spent on leisure, entertainment, vacations."

This is true for the people in Kharabsheh and a few other places where tariqa bonds are especially tight between people and there is a lot of contact. This is their distinguishing characteristic, especially for the people in Kharabsheh. They are told what to wear and what not to wear, women are sometimes discouraged from cutting their hair for “Islamic” reasons, as well as dying it or going to salons (though this sometimes falls on deaf ears). They are told not to eat at McDonald’s and such places. Some people he singles out for special attention are put on “special diets” supposedly to reduce their shahawat, or desires. Some of these diets are very very strange and difficult to live with. Financial dependence is a fact of life for those who work in murid owned businesses. Those who were courted or recruited because of money / professionalism reasons are seem to be attached to murid-owned businesses and ventures more than the average person or Qasid student / murid. Their livelihoods depend on these jobs.



As for leisure & entertainment, this is forbidden or highly discouraged. Television, music and movies are forbidden across the tariqa, but especially in Jordan. However, even some of the "very good" murids are secretly swapping DVDs and watching YouTube and then they experience some guilt about this, or they end up having these "big secrets." People who sit outside of Jordan and say that only weak murids can't follow this rule would be surprised at the names in the tariqa who listen to music or watch movies and TV. Books waver between forbidden and not forbidden (he tells you the "best" kind of books to read), and people who have "too much fiction" on their shelves or the "wrong kinds" of books about tasawuf, etc. are gossiped about or reported.

• Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals

Yes, you have to spend time in "suhba" with him. If he comes to your town, you should spend your time with him; if you live in Jordan, you should attend his majalis. To not do so is bad manners. If you don’t live in Jordan, you need to attend the weekly dhikr or however often it is held. This is true in all Sufi groups, but they are known to punish or ostracize and "follow up" with people who are absent from their gatherings. The main exception is, these days, for women with children or women whose husbands are forbidding them from leaving the home. If there is no separate accomodation for women with small children apart from men and women without them at the latifiya, then the women with children are required to stay home. That is the worldwide rule for the tariqa, not only Jordan.

• Need to ask permission for major decisions

All murids, or at least many of them, ask him before getting married; many ask him what they should name their children. Some people do not marry except who Besa or Hedaya tells them to marry. Some ask him about moving or taking on a new job or leaving their current job and going to university. This is true in other Sufi groups too. With our tariqa, though, the marriage thing is on a level not seen in the Damascene Shadhiliya or any other tariqa except those who are rooted in the West. The shuyukh in Damascus have expressed dismay and disapproval regarding the marital customs of our tariqa, saying that it is not usual for a sheykh to be so involved in this area of a person's life and that it is an area that is meant for the dervish's parents and family to be involved in.

• Need to report thoughts, feelings, and activities to superiors

Not so much, but you are encouraged to go to the big four to talk about your hard times and your struggles, which sounds completely benign and could be, were it not for everything else.

• Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques -- positive and negative)

Big time in our tariqa. Those who are good or are otherwise having an "in", get put in khalwa, isolation, which they’re told will bring them to the "next level" spiritually speaking. They get to live in the newly built apartments near the sheikh, or they get put in special rankings in their town. They may find themselves recommended for marriage to favoured murids. Although they deny the existence of the "inner circles" it exists in Jordan and in some of the other cities, and every murid knows this. Those who are bad, who do not obey, who do not conform or are in some other way "undesirable", are snubbed, shunned, and eventually blacklisted. Women are subject to intense gossip which is spread about them online, mainly of the sort that they are mentally ill.

• Individualism discouraged; "group think" prevails

I believe this is could be the hallmark of our tariqa, even outside of the Jordan group. You are encouraged to think a certain way and have the same opinions on different issues. Conveniently, Sunnipath.com is set up to tell us all how to understand and follow Islam. Over the years, we have been discouraged, subtly and not so subtly, to stop following some of the sheykhs in fiqh, something that has hurt and angered those outside of the tariqa.

You are encouraged to seek out its teachers, your muqaddams and others to make sure that you have the "right" thoughts and dress. If the sheykh expresses pleasure about something, murids will run out to copy it, be it food or a book. And if he expresses displeasure, we run out to rid ourselves of it as well, as though following this man's likes and dislikes in food or home decor will give us entry to Jannat al Firdaus. Sometimes, as a means of showing us favour, one of the big four would mention to us something that they liked or didn't like in a more private setting, the implication being that they were showing us some favourable advantage by telling us something they like or dislike that we could implement or get rid of and thereby gain spiritual advantage over our peers.

• Rigid rules and regulations

I think this is well established. First, there is an entire manual available for the tariqa as a whole, if not several (one of which is out of print I think). Second, there is an additional manual meant for those who are coming to Kharabsheh. In addition to this, there are many rules that are relayed verbally, in the durus, over the internet on the suhba lists, or via personal communication. At all times, you are told that to follow these rules of the sheykh and his wife is to please Allah.

• Need for obedience and dependency

It is all about getting into Jannat because you obeyed him and thereby pleased Allah. They are known to tell you "the sheykh's istikharah said such and so" as a means of convincing you to undertake something, be it a marriage or divorce or what have you. This gives you the illusion that if you do not do what they are telling you to do, you are literally disobeying Allah, and is giving rise to the hereforto unstated belief that Allah speaks through him - and I say Astaghferullah.

Information Control

• Use of deception

I believe this is true. Many of us believed the sheykh was an ijazah bearing authority in fiqh, which he is not. This is something literally thousands of Muslims believe! There is the more general deception of the tariqa being portrayed as something it absolutely is not, in the end. Of course, many stories are floated around the suhba groups or the neighbourhood in Kharabsheh to put out misinformation about a murid who has fallen from favour.

• Deliberately holding back information, distorting information to make it more "acceptable," "outright lying."

I believe this is true on an Islamic sense, as well as a more general sense. The same as above.

• Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
• Media (books, articles, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio), critical information, former members, keep members so busy they don't have time to think and check things out.
• Hassan also makes mention of communication with former members being forbidden or discouraged.
  
  

The hallmark. These things are a “waste of time” and it is not pleasing to Allah for you to read the paper or watch the news. You are not supposed to read books written by other than his approved list (including fiction books, but most people disregard this openly). You cannot get any Islamic knowledge from other than those he approves of, even other sheykhs in the same tariq, and including parenting information, even though he has no children. Very famously, many of us tossed out or gave away all of our Sheykh Hamza materials when he told us to, and that had led to a well-known rift between the Muslims in some places. People who read news, etc. are seen as not spiritually striving, touched by the dunya, etc. This is true all over the world, depending on the tariqa's standing in that city and how close a murid is to the latifiya group.

As for communicating with former members, this is well known and apparent in what is going on today. People who leave the tariqa are vilified to the point where people have left friends they have had for longer than they were in the tariqa. They also fear that if it is known they remain in touch with someone who has left him, then they will be kicked out.

• Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines: "Information is not freely accessible, information varies at different levels and missions within pyramid, leadership decides who "needs to know" what and when."

Again, this is the hallmark of our tariqa. We are set against other tariqas, other sheykhs and other Muslims, such as the aforementioned incident some years ago when we were told to stop taking any knowledge from Sheykh Hamza (I think that this has been modified somewhat). The exception seems to be taking knowledge about marital conduct from non-Muslims and of course, "useful information" (as Besa calls it) such as business knowledge, professional knowledge and that sort of thing.

