Your comment: “This does happen in the UK but because there are a lot more Muslims there I don’t think it is as obvious but if you go to places like Brixton Masjid it’s pretty obvious that the same thing is going on. There are lots of young Afro-Carribean converts who have dropped out.”

Well, considering that I am actually on the committee of the masjid I particularly find your simplistic analysis quite false. If you actually come to Brixton Masjid, which I doubt you do judging by your dubious statements, it is not “pretty obvious that the same thing is going on” (!!?) thee is a huge percentage of college and university students which seem to have escaped your somewhat odd assessment. Furthermore, not all of the converts are “Afro-Caribbean” as many are also converts from African backgrounds such as Nigerians, Ghanaians, Ugandans, Rwandas, not to mention Irish, Scottish, Albanaians and then the Moroccans, Somaalees and Algerians.

Therefore, for you Sayf to say “many of them have dropped out” then I would like to know how he has reached this conclusion?! As if Sayf has some kind of unique insight into the realities of Brixton, which he rarely frequents. Therefore, before opening your mouth, or banging on the keyboard, think carefully about what you write. If Sayf would care to get a better insight into Brixton Masjid then he can visit us on Friday at jumu’ah, also see here: http://www.youtube.com/results.....rch=Search

Sorry for the miss types… but what do you want from a guy who wears a thoub in the year 2006?

Bismillah
As Salaamu alaikum wa Rahmantullah

Ya Ahki have you ever stopped to think that what ever problems that are in the Ummah come from Allaah? Maybe the worshippers can’t all just get along because the worshippers and their Lord can’t seem to get along or agree, the Quraan page after page is full of tawheed and admonishing the kuffar for inventing legislations and doctrines and not heeding the judgment of the Messenger that was sent to them, I could be wrong ..but… these seem to be big issues to Allaah …so..Shouldn’t they be big issues in the eyes of His Slaves?

But if you bring these issues up.. you know the issue Allaah and His Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam seem to keep bring up over and over again in the Quraan wa Hadeeth OH MY GOD your some kind of Wahhabi nut job extremist who wants to make riffs in the Ummah!!!! You must not be “intelligent” because you don’t turn the book of Allaah into a book Arab mythology that has to be thought of as symbols and allegories that are open to various interpretations. Because “progressive” and smart Muslims all know that only dumb dumbs actually believe Jin are anything but bad thoughts or that Allaah has a literal throne and footstool above the heaves.

It seems we want to talk about the symptoms but not the deseases of the heart namely doubts and desires. I guess for some people talking about the “some” of the symptoms (the one that effect others and not the one that effect themselves) and having a good laugh at those who suffer from them is away to look down one nose at them, to say without really saying “hey I am from the sophisticated Muslims, I go to such and such four letter named organizations conventions, I am nothing like these poor Muslim saps stuck in the 6th centraury ha ha ha.

All due respect to my Brothers and sisters but your definition of As Salafiyyah is wrong. Salafi doesn’t mean a group of converts from America and the UK who act in a way that you do not like, As Salafiyyah is nothing more then Ahlus Sunnah wa Jamaa’ah the correct methodology for understanding and practicing this Deen called Al Islaam.

The Salaf where the first three generations of Muslim starting with the Messenger salla allahu alayhi wa sallam and his Sahaba. Following them in Aqeedah and Manhaj is wajib on every Muslim, if you are not following them then you are following the Khalaf the later generations. To call oneself Salafi is not wajib or is it blameworthy, the name itself is not as important as actualizing the meaning to follow the Salaf which again is wajib.

What is more blameworthy then calling oneself Salafi is to be a innovator or to commit some form of shirk knowingly or unknowing. To deny or negate or change the apparent meaning of Allaah’s names and attributes, to call on dead saints or perform acts of worship at there graves like tawaf, making dua through a intercessor, blind following or a particular madhab at the expense of clear proof, abandoning the quraan and sunnah for opinions which are baseless etc etc this the real fitnah this is the real test on the Ummah.

But among some Muslims who have made hijrah from the Sunnah and judge based on their own whims and desires and think themselves to good to submit to the judgement of Allaah and his Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallaam they rejoices at any discord among the Ahlus Sunnah wa Jamaa’ah, and they have no issues with the W. Deening Bilalians , Sufi’s, Jameel Al Ameens, Ikwaani’s, Qutbi’s ect ect.

Because they all have their innovations and misguided methodology’s in common so the people of the Sunnah become the strangers among the Muslims, the outsiders just for waning to uphold the Deen and stick to the Sunnah. The 72 sects out number the saved sect, and if you follow the majority of the people on the earth they will only lead you astray.

So the Ikwaani’s have no problem standing next to W. Deen on the same platform even if W. Deen makes statements of MAJOR KUFR, because their both united in opposing the methodology of Ahlus Sunnah, so of course there is no beef between any of these various methods of understanding the Deen they all have different methods but one goal, so they set aside each others differences to obtain that one goal.

So they will never criticize each other, no matter what… innovation that’s Ok, shirk major or minor that’s Ok, lets make nice with the Shia, and why not let the NOI come on in as well ..we family… we are all Muslim right?

That gave me a semblance of normality, thankfully, and I am indebted to my geekiness and love of books for helping me completely avoid becoming more extreme and rejectionist, as many converts do initially.

