Lobbying activities, Media campaigns, raising awareness, and striving to make Muslims “active” to defend their interests is all well and good - basically praiseworthy………….

However if you do wish the general Muslims to take your initiatives seriously and see your organization as a serious Islamic group that is consistent in “practicing what it preaches” – then this video has been a bit of a blunder hasn’t it?...........

A discussion by MPACUK on the “Muslim Mind” – were a sister not wearing Hijaab (which is Fard to wear for the women) - talking about – “why are the Muslims pacified today?” and “how did the Muslims get in this situation and how do we come out of that – if we are effectively to change?” – is beyond belief:

Hypocrisy – “a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.”

I do sincerely hope that this is not reflected across the spectrum within your organization – were there are brothers/sisters who are not even fulfilling the Basic Obligations of the Deen (Hijaab, Salah etc) and then start preaching to the general Muslim Masses for this will indeed backfire and cause your sincere efforts to go to waste - please do sort this out.

We should remind ourselves – one of the main causes for the Current situation of the Muslims – is the failure of Muslims to adhere to the basic obligations of the Deen - and I am not talking about the sunnah ibaadah etc or the “non-obligatory actions” – I am taking about the basics - Salah, Hijaab etc – for failure in this has cased this “apathy” in respect to the Deen in the first place and thus this - “Pacification” we see manifest within the Muslims masses.

So Reality you overlooked everyone else who according to you were fulfilling their islamic obligations.

What about the Basic Islamic obligations about defending the oppressed and being a righteous person? You seem to have forgotten those too

I'm not saying whether that sister is right or wrong for wearing a hijab, but she is better than me for actually doing something, or as you put it "basically praiseworthy"

Atleast look at the reality, Reality

It's typical of the current Muslim mindset that we see the negative and not the positive.

This sister you mention maybe not wearing hijab but you fail to praise the one that was. By keeping company of those that do wear hijab maybe the sister will start to wear it too. You fail to see that the sister is volunteering tome for the sake of Islam yet all you can contribute is that she is not yet a perfect Muslim.

Striving for perfection or becoming the best Muslim is a personal Jihad. If you are not quite there yet it does not mean you cannot participate in a political struggle for the wider Islamic cause.

If we all wait till we are 100% before we decide to act FOR ISLAM then hell may freeze over first.

Please read my post carefully - judging from you comment you seem to have misunderstood exactly what I stated.

I did not state at all or even suggested - that one needs to become a "perfect Muslim" or the "best Muslim" or become 100% to engage in Islamic work - rather I pointed out it would be HYPOCRITICAL for a Muslim to engage in Islamic work championing the lofty Islamic cause if he/she fails to apply the BASIC OBLGATORY fundamentals of the Deen themselves (i.e Salah, Hijaab etc)

“O you who believe! Why do you say that which you do not do? Most hateful it is with Allâh that you say that which you do not do.” (As-Saff 61:2-3)

It is absurd for brothers/sisters who fail in this to start preaching about how to revive the Muslims or start "working" for the Deen!? (When they need help themselves on the BASICS) - How on earth will we gain victory from Allah like this?

How are those bros/sisters who find difficulty to implement the basic obligations - which is a severe “manifested” sign of weakness in their imaan - expect any of their “Islamic work and Action" to bare fruit and be granted success and victory from Allah? We should be helping them to implement these BASIC OBLIGATIONS instead of encouraging them to get sidetracked away from their obligations.

What is the whole purpose of “Islamic Work”? – it is to please Allah to Grant us Paradise in the next life – thus it is ibaadah (worship) and in ibaadah - the basic OBLIGATIONS come first.

It is typical of the current Muslim mindset these days to perceive sincere advice - as an attack.

Sorry.

May Allah reward you for your sincere advice.

I completely agree that it would be HYPOCRITICAL of a Muslim to not engage in the BASIC OBLIGATORY fundamentals of the deen but isn’t the sort of work mpacuk is doing one of the BASIC OBLIGATORY fundamentals of the deen that Muslims nowadays have conveniently forgotten just how fundamental.

Hadith: One is not a Muslim until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.

When our brothers and sisters in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries are being oppressed and enduring the worst forms of human rights abuse, when our sisters in this country get verbally abused for being a Muslim, when our brother in this country gets thrown into Guantanomo Bay for a crime he didn’t commit, it becomes a BASIC OBLIGATION on us to help them, to protect them. Yet what are we doing? While our brothers and sisters are being subjugated we are more focused on the basic obligations of wearing a hijab.

Yes if the sister was educating other sisters in how to wear the hijab I would say that she was hypocritical if she didn’t wear one herself. However she seems to be fulfilling some obligations, hopefully she will go on to fulfill others. Our obligations in Islam do not end at wearing a hijab. There are many girls wearing hijabs who do not know how to give basic human rights to their fellow muslims and yet here is a sister who perhaps is doing something for a good cause. Which sister is more favourable in the eyes of Allah?…me and you do not have the right to judge.

I don’t know if you are a sister or a brother but if you were a sister I would say to you that if u wear a hijab and were also involved in helping other Muslims perhaps you could be setting an example for others like this sister and influencing them instead of pointing fingers and nipping any good work in the bud by marginalising them further.

Yes we should be encouraging this sister to fulfill the basic obligation of hijab but we should also be encouraging all those sisters out there who wear the hijab to fulfill the basic obligation towards our brothers and sisters in need.

Good points all - it looks like all of us should be talking face to face about this in the next discussion - what do you say - wanna debate me at the next meeting? Where is it again?

Akh I was not belittling at all the actions to help our oppressed brothers and sisters’…..

I sincerely believe that if one who fails to practice the Deen in the fundamentals who starts to spearhead Islamic activities or gets into the "frontline" may bring more harm than good to the Islamic cause in the end - serious and committed practicing people is who we need to be in the "frontlines" to achieve results.

And I stress here - as we find it disgraceful to see hypocritical Muslims who may have "big beards" etc (amongst the community leaders and others) who don’t move a finger to fight oppression or revive the Deen and we try hold them to account for it - why shy away or have double standards in also holding to account brothers and sisters who are not practicing the Deen in the obligatory basics but wish to "work for the Deen"? -

Let us indeed practice the Hadith - "fully" - you quoted before:

Hadith: One is not a Muslim until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.

I like your beliefs in your posts. From what I can gather u talk of people who are practising AND are activated in working against opression and injustice. I agree those kind of people will be dynamite and thats the kind of people we need and i wish we had. However besides looking for those kinds of people we also need to educate those people who dont have both these qualities but have perhaps one and not the other.

I do not believe in discouraging a non practising Muslim from being active in defending the rights of our brothers and sisters. In fact once they are doing that i hope that they will be guided in other obligations too inshAllah. I dont think this should be made a case of 'sister you dont wear hijab therefore you cannot engage in defending our brothers and sisters.' or 'sister you dont wear hijab therefore u cannot pray.'

Otherwise I agree with a lot of good points you have made, however I wouldnt belittle a whole organisation for having a member who doesnt wear a scarf. If i was to point fingers at mpacuk for this then i would also email MCB who have brothers without beards in their midst.

What i do think is that if u and i both agree that we need muslims doing both- active work and practising- then we should be doing both and perhaps we should be joining mpacuk or another organisation and helping them as maybe mpacuk and others are looking for and NEED exactly the sort of sisters and brothers we are talking about. So if we think there is something missing somewhere (like u think there is in mpacuk), we dont just point out what is missing...we fill what is missing.