• Spying on other members is encouraged including: "Pairing up with "buddy" system to monitor and control, reporting deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leadership, individual behavior monitored by whole group."

Yes, this is well known in Kharabsheh and elsewhere. Very rare is the murid who has not been tattled on or had someone sent round their flat to have tea (the intent being to check up on the inner workings of their home, their possessions, and so forth). It is not so much a "buddy system" as Hassan calls it, but nonetheless, murids are encouraged to tattle on their friends and enemies and many of the murids behave as what are known as "frenemies."

• Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda

They are getting better at this with their recent websites, with the jewel in the crown being the spath website. They have been disseminating their tapes and now CDs to members through semi-exclusive channels for years, although this website now has some materials available to the general public. They also have a private website where they are told to download and listen to all of his audios. People outside of Jordan listen to these things at their weekly or monthly gathering.

• Unethical use of confession, including: "Information about "sins" used to abolish identity boundaries, past "sins" used to manipulate and control (no forgiveness or absolution)."

Not in public. However, sometimes people confess things privately in email or conversation that is then repeated or sent to other people in the neighbourhood, so that then everyone knows about someone's problem or issues. In this way a person is ostracised from their friends and the general company and can be moved "out of the way".

Thought Control

• Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth", such as: "Adopting the group's map of reality as "Reality" (Map = Reality), Black and White thinking, Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them (inside vs. outside)."

Yes. Not only about Islam, but about tasawuf, and then ultimately, our tariqa as the "only true Shadhilis". This is increasing in the past years, especially after Sheykh Shaghouri passed away, rahimullah, and the rift with the rest of the tariqa sheykhs in Damascus.

• Use of "loaded" language (for example, "thought-terminating clichés"). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding, and can even stop thoughts altogether. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words."

Yes, this is well, well known. He takes the words of Islam and tasawuf and uses them to achieve these things.

• Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.

Yes.

• Use of hypnotic techniques to induce altered mental states

Yes, and some may take issue with this because it all falls under the rubric of "Sufi practises and rituals," but it is being done nonetheless, every Wednesday and Friday for starters.

• Manipulation of memories and implantation of false memories

Not that I am aware of as far as implanting false memories. However, I would say there is definitely maniuplation of people as far as what they recall about specific incidents or even things like their own marriages, including their feelings about those things.

• Use of thought-stopping techniques, which shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts

Other than standard Islamic practises meant to keep the whispers of shaytan away, I am not aware of this being used in the tariqa.

• Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate

Absolutely. After the rift with Damascus a few years ago, mention of the Damascene sheykhs prompted sneers or "who is that individual?" questions with arched eyebrows. Brothers who have attempted constructive criticism and critical questioning about business practises and other things in the tariqa have been kicked out. We are taught to think of him as perfect, and he himself says that he does not commit sins. He says that a directive from his wife should be considered as a directive from himself and is therefore to be obeyed by all murids. His wife has spent a lot of time complaining to the murids that they are not obeying her.

• No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful

Absolutely. Of course, some may say that this is true of Islam as a whole, but for us, even other sheykhs in our own tariqa are seen as illegitimate, let alone those who have no tariqa at all.

Emotional Control

• Manipulate and narrow the range of a person's feelings.

This seems to be more with the women than with the men. Definitely the women were strongly pushed and taught to suppress their feelings about issues relating to their marriages, such as if they were unhappy in Jordan, if they felt their husbands were inattentive or were otherwise unhappy or if they were abused. We were taught that these things should not be talked about or discussed with friends, and especially not with relatives such as mothers.

• Make the person feel that any problems are always their fault, never the leader's or the group's.

Yes. Anyone who struggles with their directives, from marriage and divorce through the way they educate their children, and how they eat is made to think that this is their shaytan and their hawa speaking, and not the perfect sheykh. He never, ever makes a mistake and you are never to question what he or his wife tell you to do. Even people who question their parenting directives are made to feel that it is their fault for being evil enough to question, and not legitimate to question that they don’t know anything about raising kids.

• Excessive use of guilt: identity guilt (who you are, not living up to your potential, your family, your past, your affiliations, your thoughts, feelings, actions), social guilt, historical guilt.

Yes of course this is present - that is why you need him!

• Excessive use of fear: fear of thinking independently, fear of the "outside" world, fear of enemies, fear of losing one's "salvation", fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group, fear of disapproval.

Yes, so much so that even some people who have quit the tariqa because of the behaviour of the big four and their friends still think that he holds their keys to Jannat. People outside of the tariqa are misguided and too much time with them could lead you astray. We strive to win the approval of the big four, because they tell us many times that they are our leaders to the akhirah.

• Extremes of emotional highs and lows.

Yes, this happens, but depending on your situation in the tariqa. I don't think it happens very much for the average person.

• Ritual and often public confession of "sins".

No, this is not done in public and was not encouraged at all as it is in other cults. However, people are told they can confess their problems and sins to the big four, and the two women in particular take pleasure in revealing to an individual that they know all about their "secrets" such as having DVDs or whatever - which they are told by those who have engaged in spying and tattling. Sometimes these sins or problems are revealed in a semi-public setting.

• Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group. Including: No happiness or fulfillment "outside"of the group, terrible consequences will take place if you leave: "hell"; "demon possession"; "incurable diseases"; "accidents"; "suicide"; "insanity"; "10,000 reincarnations"; etc. Also, shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family. There is never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group's perspective, people who leave are: "weak;" "undisciplined;" "unspiritual;" "worldly;" "brainwashed by family, counselors;" seduced by money, sex, rock and roll.

Yes of course. Many people who leave are "blackballed", which means you don't talk to them or do business with them. All of the above things are said about us - that we are worldly and unspiritual, misguided in Islam and mentally ill. Sometimes if someone leaves the implication is that the person is straying from Islam as a whole. And some have. Allah has seen fit to reveal the reality to those who are knowledgable and sincere enough to ask him continuously for the truth, even when it hurts. And it is never too late to leave the destruction of this tariqa-cult behind. Even if it costs your marriage or your money, the freedom that you have spiritually and mentally cannot be compared, not to mention the knowledge that you are leaving behind misguidance. Ask Him, always, to lead you straight, and away from misguidance and harm. Accept that He tests you.

Fazia speaks

Word has spread about this project of mine, beyond my network of friends. I want to extend a special welcome to everyone reading from Kharabsheh Jordan.



If you remember, I wrote about a friend of mine named Amy. Even though Amy left Islam after leaving the tariq and divorcing her husband, I am still in touch with her. So she wrote to me after the last post and said that a friend of hers, Fazia, wanted to write her "testimonial" on the blog. She sent it to Amy and Amy sent it to me. She allowed Amy to tell me her real name, and I do remember this person as someone who lived in Kharabsheh. Fazia is not her real name. Anyway, here is her story, and I have to warn you it's a little long. I was going to post it in part 1, part 2, etc but I decided against that. I only edited it for spelling, to make it uniform with my American spellings, and for punctuation and my trademark, "once upon a time." (Because these are our stories.) Just because I am including it here doesn't mean that I agree with everything she says. I am saying that her story should be heard, especially from those of you who least want to hear it - the ones in Kharabsheh. Don't turn away now.



Fazia's Story



Once upon a time --



I came to Jordan to study Arabic, and planned to be there for about 9 months or a few months longer if I could get the money to stay for a year. I lived in a flat with other unmarried women who were in Jordan for Qasid or to study with the shaykh. Like everyone else, I felt it was such a big baraka to be in Jordan and be around these great people of himmah.



