[Effofqueeno]

Giving the criticisms some thought throws up more questions, if Deoband have failed because they have not brought many black or white converts to the deen in Britain and South Africa, how many white or black Muslims have they attracted to Islam? In comparison to the time they have been making dawa the whole of Norwich or Cape Town should be Muslim.

I however have found the Deobandie disregard for the political and economic side of life frustrating, as a Jamaah we should be doing more to bring Islamic trade and commerce to fruition.

[w4WBthjv]

Thank you brother maripat for your blog post, it is concise and brilliant. i also want to ask, how should ones attitude be towards this person ? some of his statement may appear provacative so should we respond in what manner? or should we even respond at all . ? Also being an arab scholar or a sayyiddi, does that make one better than non arab/sayyiddi scholars?

[iouiyyut]

Agree with the article to some extent.

It's not about reaching out to white/black people, but the sheer lack of concern for them.
Granted, that deobandis can not do everything; but it should not justify why there isn't even more emphasis given on reaching out to non-muslims.

There is continuous emphasis on rectifying oneself and the Muslim community, that is why people feel bad when they fall short of this responsiblity; but there is little to no emphasis on conveying the message to the non-muslim, so people do not even feel bad that they are not doing anything about it. The 'fikr' just doesn't grow in that respect.

Wallaahu A'lam.

[mobiphones]

Why is Deoband and Deobandism being looked at as some sort of failure? The Salafi da'wah has been more successful than Sufis so are we now to say that the Salafis are right?

And as brother Dawud Israel has noticed, look at who the mureed of this shaykh is. The shaykh seems to have an axe to grind!

As for the criticism itself, everyone agrees that da'wah to the non-Muslims is essential but is that at the expense of our own imaan and deen? We have to start with ourselves, then our families, and so on. How does he propose Muslims give da'wah? If he thinks that tasawwuf has been responsible for getting many converts, can he tell us why the Sufi-haters are at the forefront of da'wah around the Western world?

[12ZHeWZa]

Lets try and see why there is a dawah weakness amongst Deobandis.

3 things come to my mind (and these apply generally to all Muslims):

-Inflexibility. Having cookie-cutter identical looking Deobandi Muslims means there is only one door to enter Islam through. It probably is not a realistic expectation to think all converts will become Hanafis. Putting all the eggs in one basket means one loses out on the breathing space that difference of fiqh opinions allows. If you have Hanafis trying to teach Shafi'is their own madhhab, then its going to get suffocating...but tolerating ikhtilaaf would make Deobandis more rugged, versatile and accommodating. There are many doors to Islam, so lets open a few more.

-Lack of yaqeen. You won't be able to convince someone of Islam unless you have conviction and until you have that conviction you will not want to share Islam with others. This is usually the first problem would-be daiees encounter. When there is no yaqeen, you start to force people into looking, dressing and acting religious rather than nurturing their eman, which is really what its all about.

-Spiritual methodology. In the time of the Salaf and the early Muslims, the spiritual methodology was zuhd, in the time of Jalaluddin Rumi it was mahabba, and awliya say the spiritual path is through shukr in our time. Having a focus on a spiritual theme would resonate with Hindus, and personally I think Hindus would be impressed by humility (tawadu) while the South African blacks would be impressed by generosity.

India is the only Muslim land where idols are still worshipped openly and idolatry continues to thrive even though the ulema and awliya have opposed shirk there for centuries. I think dawah in India and abroad will only become harder with time as fitan increase and as Muslims grow hard-hearted and become accustomed to shirk and heedlessness.

Those are just some ideas...I still don't know what to make of the shaykhs criticism.

[DzjwMKo5]

Ofcourse present day Dawah can be much better. But when a non-muslim offers me a drink and i refuse, I often hear, 'I know a lot of Muslims who drink alcohol'.

So along with Dawah, we need to rectify the actions of our Ummah too. Both inward and ourward cleaning is to be done.

[mpxricyNimb]

P.s. I do not know why the Shaykh zeroed out Deobandis and Barelvis of UK and SA to criticize.
Ofcourse all around the world we Muslims are not upto the mark in Dawah or Tabligh. Its not something thats specific to a group of Muslims alone.
But we cannot undermine the efforts of many Dawah groups around the world, who goes against the tide, and spends their lives feesabeelillah.

