Are Sunni masjids effective?

Absolutely, this will happen if there is a genuine inclination towards books and learning. The common denominator in people who have set the precedent in the standard of their discourse is that they are well read. In fact, I would say many a time, the josh in the khitaab often masks the speaker's ignorance and is a ploy which is used to run down the clock.

Speaker's aside. Great changes will take place if serious reading cultures emerge in our communities. Thankfully, the masajid/madaris are perfectly placed to cater for this. There should be reading clubs for children and adults, discussions, critical analysis and afterthoughts. I recently came across a nine year old who was able to explain some rather complex English idioms. Having spoken to his father, I was told he is a keen reader and is currently reading the Travels of Ibn Battuta. The difference between an avid reader and somebody totally averse to books is like the day and night.

I think there's a lot of food for thought on this thread, ideas that can be implemented quite easily.

 

If there's a masjid that does not have a weekly dars in the English language, then it's not effective. The vast majority of Barelvi mosques in the UK do not have this hence they are mostly incompetent. Simple.

Can't complain about funding when thousands are spent on jaahil naatkhwaans. Just give that money to an English speaking graduate

 

Molana how can we address this tajweed issue?

everywhere in the world deobandis produce huffaz and qaris by the dozen. in Darul uloom karachi, Raiwind their huffaz are reading different qiraat too. We can’t even learn hafs properly.

 

The non Sunnis masjids I've found to be more welcoming to 'newbies'. Their diversity of ethnic backgrounds from the congregation to Imams and favouring of Arabic/English over Urdu/Other languages also helps them. Desi peoples are generally still impressed by a man in a big beard, thobe wearing man who speaks a little Arabic. It gives the awaam the impression that the man who speaks the language of the Quran must surely be more knowledgeable than the man who can only speak Urdu and some poor English.

Look at the mantra especially in the Wahabi circles. Quran, Sunnah. All of the world's most famous Qura are from them. Who is the most famous Sunni Qari comparable to Sudais, Fatih etc. Old and young. DI have some nice reciter and some other groups.

 

that sums up a stereotypical desi Sunni/Barelwi attitude to knowledge, da3wah and tabligh; and perhaps how to cover up one's own lack of expertise in a discipline

i can show you arrogant muftis who will straight away say it's not wajib for a mufti to give you the source of his ruling - just do it/don't do it because i said so, or if you don't wanna value my opinion, hit the road or find another mufti or maslak or whatever.

in simpler words - you're a poor ignorant fool who wouldn't know what Radd Al-Muhtar said even if it was hung in your neck like a tawiz, so don't talk and cross question me about fiqh books!

shadow committees of youngsters are good ideas, but they should be free of nepotism - having only the kids of the trustees and peers on it is just making a mockery of the dynastic khanqah system and modern management paradigms

https://hbr.org/2019/06/why-you-should-create-a-shadow-board-of-younger-employees

they should also get non-executive board/committee members and also independent auditors of public choice, or at least chosen by a Shura of people from the community who are not related to the imams, peers, committee members etc. -

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/non-executive-director.asp

https://app.croneri.co.uk/strategic-briefings/role-non-executive-director-not-profit-organisations

 

In our masajid there is no good governance.

Neither is there any succession planning on these committees that will ensure effective rotation of members.
The only time rotation takes place is when he passes away.

So how then can youngsters get involved?

 

it wouldn't be an understatement to say that heaps of people from my friends, family friends, acquaintances etc. have became wahabi just by listening to their recitation of the Quran and attending those masajid. it is a perfect combo - no deeni background education in Sunniyat, coupled with not much ilmi activity going on with Sunnis, with ilmi activity going on among wahabis and excellent recitation - the wahabis literally filled all the gaps in their religious and spiritual lives!

the hardheaded ones among us (the over-smart tanatan types) take smart jabs that those who recite the Quran well are engrossed in riya and inferiority complex trying to act wannabe Arabs (once on this forum too there was this talk of wannabe Arab reciters) - the fools don't understand a whole host of issues and deeni requirements before cracking wise like this - these same fools will ironically and gladly sing naats praising the Beloved Prophet who is Qurashiy, Hashimi, Makki, Madani, Arabi - 3alaihis salatu wassalam - so yeah if it has to come down to harboring "inferiority complexes", of course we consider ourselves inferior ummatis of our Prophet and aspire to do our best according to what he taught, despite all our shortcomings

(tafdili sympathizers and closet rawafid are particularly obstinate and adamant on anti-Arabism because of all the brainwashing they've had from the persians - and then they beat their chests on being "Sayyids" - go figure)