The first problems for me began after a few months. I would attend all of the dars of the shaykh in English, as well as the hadras. When I was able to, I would attend the lessons of Um Khayr and Um Sahl, and the hizbul-bahr in the afternoons. I was very much a part of the zawiya life, it was the center of my life, more than Qasid I would say.



In the beginning I didn't have much of a problem wearing the niqab. I had a little bit of a harder time with the color rules, but I got over it soon enough. One murid used to say that the nour on the face of the murids after a hadra or session with the shaykh was so bright that if the women weren't covered, the brothers would find themselves powerfully attracted to us. As strange as that sounds now, it made some sense at that time, because like most murids who were from the UK or America, I didn't question the niqab rule before I got there. To say that we were developing nour and that was the reason why seemed to be in line with what we were to expect from our time in Jordan.



We initially had a flatmate who wasn't a murid, and she had a very hard time with it all. She didn't like Um Sahl and that created friction with some of us because we thought, "What's not to like, then?" Shaykh had said that Um Sahl was the authority of the women and anything she said to you was as a word from him, so for her not to like Um Sahl felt like she was against the shaykh. She also did not wear the niqab unless she was going to the hadra. At that time, it wasn't an iron clad rule for the Qasid students to wear it unless they were murids, but it was "encouraged" for them to do so. Many people hoped / expected that the other Qasid students would naturally become murids. She mostly kept her opinions to herself, and she did attend the hadras in the beginning of her stay. After a short time, the situation between her and the two ladies was too tense and she stopped coming to the hadra. Our flatmates also had some tension with her.



When she decided it was time to go home, I helped her pack. She was under some pressure, and she told me all of her opinions on the tariq. I didn't say much, I just let her vent. I didn't feel the defensiveness and anger that I had felt when she first got into it with Um Sahl.



After she left, things felt peaceful and "back to normal" for us. But then I started to notice things. Like how the niqab wasn't about our "nour" but about us being walking sex objects. The rules, at that time, became much stricter about clothes. Even to have your pants peek from the bottom of your abaya was frowned on. I didn't think a normal man could get turned on by this. I started to feel like I was being controlled and suffocated and that as a woman it was what I should expect and what I deserved in the name of Allah.



This blog has already covered some of the rules about women, and I'm not going to do that.



I realized, I would not wear the niqab on my own. I did not feel that it was a necessary thing. In all of my life, even being in Muslim countries where one can generally wear the niqab without a lot of stares or harassment, I didn't wear it and to that date (or even to today) a man has never lost control of himself sexually at the sight of me. I hated the way that the Jordanians made jokes about us in Khawaja's and Mo'aidh's or in the street. I hated the way that the taxi drivers would say "Oh more Kharabsheh" and curse Kharabsheh people for being cheap and snobby. Even in the malls in West Amman, people would know who we were and make jokes or say things about us, even in English.



I began to see that the people in Jordan did not like us, did not welcome us. I actually did have a conversation with a nice young woman who spoke English in the mall near Qasid and I asked her, "Why does it seem like people in Amman don't like us?" She said, "Well there are many complaints about you. That you are unfair to the taxi drivers and don't tip them. Many Jordanians don't give big tips either, but we usually do give a little something, especially for the taxi driver. They feel like you think you are better than us. Also, some of the women come into the malls or in the stores and expect people to speak English to them, rather than trying to speak Arabic. You come to our country you should learn our language." She seemed embarassed to have to tell me these things but as the conversation continued, she also seemed a little angry. She told us that the locals called us "the Nuh people", "the American sufis" and that they all called Kharabsheh "hay al ajanib," or the foriegner's neighborhood -but in a sarcastic way.



She lived in Sports City and told me that there have been stories between the Arabs about men and women from Kharabsheh meeting outside the neighborhood, kissing in alleyways and things like that. Even if you are married in Jordan, you don't kiss or do these things outside of your home. She told me a story that happened shortly before I came about a woman dressed like a murid who had taken a taxi with a man that might have been her husband. When he dropped her off - only one block from the zawiya - she leaned over and kissed the man and not in a brother-sister sort of way. The man did not get out of the car, and the taxi drove away. There were Jordanian people who saw this and they were very upset and this lady told me that the story was all over Medina Riyadiya as an example of "the Nuh people" coming in and doing whatever they liked in Jordan with no regard to the feelings of the people who live there.



Even though I did not do these things and I never saw anyone do those sort of things, I was very embarassed because many of the murids did not have good feelings towards the Jordanians. They believed that they were bad Muslims, that they were not as good as us in Islam, they were less intelligent, that they were all money hungry and there for our service. But yet we were the guests in their country.



So I started to see the murids from a different view, not as exemplars of the prophetic character, but as stuck up snobs or some of us as stuck up snobs.



Um Khayr stopped giving her lessons, and while I was at first disappointed, after a while I noticed that I felt lighter in my heart when I thought about it. And as I thought on it, I realized that I did not like the things she was teaching about women and men and marriage, but I did not think that I had the right or place to dislike it, spiritually, even in my own head. So I was pushing my own opinions down and silencing them, even though I felt, to my core, that some of what she was teaching was really, really wrong. And I didn't like the way some of the wives there were treated, or how they glorified staying at home and not visiting with friends. These women were almost totally isolated and cut off, even from other super religious women in their own tariqa. So first, non-Muslims weren't okay to have as friends, then non-murids, and soon it was visiting with anyone was as if it was a waste of time and an offense to Allah. A lot of the women, physically, looked very tired.



About that time I made friends with two Qasid students who were not murids. They had just arrived. A lot of people left, and new people came in all the time. Not just Qasid, but murids as well. We went to the Friday market one day, and one of them said something making fun of the tariqa and the other one laughed. I was very hurt and offended, and turned away from them. I didn't talk to them very much for the rest of the outing. I guess they sensed this, because that day or the next day, the one who made the joke came to see me.



She apologized for hurting my feelings, but she said that she felt that there were problems with the tariqa or things she disagreed with and she wasn't going to pretend otherwise just to keep from offending people. Especially because she felt that they had no fear of offending and hurting people who were not murids and saying things about the West. So I asked her, "Well what problems do you think the tariqa has," because at the time I was still thinking she was just not really understanding the depth of the tariqa. That is what they say, when people say things against them or say that they don't like something, the response is "They don't understand how complicated and intricate this is" or some teaching is hidden from them by Allah and so on.



She told me some of the same things that are already on [the] blog, such as the spying and tattle taling. I was skeptical and I told her I would have to think about these things. She also passionately gave me her argument about the way women are treated in Kharabsheh and I did not disagree with her completely. "Well maybe you should talk to this person," and that was a person I knew from the tariqa.



After a few weeks of these things gnawing away at me, I went to see the other person. That person repeated the same things she told me and more, like about people who lost their jobs, that a man was blackballed personally and professionally because his "ego is too big", and about a family that had lost their inheritance. I said, "Why are you still here then if you don't like it?" and the person told me that their own finances were deeply tied to the shaykh and Um Sahl and they were unable to leave yet.



I was just a simple student, I'm not even married. I don't have inheritance sor savings for much of anything, so the financial complaints were very new to me. Actually I was puzzled that they were so involved in the money of their murids, and yes it bothered me. I felt that if they are saying how they are here for our akhira, and spiritual guidance, then why the big interest in everyone's money?



