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How Should We React to Allegations Against Our Imam?

05 November, 2017
Q Recently, there have been allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of one of my favorite teachers of Islam. How am I supposed to react to this?

Answer

Short Answer: Take the middle path and stay out of it. “Those of us who are close to the situation should obviously… investigate the matter… Others should keep out of it. People sometimes get involved. They don’t know what it is and they go both ways: some go into extremes in defense, some go to extremes in accusation, and both are at fault. So we need to take a middle ground and stay away from what we do not know about.”


Asalaamu Alaikum,

Thank you for contacting About Islam with your question.

Dr. Shabir Ally from Let the Quran Speak addresses this question in the video below.


Transcript:

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Aisha Khaja: So, Dr. Shabir, the question today is… in a lot of communities, as we were saying, we do face allegations of religious authority figures.

How do we deal with that issue if it so happens in the Muslim communities?

Dr. Shabir Ally: Well, yes, we hear about these allegations often about sexual involvement of an inappropriate kind, regarding a priest or something like that.

So how does that affect the Muslim community?

Well Muslims are like anybody else, where we have our good ones and bad ones who are not immune from human failings.

And a Muslim leader might be selected for his knowledge of the faith and its traditions, but that person could be a sinner in secret, and sometimes these secrets become open.

So how does a community respond to that?

Sometimes there is shock and disbelief, and people rush to defend the leader and to deny all of the allegations.

So those of us who are close to the situation should obviously speak to the leader, should investigate the matter, should try to get to the bottom of it and to make peace where peace is to be made, to help the victims if there are any, and to bring that leader to justice, if that’s what the situation calls for.

Others should keep out of it.

People sometimes get involved. They don’t know what it is and they go both ways: some go into extremes in defense, some go to extremes in accusation, and both are at fault.

So we need to take a middle ground and stay away from what we do not know about.

The Quran says, “Don’t speak about things that you don’t know about.”

Just let the people who are closer to that matter deal with it. They will know how best to handle it. And I just go on with what I need to do.


I hope this answered your question, sister.

Salaam


Read more…

Should We Expose Someone’s Sins to Protect Other People?

Suhaib Webb: What Makes a Muslim Leader

Prophet Muhammad: The Humble Leader

Does Islam Have a Structure of Religious Authority?

 

About Dr. Shabir Ally
Dr. Shabir Ally holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, with a specialization in Biblical Literature. He also holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Quranic Exegesis. He is the president of the Islamic Information and Dawah Centre International in Toronto where he functions as Imam. He travels internationally to represent Islam in public lectures and interfaith dialogues. He explains Islam on a weekly television program called "Let the Quran Speak". Past episodes of this show can be seen online at: www.quranspeaks.com.