[wrardymar]

MashaAllah!

This should be an eye opener.

It is never to late to do our islah.

InshaAllah something good will come out of all this discussion.

[Binuilienzync]

Thank you brother maripat for your blog post, it is concise and brilliant. i also want to ask, how should ones attitude be towards this person ? some of his statement may appear provacative so should we respond in what manner? or should we even respond at all . ? Also being an arab scholar or a sayyiddi, does that make one better than non arab/sayyiddi scholars?

As pointed out by brother UserInvalid we lay people can leave the matter to scholars like Allamah Khalid Mahmood (db) and Mufti Ebrahim Desai (db). Since Shaikh Laraki is a scholar our words are not effective except for the sentimental value.

The 'Arab angle is interesting one. Because of recent past history of 'Arabs, say, hundred years or so, it is imperative that they wake up from their slumber and continue the task for which Allah (SWT) had honoured them with. And the task is Dawah of Islam. When you take a break from your duty (and perhaps indulge in indecencies like nationalism) and then you wake up. And further you realize that some else did not go to sleep and has been on guard duty, like the people of a village called Deoband, then it for sure is an inconvenient situation. Salafism is a poor substitute for the duty that was ignored for hundreds of years.

Assertion on part of Shaikh Laraki is slightly better than Salafist response. May he continue his work and may Allah (SWT) provide barakah in that. On our part may be we can assert that we have sacrificed a country called Afghanistan and nearly sacrificed another one called Pakistan. In the sacrifice of Iraq the Islamic angle was not that strong.

I have to again gyrate towards TJ. Christianity has that macabre history of crusades and if Bush blurted the word crusade then let us give full credit that he did not know the meaning. Still this leaves us with one irrefutable evidence that this word was taken by him from the existing vocabulary. Crusading mentality is still there in the Christian world even if it has got buried at the sub-conscious level. The burial is no consolation because their actions remain motivated and intentional - psychology tells us that much. This is what was manifesting itself before and around 1857 when Mughal Empire was liquidated finally. Let us get it clear - Mughal Empire was Muslim, not Islamic. But British were too aware that the source strength is Islam itself and they had all the intention to destroy the seed. There is a branch of academics called Orientalism. This was all about giving Islam that drubbing, after the physical subjugation of half a dozen Muslim empires, that will reduce it to non-entity. Remember Jamia Al-Azhar has long back become just another university - trying to be like Ox-bridge the concept was ironically inspired by Al-Azhar.

I'll summarize British had physically subjugated Muslims of India (Ind-Pak-BD) and intellectually had taken very robust steps to decimate Islam. They also had taken the steps, under the infamous divide and rule paradigm, to pity the numerical majority of Hindus against the erstwhile ruling Muslim community. The situation for Muslims a hundred and fifty years back was rather dire. We can imagine the situation of Muslims of Syria today or those of Bosnia a decade or so ago but we do take the situation of Muslims 150 years ago fro granted. This is the situation in which that then tiny village exerted itself - first physically and then by Madarsa education for which it is known.

Shaikh Laraki could have said, "Dear scholars of Deoband kindly pay some attention to the serious problem of salvation non-Muslims of SA and UK". That would have been much better. He is not only our brother in Islam but a scholar also so I'll not suggest even in my dreams that he had name and fame in his mind while posting that assertion on FB but I do feel that he could have adopted a better approach as, for example, above.

[ultimda horaf]

Shaikh (whoever he is) is right about what he said except the barelwi part. I want to tell the shaikh that Pakistan is similar. Whole villages are turning into Qadyanis because we deobandis dont have time to leave our big madressahs in KARACHI to go and give dawah to poor village people.

If they had any real tasawwuf other that a formal affiliation to such and such tariqa, they would have expanded the Deen among the Zulu, Sotho, Tswana and other African nations. We want RICH WHITE people in deen not BLACK esp when they are poor.

And as I said, Barelwis are not better than them in this aspect. But I have to recognise they are more open and welcoming to new ideas than the deobandis.
When I say new ideas, I say it in the sense of revival of the Deen not in the sense of blameworthy innovation. Deobandis still can't accept Ta'addud Azwaaj as part of our deen ISLAM even though its not a new idea.

[hotsaucemidl]

When people take criticism as an insult then they have surely ruined and decayed.