[The blog writer] mentioned a party at which a woman suddenly began to talk about her husband sexually abusing her. I was at that party. Everyone looked away. It was like she was shouting it, it got so quiet in the room, yet she was speaking at a normal tone. I was sitting against a corner diagonal from her. I remember her voice got really quiet when she said, "And everyone thinks I'm so lucky." Then people began to talk about other things like nothing had happened. I think that was the moment when it struck me that this is not something that can be called excellent or with taqwa or tawfeeq. Because even if the shaykh didn't know about it - and according to what's on the writings now, he did - no one in the room felt moved to help her or comfort her. I saw these woman and how many of them looked run down, beaten down, and I didn't want to be like that. I didn't want to be a woman who was following all of Um Khayr's advice and was run down by her tariqa husband to the point where she had nothing to offer a woman who was crying out for help. I saw women who were empty of anything to offer except their khidmat to their husbands and the tariqa. I didn't see Islam in that room that day, no matter what prayers we prayed together or singing the burda.



I underwent a serious spiritual journey at that time. I would say that I was full of turmoil, on top of preparing for my Qasid finals. I had decided to go home 3 months early, as I missed my family and my home. I also felt no desire to be around the tariqa anymore. I was attending the hadras on and off, but it all began to feel like a pointless form of aerobic exercise. Where I had told myself previously that the shaykh's voice was the essence of calm and thoughtfulness, he now sounded clumsy and unsure of himself with his mumbling low tones. I noticed some of the women would fall asleep when he talked, and some even had little poses for their heads and hands to make it look like they were in deep thought. That is how practised they were at this.



After I arrived home, my spiritual journey continued. I did not go to the majlis of the murids at all. I was very busy with my family and other things. I made myself busy. I decided to take a course at sunnipath.com but I had problems with it, in that I no longer felt like I wanted to hear what they had to say. I would think, "And are they teaching us something that makes us more open to handing over our money" and things like that. I didn't tell anyone back home about my experiences and what I had learned.



My distrust of the website led me to wonder how accurate they were in general. It seems like most of the things about women are meant to promote shaykh Nuh's version of women - in the kitchen, silent and unheard, even by themselves. I did question their motivation and no longer looked to the site as a source for my Islamic knowledge, and that finally led me to wonder why I was using Reliance and a few of those other books as my end all definitive guides. My parents are not particularly religious so it was the murids who really introduced me to this way of understanding Islam. I had no tradition of my own to draw from and compare it to in that sense. I could only compare it to the Salafi version of Islam that was popular for some time, and in the end I felt that there wasn't much of a difference, because the way Islam is taught or lived in Jordan is the way that they (shaykh, two ladies) feel it should be lived at all times: women in veils in black, men in charge, obedience to the shaykh or the leader, making many mubah things into haram, staying away from and hating those who don't follow your way, etc.



Anyway, Amy, who I was friends with Kharabsheh, got in touch with me after she left Jordan. I was very, very surprised when she told me that she divorced her husband and wasn't Muslim anymore. We began to talk about what led her to that point. She was - is - the only person I am in regular contact with who left the tariqa, so I poured out to her all of my struggles with it, all of the terrible things I learned, my anger. She had many of the same issues. We did not lead each other, but just provided a listening ear for the other one. Understanding and support. She never pushed me to do anything, but after some more of my own researching and soul searching, I also decided to leave Islam.



So that is the reason that I am writing my story for you, so that people can hear first hand from someone who was brought from certainty in the deen outside of it by the shaykh and his women. I don't have the time to go into everything and it sounds spurious from the outside. "Oh she saw a woman who had a problem and quit Islam" and things like that.



Nuh Keller, his wife, and Um Khayr and their friends at the website had offered me a foundation in Islam that I thought was built on solid ground. Then, with the tariq, they give you a vision of Islam that is intoxicating - all of society's problems could be solved if we just followed the tariqa and the tariqa's interpretations of Shariah. But what did they call to? People investing their money in their pet projects? How is that going to change the world? If we want something better for women, then why are they ignoring abuse in the neighborhood, and pushing teachings on their website that are often unfair to women and very callous? Even before I went to Jordan I felt that way and many of my friends would privately complain about the teachings on their website about women.



You are made to feel that if you disagree with them, then you are no better than a shaytan or a kafir who follows his own desires. Your intelligence - that they say Allah gave you - is useless. You do not know, inherently, what is right or fair. If you disagree, they will ruin you.



I don't blame Nuh Keller for me leaving Islam. In a way I thank him, because to blame him would be to say that I am unhappy with where I am and I'm definitely not. I know you are still Muslim and from what you are saying, most of the former murids you are in touch with are as well. I have no problem or complaint with that. But I thank him and Um Sahl and Um Khayr because their behavior to people, the behavior of the murids, especially the women you wrote about as "the ablahs", all of that tied in as an example and a pointing of the way. At every step I was sincere and fervent in my duas. I wanted him to be revealed to me as a wali, but he most definitely was not. If not for that, I may not have had the strength of mind and will to address things within the religion that struck a deep part of me.



I won't blame you if you don't print these last few paragraphs because I understand it is hard for you, but I hope you do. Unlike you and the other married women, I did not have the same sort of access, and I did not see many of the terrible things in people's lives that you did. So I know that my story as far as expeirences in Kharabsheh is not as bad as some peoples, but it is still one that I think the readers will benefit from, even if -- especially if -- they disagree with my choice to leave Islam.



I want you to know that I feel more at peace with myself and the world around me now than I did in those first few months in Jordan when I thouht everything was wonderful.



Thank you for your time and for letting me share my story.

End of the road

Once upon a time --



I know I said I was posting these in chronological order from my journals and recollections of friends, emails, but they are a little out of order. I decided it can't really go that way. It's whatever seems the most important thing to say at the time. Sometimes I really don't have much of anything to say.



Sometimes people want to talk about the inability of Keller to pronounce Quran correctly, or whatever. I don't know if it's a "woman thing" but I am more on the effect of Keller on people's minds and hearts. I think that those shortcomings or problems of his should be and will be addressed by a man, the guys who were with him more often and saw that up close.



As I read some of the blogs that were written about the Ktown group, about Keller's effects on people, one thing that surfaced several times was this idea that many of the ex-murids are quitting Islam altogether.



I can tell you that this is true, there are people quitting Islam after their time in the cult. I'm not sure it's as many as some people want you to believe it is, but if it's just one person, isn't that enough? Maybe. Or maybe not.



There was someone, we'll call her Amy, who did quit Islam after being around the group, being married to a murid. I have been able to talk to her a few times about her experiences - which were really awful - and how she came to quit Islam. I asked her point blank, "Did you quit because of the tariq?"



She said that the answer is really yes and no. She had some personal things, some questions of her own, that I guess she felt Islam couldn't answer. However, she did say that really, a lot of the blame is to be laid at the feet of guess who? Hedaya. Besa. Nuh. Why?



Because, she said, they taught me a version of Islam that was ultimately the only way that one could not only follow Islam but live in the entire universe. If you fail to live up to it, then you are a failure - bound for the hellfire, a person of bidah, a worldling. She said, in their world, there is ONE way to be a Muslim, and one way only. I will say, that it is true that no matter what you hear outside, inside of the tariqa, it is believed that if you're not in a tariqa, you are in a serious spiritual and perhaps moral / fiqh failure as a Muslim. For as awful as they could be about non-Muslims, they were just about as nasty about Muslims who don't have tariqa.



I said to her, well when you left (your husband and the tariqa), didn't you want to explore Islam without them looking over your shoulders and find a "different" way to be Muslim?