----

not related to mosques, but see these guys - https://hmsusa.org/

they're a devbandi halal monitoring and certification body in the US - run totally on community donations

they're dead against machine slaughtered chickens, especially in these times, considering that the chickens are gassed with CO (carbon monoxide) before the machine slaughter itself, and about 7 out of 10 die due to suffocation before even being machine slaughtered (as they say, and as many youtube videos exposing the halal certification industry in USA, Australia, Europe etc. say)

i know for a fact that halal meat and halal meat certification scandals in the west run into millions and billions of dollars and scams, and it's not funny considering how much of western meat is exported to middle east and north Africa at governmental levels, notwithstanding bogus fiqh and fatawa and permissions from government sponsored "ulama". i was shocked to learn some of these "independent" halal certifying bodies gave halal certificates at a per kg or per lbs rate of annual production! just as an example, if you processed 120 metric tons (120,000 kgs) of beef per year, and the cost of certification is 2 p/kg - you can obtain/buy a halal certificate for 0.02*120,000 = GBP 2,400

coming to our topic - these guys have taken the initiative on their own, and have been funded by the community, and have even had threats of lawsuits and physical violence from wahabis and their minions in the machine slaughter business who don't like what they say

my question to us Barelwis in the west - do we have any halal monitoring or certifying bodies of our own? if not, what have we done on this front? not asking for fatawa, but certifying and monitoring bodies that do just this job 24/7

i've met a few brothers who are CA or doctor or lawyer and also trained aalim/muftis after gaining secular expertise - honestly they're much more qualified than many many well known and naami giraami public speakers!

i believe mufti Akmal too is an engineering graduate, although he straight away went to study mufti course and never worked as one- from what i've heard

 

i used to go a couple of kms far from my home for tarawih to pray behind one imam sahib (he too had many minor defects, but his makharij were correct at least) - and as almost none of the other barelwi imams could recite properly. this was 25-30 years ago back in my country. things have only deteriorated.

even in bahar e shariat, sadru'sh shariah laments that he had to pray tarawih at home due to this negligence rife among imams.

may Allah give guidance.

 

if I’m not mistaken Zaytuna does something like this. The only sunni I know who did it was Shaikh Asrar Rashid. Would be great if sunni masaajid promoted something like this. It would be interesting to see how many people attend

 

Dr. haddad is head and shoulders above any of the contemporary academics - as far as I have read them. I think at least some of our grads should spend a year or two with him and learn from his skills - even though he has some problems of his own (mainly due to him being in the unfortunate position of having to defend the indefensible statements of his late shaykh).

Can we create a reading public in the Sunni communities in the UK? I think that is at the root of a lot of our problems. Because of having abandoned books, we have become shallow, short-sighted, emotional, gullible and intolerant.

If we are talking of grass-roots level changes - books cannot be over-emphasized. Every masjid should have a reading club - driven and managed by the youth.

This will not only raise the intellectual level of the average sunni, it will also raise the bar on what sort of speakers get invited to the masjid. Besides it will build camaraderie, mutual understanding and trust among the youth. If it engenders a competitive feeling of "who's the most well read" - so much the better. As an icing on the cake, there can be monthly events where prominent academics, authors can share wisdom remotely or in-person.

This will have to be entirely voluntary - don't wait for the trustees to do anything, assume they don't exist. Change comes slowly, if we start at the right place, we can hope to eventually make a difference.

Allah knows best.

 

good point. In my experience, I’ve mainly seen salafi and tabligh jamaat people do dawah on the streets (wo bhi muft mai)

 

I don't know much about that, but my question is, is it really about funding that keeps the sunnis inactive? Are the wahabis on Speaker's Corner in London paid for their dawah? If yes, then maybe that is what we lack, but I think most of these wahabi types doing dawah online are doing it without being funded. So what's stopping the sunnis? Is it apathy? I'll tell you about one incident. I was 19 years old and had a classmate who I was teaching Islam, and who had expressed some interest in being muslim. So we introduced him to a hafiz sahab who was educated in bareilly sharif and was a kattar sunni. Hafiz sahab later warned me about such people, for these unbelievers can not be trusted he said. So I cited the example of Hadrat Khwaja at whose hands 9 million people accepted Islam. He smiled and reminded me: Tum to Khwaja nahi ho.

Perhaps there is ikhtilaf on this, but neither receiving interest from non muslim banks nor paying interest to such banks is considered riba. Mufti Nizamuddin allows interest based business loans from non muslim banks if there is zanne ghalib of profit for the muslim taking that loan. So maybe the same ruling applies for multiple mortgage loans given by non muslim banks in UK if there's zanne ghalib of profit for the muslim taking the loan?

 

Yeah gyarwi, monthly mawlid /zikr gatherings are a simple waste of money in the 21st century.

The very same sunnis who are against decorations of sunni masajid are left in awe when a deobandi puts up lights in their ijtemas. They also decorate their musjids.
In fact their musjid look much more beautiful than our sunni masajid.

In their ijtemas (3 day) they provide free transport, accommodation and meals for people outside cities.

However I guess when sunnis try to accommodate for their population it becomes a waste money.

Everybody just has their own stories to narrate. I dont think we can ever come to a conclusion on this discussion.

Maybe in the UK. Speak for your country only.
In my region it's well known that wealthy Saudis fund many organizations here.

 

Let alone read with proper tajweed.

One individual has recently expressed to me his discomfort at the thought of attending a barelvi masjid for taraweeh prayers due to concerns over the lack of proper tajweed. This raises questions as to why there is a disparity in quranic studies between barelvis and deobandis and salafis who seem to produce huffaz and qaris by the hundreds.