The Sahabah were the most Broad minded and Brave Hearted of this Ummah and they considered the critic as their best friend and the praiser as their worst enemy. The Akabir shared this beautiful trait with the Sahabah.

Even if the criticism is unfair and undue, if it is worth responding then please go ahead else ignore it

[fereupfer]

Shaikh (whoever he is) is right about what he said except the barelwi part. I want to tell the shaikh that Pakistan is similar. Whole villages are turning into Qadyanis because we deobandis dont have time to leave our big madressahs in KARACHI to go and give dawah to poor village people.



We want RICH WHITE people in deen not BLACK esp when they are poor.
.

Hazrat are you sure you agree with shaykh Laraki?

This is one of his comments in facebook:

That is a wrong move. There will be nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, that will move more the heart of a young Indian and Pakistani youngster than seeing a white young man making shahada and ambracing the Deen. That will be enough to take them out of the clubs. They will see that if they do not take on the Deen of their fathers and grandfathers, their great Mogul tradition, civilization and history, Allah will give it to other people who love Him and whom He loves. And Allah knows best.


The shaykh says youngsters partying in nightclubs will care about white people doing shahada. He also mentions something that means like: we should do more dawah(outwards) than tabligh(inwards)

[MasdMnPa]

some of the Shaykhs comments are fair,others are not. Yes, we are failing our youth's but the amount of work our Deobandi scholars have done to establish masajids, madrassas etc is amazing. I hate to think what would have happened if they took the route of other immigrant Muslim communities who have settled here.

The shaykh should look around and see how the other Muslim communities are faring and he will realise the value of Deobandis in the UK.

Like I said, some comments are fair and we should look at them as a form of islah and how we can better ourselves.

[TimoPizaz]

some of the Shaykhs comments are fair,others are not. Yes, we are failing our youth's but the amount of work our Deobandi scholars have done to establish masajids, madrassas etc is amazing. I hate to think what would have happened if they took the route of other immigrant Muslim communities who have settled here.

The shaykh should look around and see how the other Muslim communities are faring and he will realise the value of Deobandis in the UK.

Like I said, some comments are fair and we should look at them as a form of islah and how we can better ourselves.

agree
alhamdulillah much has been done
much more needs to be done

we are all responsible

[Frinzer]

Shaikh (whoever he is) is right about what he said except the barelwi part. I want to tell the shaikh that Pakistan is similar. Whole villages are turning into Qadyanis because we deobandis dont have time to leave our big madressahs in KARACHI to go and give dawah to poor village people.

Do you have the names of these villages or is this just hearsay? I am sure the Khatme Nubuwwat movement in Pakistan will surely visit these villages if they are neglecting them.

[Roferurse]

Do you have the names of these villages or is this just hearsay? I am sure the Khatme Nubuwwat movement in Pakistan will surely visit these villages if they are neglecting them.

people are not turning into qadiyanis due to lack of dawah...for the most part its to get asylum in western countries for fear of being killed in pakistan

[Avaboormavoro]

people are not turning into qadiyanis due to lack of dawah...for the most part its to get asylum in western countries for fear of being killed in pakistan

you don't say!

where did you hear that? im just curious

[sciectotacype17]

you don't say!

where did you hear that? im just curious

can't remember now...i think it was in a bayan maybe..but i have heard about it from other people too

[SeftyJokipl]

Ive done many journies throughtout the UK in my TJ travels. Let me tell you, where ever Deobandis are, alhamdulilah the deen has been protected somewhat via masajids,madrassas,maktabs etc. Where ever Deobandis are not situated, the condition of the muslims in general is quite bad,in terms of people attending the masjid,some sort of education system for the kids etc.

[Yinekol]

criticisms of not reaching out to the indigenous population of the UK are fair but to be honest, when our forefathers came to these shores,with a complete culture shock, the effort was rightly made to establish systems here so that their own kids would not be sucked into the vortex which is western hedonism. To a certain extent its been successful and may Allah reward all those people who helped establish the foundations in this county so people like me today,can practise openly.

the view of the Shaykh that when the nightclubbing youths see the 'white'people accepting Islam etc will make them closer to Islam is nonsense. The fact that our youth have been let down is a seperate issue to that of not making effort within the indigenous population.