Yes, she tried that, she told me. But in a way, she said that the tariqa "ruined her" for other understandings of Islam. There is such an exacting focus on how do you arrive at this conclusion and a dismissal, a real demolishing of scholars outside of the traditional sufi understanding of Islam - whether it's Nawawi or Ghazali - that the others look like "kindergartners playing" (her words). In other words, she's saying that the legalistic way that the tariqa forces you to understand Islam, the intellectual rigor involved, makes it nearly impossible to consider other understandings as remotely valid.



And yes, she said, the way she was treated by her husband in the name of the tariqa, by the "big ones", the things she saw, "Yes that had a huge negative impact on the way I viewed Muslims and then Islam. But it was not the only thing."



Amy had other issues that have nothing to do with the tariqa, and made the choice to leave Islam. And other murids, quite a few from what I know, have done so as well. BUT....



not all ex-murids quit Islam. I think it is just a little unfair to say "ex-murid of Keller is an ex-Muslim" or "all of them quit Islam." It is bad enough that Keller insinuates that anyone who leaves him as a shaykh is leaving Islam.



Some of the ex-murids continue on with the same sort of legalistic, more intellectually driven understanding of Islam. Some of them have become very liberal Muslims. I have not heard of any becoming Salafis.



So it seems that you either keep on with the same understanding of Islam, but quit him; or you find different understandings of how to be Muslim, which veer towards much more liberal ways ; or you quit Islam altogether. And I think if you talk to people - the ex-murids - you will find that people have many different reasons.



Because the way you understand Allah, the deen, the world is a fluid thing, it's changing over time. You have your culture, environment, work, health, anything that contributes to how you see yourself and the world around you. I wouldn't blame everything on "She left Keller and now she doesn't wear hijab", even though that might be her primary reason.



But having said all of that, I think that we as Muslims need to seriously, seriously look at why people who leave the tariqa are leaving Islam in such noticeable numbers. If it was one, even two people, you m ight say "well it's them," but when it's so many that even people who don't know anything about Keller associate him with apostasy, it's time to raise questions about what is going on in the tairqa and in Kharabsheh - no matter how much you love him or Besa. You MUST ask, it is your duty towards yourself and other Muslims. In fact, I think it is a duty to Allah and his messenger (saws) to ask "What are you doing to people, teaching them, saying to them that has caused this many people to quit the deen after they've been around you?"



Even if you don't like them, you should ask, because as Muslims, they will share some responsibility for driving people away from Allah and his religion! So as their Muslim brothers, we should be concerned for their souls, because we know that we ourselves would not want that burden hanging over our head. Enjoining the good and forbidding the evil in speech and behavior - he says it has rules because he tells us that people form the past have said so. But that attempt to shut down the common man does not mean that he, his wife, UK, the ablahs, and any of the rest of the people in the tariqa are above scrutiny. Not when it comes to people leaving Islam and risking their akhira.

Rule book #3

3. Trust no one. In Ktown, you are taught that you can only trust Allah, the shaykh, Um Sahl, and Um Khayr - until you learn that you can't trust the last three at all. No one among your friends is to be trusted.



This begins early when you arrive. Maybe even before you arrive. It begins with you being told, either by the shaykh & co directly or by murids, that murids are not trustworthy. It's something like, the murids come here because they are spiritually ill and immature, so you can't trust them. That is the excuse that they also give for all of the fitnah that used to come out of Ktown - oh it's the murids, they are't mature, they are spiritually ill.



But then at the same time, you're taught that the companionship of the "daraweesh" is the best company you can have, and that you should spend time with people who are serious about their suluk instead of non-Muslims or Muslims who are "caught up in the dunya." So, you're encouraged to stay away from Qasid students and other American Muslims who live in Jordan, you're encouraged to stay away from Jordanians, and you're encouraged to stay away from the other Americans who live and work in Jordan. Most of the people don't leave the neighborhood. They don't know Arabic, and they don't know anything about Jordan, so they're afraid to leave. So who do you have but the murids?



But why not trust them? They are Muslims, they are murids. Well the reason is that UK, US, and NK encourage you to tattle on other people. Most murids are immature and childish in many ways so if they see someone doing something that is against "As a Rule" or what they think isn't Islamic, they will go running to the z to tell on that person. So something that you might struggle with, is exposed before you want it to be. You know, even though he is your shaykh, I am sure that most people do not tell him everything. He really despises music and television, so I think the murids who are struggling to give that up don't tell him because he will kick them out of the tariqa. Or they fear he will.



But on a more real level, the reason you can't trust a murid in Ktown (or maybe in other towns) is that UK, US, and NK believe in sacred spying for the sake of the tariqa. US and NK believe that people will corrupt their tariqa. They keep a written profile of murids - I think it is all murids in the world, but especially of those who come to Jordan. Everyone must be in line with whatever NK and US are saying in this time, so if you wear clothing that doesn't conform or if you have TV in your house, things like this, they want to know about it. Since they never go out of their houses, they don't see the women in the street. They don't really know a lot of murids or know what is going on, so they rely on murids to be their eyes and ears into the world.



I remember with a few friends they would be amazed when Um Sahl would call them or Um Khayr would call them for a "talk" after the hadra or whatever. And they would say that they knew about something and they should get rid of it or stop doing it - whatever it was.



Just as an example, there was a woman who wasn't a murid who wasn't wearing niqab in the neighborhood. This was when there was no hard and fast rule about non-murids wearing it. In fact, none of the Qasid people who weren't murids wore it. So this woman wasn't a murid so she didn't wear it, but she came to the z. for all the hadras and stuff. So one day US told her, "I heard you aren't wearing niqab" in front of other people. How did she come to find this out, since she never leaves her house? Well, either murids ran and told on the non-murid or she had someone sacred spying on her.



Many of us, who have proven ourselves useful or single minded in the service of the shaykh somehow, have been called upon by the Um's to report on people. They will ask what you know about someone, and say, well, pay them a visit and tell me if you see anything strange. They have justified this saying, "We have the right to protect our neighborhood," because there is an attitude that they are Kharabsheh, they own Kharabsheh, even though most people in Kharabsheh want nothing to do with them. They believe it is their right to say who will live there, and where that person will live. So they want to make sure that people living there are following NK's rules, and if they aren't they will suggest they leave, or tell them to leave, or have the landlord kick them out.



So your friends, are they really your friends? US and UK admit that the "integrity" of their neighborhood - their ability to control the lives of the people who move there - is the motivation for their disobedience of the Quranic verses about spying.



But even if you can overlook that one, which a lot of us can and did for a long time, when UK forwards you an email from a murid, begging for her help, with the person's email address on it, or when NK passes around an email that one of his assistants has printed out with someone's darkest secrets in them, are these people worthy of trust? How about the people who receive them? When people get these emails or get passed a note from NK or they go to US's for tea and she fills their ears with stories about this or that murid who has displeased her, what do you think the murids' reaciton is?



They feel honored. They believe that this means they are now in the inner circle, that Besa and Hedaya now see them as equals of a sort, that they are progressed enough in their suluk to look down on the struggles of others. It makes people feel better about their problems to be able to look down on others' problems. Or perhaps they are afraid - if they raise questions about the propriety of this behavior, will they be next? Many people are afraid that some deep secret about them will be uncovered and they will be asked to leave the neighborhood.