This is one of the issues that I feel really needs to be addressed within the Muslim community, because as a convert, I have met many others who felt that they had to do the above. Interestingly, there are some who relished in it, and relished in becoming as non-Western as a white guy can get… others, I feel very sad about what happened to them. It goes from as you described above, to even those who had to drop their surname and take the Turkish/Arab whatever last name of their wife in order to be eligible to marry her, etc. The ignorance and vindictiveness of some aspects in the Muslim community is astounding.

But things are not all bad… there are a few Shuyukh around here who are beginning to see the problems, and also think up solutions. It seems to have taken a long time, but I think the distance created between the 2nd/3rd generation young people and the 1st generation (those who migrated) has helped highlighted this. Converts, I feel, are still very neglected as far as actual community life goes. Once learning how to pray and such (if lucky) we are thrown out and left to fend for ourselves.

What worries me more nowadays though, is how the events in the world are beginning to polarize not just Australia in general in their view of Muslims, but also the Muslim community about their own self-identity, especially teenage/young men.

Further to Tariq’s nice summary of the fitnah, there was also a major ideological schism that occured within the ‘Salafi movement’. I’m not going to bore everyone with a history of the split or the nature of the ideas, but Sheikh Ali al-Timimi’s Advice to the Salafis in the UK gives a good overview of what was taking place ideologically. In essence, the people who hijacked the term ‘Salafi’ and were holding inquisitions in the UK and US were not following the Salaf at all, but had merely warmed up a number of ancient heresies and given them the name ‘Salafiyyah’.

It seems that you dodged not a bullet, but a missile and explosion

It is a long story, but I will try to give the abridged version.

In the 1990s, this movement spread across America amongst converts very fast. It was “the thing to do”.

At the height of salafiyyah in America, lectures were being distributed all across the country, many converts were adhering to the salafi movement and thousands would attend their conferences. It was definitely a force to be reckoned with. You spoke of da’wah, they had to be talked about. One could travel to small obscure places and find converts that were either leaned or were salafi. There were even t-shirts sold that would say things like “I am a Salafi”, “No bid’ah”, “The Sunnah the better” and other salafi slogans. Also coffee mugs, book bags and other items (Only in America huh?)

There was always a split in the ranks even then over whether or not it was an obligation to call oneself a ’salafi’ though in the beginning it was not as severe as it ended up.

The ones that said ‘no’ tended to be much more broad and open minded to working with other groups of Muslims, less rigid in their fiqh (i.e., would sometimes trim their beards and/or wear a suit and tie) and very rarely even used the word ’salafi’ in their speeches.

Those that said ‘yes, you MUST call yourself salafi’, were much more demanding, VERY rigid in their fiqh, and tended to be less educated in both religion and secular-wise. This is the crowd that would evolve and be known as ‘neo-salafis’. It was also this crowd that were selling the “I’m a salafi” t-shirts

Then what some termed the “salafi inquisition” started. Scathing 30 page attacks from the “you MUST say you’re salafi” crowd were launched and posted on the interent on Lecturers from the “no you don’t have to say you’re salafi” crowd one by one.

The attackers were really good at using the internet, e-lists and websites and looked very imposing on the net. The lecturers they were attacking had almost no internet presence, and further decided that these guys were so ignorant that they would not dignify a response.

However as more converts embraced Islam via information from the internet, it was the “neo-salafis” that gained the attention. They littered their lectures with the word ’salafi’ constantly talked of the evil of other Muslims and warned of ‘tamyee’ (watering down of the religion by not calling yourself salafi). Even if they were talking about mundane things, the word ’salafi’ had to be thrown in there somewhere.

They also grew very adept at saying one must connect himself with the ‘ulamaa’ which meant to them certain personalities from Saudi Arabia that they raised beyond their status, touted to naive converts in the West as the most knowledgeable men on the planet and given big titles like ‘Al Alaamah’ etc.

The “real” scholars were only these individuals. And the naive converts, not knowing any better, bought it.

The pain caused by all of this was massive. Brothers who had dedicated their lives to this movement were seeing their new lives go up in flames. Almost every lecturer was attacked in one way or another and the once well attended conferences died out, friendships split, masjids split and marriages even broke up over this. Some even left Islam! It was nasty. At least from the neo-salafi side.

Many of the ‘common’ Muslims (read those that have nothing to do with any of this) watched from afar and it looked absurd, because it was. The salafis even started to become the butt of jokes.

With that, many of those that were from the ‘no you don’t have to’ crowd started avoiding that label like the plague. All of their old organizations folded because of unrelated political pressure that came after 9/11. So many of those who would normally have been from the ‘no you don’t have to’ group, went into organizations such as Almaghrib here in the West and avoid that poisonous label.

So the ‘neo-salafis’ in affect were the salafis. They finally had control of “the da’wah”. They had won.

Problem, besides their extremely narrow approach, was that they had run away the more educated individuals during their ‘inquisition’ and were not very adept at organizing good conferences, running masjids or other organizations. This hurt them, and their growth, already stunted, began to decline. Many from their ranks began to suffer from what is now known as “salafi burnout”.

That movement today is still around in the shadows, but has almost no relevance to da’wah in the US. They are seen as lame, feckless, and hopelessly divided, with no ideas, no vision, and no message and only interested in more division.