No, but usually it is very pedestrian titillation. People love gossip and that's why you have a lot of gossip shows on TV and gossip magazines. This is no different, except that it has a veneer of piety on it. As if because they say they do it for the sake of the tariqa (not the sake of Allah or Islam, but for Nuh's tariqa) then that makes it okay. They said the murids are sick, and they're right in many cases, but they are sick too. Who else takes such perverse joy in passing around emails where a murid confesses that her marriage isn't consummated or that her husband is hitting her? Certainly not people who are worthy of any level of trust, much less with your heart, your soul, your akhira.



So rule #3. Trust no one, except Allah.

The few and the humiliated

One thing that is being said on some of these blogs and also between Muslims is that the Ktown situation is "blown out of proportion" and that we don't need to do much because "it's only a few people." Also that people who go to Jordan are all rich and elite so who cares. I want to say something about this.



First it is true that at any given time, there are probably only about 200 to 400 foreigners in Kharabsheh with the shaykh. It used to be more and now it is less - a lot of people left him in 2008 and are leaving him now.



It is also true that about 95% of the problems that are being mentioned are specific to being in Kharabsheh. It is two different tariqas - the tariqa of those who live in America or England or wherever, and those who come to Jordan. Murids in Jordan have a different tariqa, with different rules and mentality. Murids who stay home in California have a tariqa that is radically different. However, the same four people are the leadership of both of these tariqas. Nuh is the shaykh in Jordan and he is the shaykh in California. And not all of the craziness is confined to Jordan. Some of the harsher or wierder stuff has been transmitted to all the murids, and is recorded on Mp3 or cd. Also, some of the rules are world-wide rules, not just Ktown rules.



So there is that.



Also, it may only be a grand total of 1500 or less people who have passed through Jordan - and many did so for a short time and never experienced the psychosis of the Shadhilis - but that is still 1500 or however many people who lived, up close, in the heart of a cult. Even if only 800 feel that they have been affected in a detrimental manner, that is 800 people who need help and understanding. And I think the number is much higher, because the crazy marriage and divorce stuff certainly was never limited to Jordan. The divorces have been a problem for NK from the years before anyone even lived in Ktown with him.



If the people who go there are rich or whatever, that shouldn't be a factor in whether or not you seek to protect other Muslims from the harm of the tariq. First of all, for those of you reading, it is not true that "only" rich people went to Jordan. Quite a few of us went on scholarships we received to study Arabic. A lot of people saved up their money from their jobs for a year or two before hand so that they could live six months or a year in Jordan and have suhba with the shaykh. There are some murids who work while they are in Jordan. There are some murids who came when a relative died and they inherited something that gave them the money to go. All in all the people who I knew in Ktown who were from rich backgrounds were definitely outnumbered by people who were regular middle class families, and even from working class backgrounds in some cases.



But I don't know where in Islam it says that you can never have empathy, understsanding for the well to do or where it says that a rich person who is harmed by a religious charlatan is not worthy of your assistance.



The reason Ktown matters is that the people who go to Ktown, who are recruited to be in the tariq, are in many cases, influential people. They run magazines, businesses, they come back to America or Canada in positions of leadership as teachers of the deen, imams, etc. Their Islamic academy and online Islamic knowledge database has reached tens of thousands of Muslims and non-Muslims alike - propogating Keller's very specific (and sometimes mistaken) understandings of Islamic law and belief and telling them that this is the one true understanding of Islam. So it isn't just for that well to do Pakistani kid that you have to feel some concern, it is for every naive Muslim or non-Muslim who logs into their website seeking knowledge of the deen. For every person who picks up "Reliance" or reads his articles looking for insight into Islam.



Nuh Keller is not a true shaykh. Nor is he a mufti or a scholar of Islamic law, even though he, his wife, and his students insinuate otherwise. Nuh, Besa, Hedaya, and others in the tariq have seriously harmed many people - financially, spiritually, emotionally. They have stood by while women were being assaulted in their own homes and blamed the women for the abuse. All of the people who were harmed or are being harmed by them are Muslims. The prophet (saws) said that a true Muslim is someone who other Muslims are safe from the harm of his tongue and hands. This is not true and will probably never be true of Nuh Keller, his wife, and their friend. Even if it was one person whose emails about personal sexual problems or faith struggles was forwarded by them to other people in the tariqa, that would be enough. This is not the hallmark of a shaykh or of scholars of the deen.



That is why this matters, even though yes, in comparison to the general Muslim population, we are small in number. Al Qaeda is also small in number compared to the general Muslims, yet you are quick to assess the harm and damage they have caused, and to repudiate their philosophies and actions. Keller may not be killing people, but he also has caused damage and spiritual death in his murids. That is why it matters.

a little thing

Once upon a time ---



One thing that used to bother me a lot, even when I was deep in the throes of my love sickness, was that NK, UK, and US used to refer to all non-Muslims as "the kufar", and the West as "Darul Harb" or the lands of the kufar, things like that. At every dars, NK would pray and he would three times pray for the victory of the Muslims over the kufar. When they would speak about non-Muslim women, it was always this idea that they were empty headed, empty souled, that they were sex machines, who have no dignity or anything like that. Funny I never heard them speak about non-Muslim men the same way.



I know this is something that a lot of Muslims don't care about. But it bothered me because NK and UK used to be non-Muslims and a lot of the murids did too. That means we all have non-Muslim parents. I mean, I used to wonder, if these are people of haqq, and it's supposed to be about your excellent character (a phrase we heard all the time, especially from UK), then how is this excellent? It was offputting to me.



It was the venom with which they spoke of the West and of non-Muslims. US used to talk about how we would rise up in victory against them. She would make fun of the kufar, and would question the iman of Muslims who lived in the West, even though her own family does live there.



If you have read "Reliance of the Traveller", then you know that there is a chapter on jihad in there and that the book doesn't pull any punches on its treatment of non-Muslims. Now, it is true that this is an old book from "a different time," but it is intended to be a manual for us, today, to live Islam and understand the fiqh of the Shafiis, but also of Islam as a whole. And the book is very clear about fighting and killing non-Muslims, treating them differently when they are ahlul dhimma, and things like that. It's all very much contrary to the image of Islamic brotherhood and tolerance that Muslims talk about on television.



This hatred of the West was an issue because there were a lot of the sisters who didn't want to be in Jordan and wanted to go home. There were a few women who came expecting to stay in Jordan for a few months or even a year, and then once they got there it was like "Oh we're going to live here." They missed their families and life in Jordan isn't easy, even if you are from America and have more money than a Jordanian. So sometimes they would come seeking the counsel of these people, about how sad and miserable they were in Jordan and wanted to go home and it would be "Why do you want to leave the Muslims for the kufar?" I think this is one of multiple ways the women were induced to stay in Jordan rather than coming to an agreement with their husbands that they should leave.



There was a woman who was very ill, and had bad allergies that the Jordanian climate made worse, and even her husband wouldn't leave b/c UK and NK told him not to, and UK and US would say, "Why she wants to be with the kufar I don't know, they have doctors here in Jordan, Muslim doctors, that she can visit. And she should be patient with her sickness. Jordan is a land of baraka because the prophets were here, and she wants to leave that?" Things like that. It didn't matter that the doctors in Jordan are kind of shady or that they couldn't do anything - it was the land of Jordan itself that was making her ill. So when she did finally leave, a lot of the sisters took it as a sign of her (the sick woman) weak iman. "She just didn't try hard enough," is something that I heard many times.



A final part to this. I was with a group of murids, and this was in America. We were doing something for another murid, helping him out in his business, and we had to go out and buy supplies, meet vendors, things like that. Another one of the murids who lived in Jordan and would travel back and forth was with us and everytime we would go somewhere, he would remark on the kufar. He would even do things like take a deep breath and say "Sidi (to the men, not to me), can't you smell the kufr in the air? I can't tolerate it, I need to be back in the land of baraka."



He would also say how they had to be brought to Islam or risk the sword, things like that. I said to him, but didn't people come to Islam through the spread of the sufis and the traders and he goes "A very small portion. The truth is that most of the people who came to Islam did so because of military conquest. Islam was spread by the sword and we shouldn't be ashamed of it." He would even say these types of things when we were shopping for supplies and again later when he was shopping for treats and goodies to take back to Jordan because Jordan didn't have the little extras that he enjoyed in life. Only the West did.



But it did embarass me, and others, because we came to Islam through knowledge and peaceful means, and here he was saying that if people like us didn't come to it, then just kill us. Maybe he is being truthful. I'm not a historian so I really don't know, but it doesn't matter. It's just that this guy, who is a very close murid of the shaykh, exemplifies the mindset of NK and US on the matter of non-Muslims. Hatred of them, hatred of all the things they have, even while taking advantage of their technology and using their passports. None of them, not even NK and US, have given up the passports of their native Western countries, and because the laws of Jordan for hajj are very strict, NK makes hajj using his US passport, since the rules for Americans are more relaxed.



I thought it was plain hypocrisy. Decry the West even though they would seek out Westerners to join the tariq. Hate non-Muslims even though some of the murids came from convert backgrounds, especially some of their favorite ones, and the shaykh himself (or, maybe he has psychological issues about not being born a Muslim). To me, it was like on one level they will talk about love and peace and being an excellent person, but in reality, when you got up close, there was hypocrisy and hatred and a more militant attitude that you would expect from other groups of Muslims but not sufis.



Anyway, it might be something that doesn't bother a lot of people but it bothered me because it seemed two faced, and to me, it kind of hinted at a darker, uglier attitude and belief about Islam and the world that lay under the surface. I knew from a long time ago that people who were "higher up" in the tariqa received teachings and counsel that were supposed to be "secret" or that the rest of us weren't "ready" to know. When I got to see their hatred of others up close, I wondered what some of those teachings were, and honestly - it scared me a little. Again, it might just be me, and I definitely never heard aything that was really far out. But it was one of those things, that over time, peeled away the illusion and showed me the reality.

The bad wife

I think as the dust is settling, we need to return to story time. I want you to know, from the start, that the woman mentioned in this story no longer has any affiliation with the tariqa. When I told her about my blog and what I was doing, she gave me permission to tell this story to you, so that (her words), "Other women in my situation will know that they can do what I did and that they are not alone".



Many of the things I recall here come from my personal journal that I was keeping when I lived in Jordan. I have been writing these out for a while, editing them, and putting them in some sort of chronological order. But I have a life outside of the computer, so it takes me a while.



I am telling this story not to shock or titillate you, but because it was an essential turning point for me and for other individuals, and because in reality, they are not the only family in the tariqa who was in this situation and who received similar counseling. If I did not think that this story wasn't an essential component of my story or if I thought that it would not provide some spiritual comfort to others out there, it wouldn't be here. I'm sure there are many things I know about Ktown that will never, ever be published on a blog. This, sadly, is not one of them.



So, once upon a time ---



I had come back to Ktown from traveling, and I expected to feel refreshed and invigorated, but I did not. I thought my time away from the z and the tariqa would leave me wanting to come to the hadra, the dars, the company of the murids and especially of NK, US, and UK. Instead, I felt more restless, things seemed sharper to me. This was after my alarm clock had been set off. I thought being away would give me a balanced perspective wherein it would be clear that the murids needed reform, but that the structure, the tariqa, and its leaders were sound. Instead, I felt more and more like the veils were being stripped away and reality was presenting its face. This was, I want you to know, not something I wanted to happen.



Like many people I was heavily invested in being a murid, in this man being my spiritual leader and in UK and US being my models for womanhood. I had spent a great deal of time and money coming to Jordan to study Arabic as well as take the companionship of the shaykh and gain tarbiya from him. I was apart from my family for a long time in what I thought was a holy pursuit. So I didn't want all of this to be for naught, for the blackballings and all of that to be the true face. "It must be a misunderstanding," I would think to myself. There was still some doubt there about it. But having taken a break and returned to the real world meant that when I returned to Ktown, I saw its problems more clearly than I could have ever imagined.



I was visited by a sister. I won't say where she was from or how long she was in Ktown, just that she was there. I had known her for a while, from traveling and internet forums and suhbas and things like that, and we had many mutual friends. When we met in Ktown, we immediately clicked. So shortly after I returned to Ktown, and I mean within days, the sister came to see me. Her face was drawn, she had black circles under her eyes. Her hands were fluttery, as if she was nervous. When she removed her outer coverings, her hair was a mess - a sloppy bun where it was normally neatly done. I did what we do in Jordan, which is to say that I prepared tea for her, and set out a plate of dry Turkish cookies.



I sat across from her and we were silent for some moments until she finally burst out. "I think my husband is gay." Immediately, tears began to pour down her face. I handed her a box of Fine and she sobbed for a few moments, and then gathered herself.



"Why do you think that?"



She took a deep, yet shaky breath, and told me. A few months before they came to Jordan, she needed to use his computer to check on a package that she'd been expecting. She found dirty photos he'd downloaded into a folder. Dirty pictures of men. That led her to find out that he'd subscribed to a pornography service using their credit card. And then, in tears, and with great shame, she told me he'd never consummated their marriage.



I am telling you, dear reader, I was in shock. I had seen her husband, of course, with his trim beard and healthy smile. She had always spoken fondly of him, and like most murids, did not make a show of romantic love or anything like that. Most murids who are married are extremely reserved in the way that they speak about their spouses or interact with them in front of others. So this was no signal to me of what she was saying.



I began to ask her the usual questions one would ask in this situation. Yes she had dressed up in all sorts of clothes, makeup, jewelry and elaborate hairstyles. Yes, she had asked him "what he likes." Yes she had made proficient dua to Allah for His help in this matter. And yet none was forthcoming. By her account, her husband was cheerful and fond of her, but in this one important matter, he was a failure. Although they had, in her words, "engaged in some romantic things", the marriage was, after all this time (I won't say how long) still not consummated. Of course, I asked her the questions that would come naturally to any murid.



"Did you talk to Sh Nuh, Um Sahl, or Um Khayr?"



In fact she had, and that is where her story took an even stranger turn. She had approached the women, being too humiliated to go to a man with this. She told them about the dirty pictures, about his inability to do more than some chaste hugging. This was a marriage that had taken place after her husband was a murid. I do not think she was a murid at the time.



"So what did they say?" I asked her.



Well, she said that they told her that his inability to consummate the marriage was clearly due to some failure on her part. While they did acknowledge that the photos indicated that he still had "unnatural desires" that were an "inevitable consequence" of living in the West, this was a desire that could be easily overcome when a man was joined in marriage to a woman who filled all of the Islamic requirements, including, of course, faith, sincerity, and taqwa. If she was a true woman of taqwa, a true woman of the tariqa, her husband would have no problem falling into bed with her.



That he was still downloading gay dirty photos, and refusing to come to her bed was a sign of her failures, not his. She was subjected to a checklist of sorts. Did she wear inviting clothing and makeup every day? Did she nag him? Did she keep the house clean? Did she cook delicious food? Did she do all of her wirds? Did she do all of her salats? And on and on it went.



She left the z apartments that day, she told me, more dejected than ever. No one knew about the state of her marital bed. She was deeply ashamed, and she told me that it felt as though they had dug out some deep and secret shame within her, for as a Muslim, she did believe that if she was just alluring enough, pretty enough, submissive enough, agreeable enough, and pious enough, her husband would be led to turn from his sins and his dunya desires and to lay down beside her in the conjugal bed. Why, she wept, was Allah testing her with this? Why didn't He make her good enough to bring her husband to tawba, repentance?



She plunged into a depression. She stopped doing her hair. She stopped wearing makeup. She began wearing stretchy pants and t-shirts in the home. She slept on the farshas in the living room instead of in the bed with him. (Farshas are mattresses with fancy covers that are on the floor and are the way traditional Jordanians furnished their sitting rooms). She began to see a future without children, without "her needs" being met, and felt hopeless.



And then it got worse, she told me. About a week before she came to see me, she'd been to another murid's home, for a tea party or some such gathering, she was approached by two older, more senior murids, who were known as the ablahs. These were women that most of us avoided by all means. They were harsh, mean women who had no time or patience for spoiled Westerners who hadn't lived in Egypt with the Um's or been murids of Hajji Baba. With stern faces, the murids warned her about "blabbing her intimate secrets around" and told her "there must be a problem with you as a woman." As my friend talked to them, it became clear that one or both of the Um's had told them that the marriage wasn't consummated and that it was due to the shortcomings of my friend as a wife. "AlhamduliLlah, they didn't tell them about the photos, about my husband's real problem," she told me. No, they just apparently told her most private business to women who were their buddies from the olden days, and then bad mouthed her on top of it.



She thought that perhaps, out of their desire to help her, the Um's had told the ablahs, who they must have known would scold her, out of a desire to see her "corrected" and help in her tarbiya. Sometimes as a murid, you are told stories of shaykhs subjecting their students to bizarre, painful and humiliating things as a means of wearing down their egos. So she thought, maybe this was a case like that.



I thought about this for a moment and then asked, "You mean that you think the Um's mistakenly thought that the ablahs would somehow prove a means of your tarbiya because you think that they sincerely believe that what is going on in your home is your fault?"



She thought about this, and her face turned bright red. It was like a light bulb switched on inside of her and was burning hot. "No. I don't think that they think this is my fault, not sincerely. I think they are just blaming me because it is embarrassing for the shaykh to have a murid who is gay. And because they don't want to deal with a man's sexual dysfunction." As she thought on it more and more, the expression on her face changed. She started to get angry. "Do you think it's possible they knew about him before we got married?"



"Allahu'alim," I told her. I didn't want to think on that. I was still thinking about my friend, married to a man who didn't and would never desire her. I pointed out that "even if the shaykh didn't know before you got married, he (the husband) did. He married you knowing he feels desire for men. Maybe he thought that having you there would switch him. He laid the burden of his sexuality on you, without telling you ahead of time what you were in for. So does it matter if the shaykh knew or didn't know?"



She stayed late talking to me that day, and returned the next. She turned over every possibility of the past and future in her mind. We looked at the consequences of every course of action she could take. She was already dealing with the ramifications of one - the ablahs knew about her sexless marriage, and no doubt before long most of the neighborhood's women would as well. And they did. In fact, I even heard about her from another person who didn't know that I already knew the real story. What I was told was that it was another case of a woman who wasn't ready to "stop being selfish" and give herself up on the wedding bed and that "if she didn't watch it" she would be divorced and her prize catch of a husband would move on to someone else. This was a constant theme of Um Khayr in the marriage class -- that most of the married murid women were sexually frigid and unavailable and that they were not pleasing their husbands and thus not pleasing Allah. And that we'd all better watch our steps or our husbands would move on to women who were happy to please, on top of Allah being displeased with us (ie, hell!)



My friend - she had it out with her husband. He admitted that he had a "problem," that he hoped marriage would "cure" him. Why he had not told her upon marrying her - well that was the advice of all the shaykhs whose counsel he had sought. It was a minor flaw that would be easily corrected upon marrige and she needn't ever know about it. That he might have exposed her to sexually transmitted diseases, let alone all of the psychological and spiritual distress she suffered never entered the minds of any of these men.



When it came down to it, they both left Jordan and the tariqa. They later divorced. I hear that he has left Islam and is semi-open about his sexuality. As for my friend, she is radically different as a Muslim now, as are, I am learning, many people who leave Ktown. They (we?) approach Islam very differently, perhaps in a way you would not recognize or understand, but it is a necessary thing after you live with Nuh Keller and his women. There are some murids who leave Islam altogether. I think we have yet to see the long term effect of the cult on people's spirituality, but I wonder how many will be driven away from Islam because of them.



Here was a woman who sought the advice of two women famed for their ability to understand marriage, particularly Um Khayr, and was instead blamed for the very real failures of the husband. Instead of compassion and real support, she was told that she was inadequate as a woman, as a sexual being, and as a Muslim. And then, in direct disobedience to the Quran and Sunnah, the Um's told her story to others.



If you think this story is made up, you clearly have not been to Ktown. What is even worse, I think, than this story being real - with real people who really had to live with this pain - is that they were not the first and probably will not be the last couple who are in the same problem. I know of at least one other murid couple where the husband had issues with same sex attraction, and a handful of other murid couples where the husband had a porno problem in general. I also know of several men and women whose "confidential" emails to NK, UK, and US about sexuality problems in marriage were shared with murids in the neighborhood. I even saw one that was forwarded to a friend of mine - "Please read this and understand the sickness of the West" was the message from UK. The murid's pain was used to slam our home countries. The murid's email and name weren't even blanked out. And those are just the ones that I know about.



I have spoken to other women who quit the tariqa and their marriages because of sexuality issues that the shaykh refuses to address. I haven't spoken to the men because really, after all that, this is not something I want to talk about with them.



In Kellerworld, men are perfect, and normal, with the sexual appetites that exactly match the prophet (pbuh) or that match the ascetics that he so worships - they are beyond needing sex. The women are virginal and pure, except when they aren't -- when they are needed by men for their needs or for baby making or when they are whores who drive men wild. This is why men are allowed to behave as they please, while women are subjected to ever more psychotic restrictions about dress, movement, behavior and speech -- all the while being told that everything about us is sexually alluring to the brother murids.



No man in Kellerworld is gay. No man in Kellerworld is addicted to pornography or into some strange bedroom behavior. No one ever stops to think to himself, "Hold on a second. I do not find that I get sexually out of control when I see a woman in hijab with blue embroidery on it. I find that I am able to keep my pants on when I see a hijabi woman with her face uncovered." Instead, the ones who come to Jordan begin to grow their split personalities - one for Jordan and one for everywhere else, where a woman who would be Mashallah, pious in America becomes a disobedient fitna in Jordan. It becomes a place where a woman in a blue raincoat is a sex symbol.



If everything else about the tariqa was authentic and in line with the sunnah, the monstrous nature of this issue alone would be enough to keep a sensible person away.



So please ponder this sister's story, and the other things I mentioned to you. Please think about what you know of Jordan's rules - everyone knows some of what the women are expected to do and everyone gossips about it, so you must know. My friend has let her story be told because she hopes it will help someone who is in her situation or help someone who needs to to see the truth. The least you can do is reflect upon it.