The daughter of an imam writes in the comments:
We want people to go learn and become scholars but then we get no benefit from it as people have families to support. If they are working 5-6 days a week where is the time left for teaching or studying? Many graduates for that reason have ended up just working normal jobs because their knowledge is not valued and the community is not going to support them. So whilst we lament the lack of knowledge in our community we also are generally not prepared to use money to support those with knowledge.
I believe Muslims are very cheap when it comes to knowledge. People will complain about paying $100 for a course but will not blink an eye buying a $5000 plasma TV.
Being the daughter of an Imam I really saw how undervalued people of knowledge are. Don’t you think it is sad that when you have an Imam for one of the richest communities in the Muslims that his family used to get a lot of things from the salvation army and church groups? That he never bought new clothes or shoes for himself for over 10 years and used to get them second hand? My mum used to say to my dad to go become a taxi driver because at least it paid to support his family.
This is an excellent point and one of the more pressing issues that our community needs to tackle. If we accept that religious knowledge is important — and some of us would argue it is the highest form of human knowledge — then how do we ensure the best people acquire this knowledge and then ensure that they can benefit the community with it.
The two problems are linked and come down to the issue of funding: how do we ensure our religious leaders are paid enough money such that we, firstly, make religious knowledge attractive to the best and brightest of the community; and, secondly, ensure that those who acquire this knowledge can lead a dignified life providing for their family in a similar manner as they might have been able to had they pursued a field other than the Islamic sciences.
Of those people who return from overseas institutions such as the Islamic University of Medina, they fall into one of the following categories: they go on the dole; they take up alternative employment such as taxi driving; they undertake further vocational study; or they become an imam of a mosque (assuming they can find a position which is actually very difficult).
If they return to study or take up other employment, it is possible that the community will not get the full benefit of their knowledge and, for the individual, he will become distracted from pursuing research and further study in the Islamic sciences. They will, however, be able to provide for themselves and their families: which for most people is their most pressing need.
If they go on the dole, then they will have free time to run classes, answer questions and benefit the community. They will probably be provided with cheap housing by the state and a variety of other benefits. There are, however, a variety of reasons why we don’t to see our religious leaders lining up each fortnight to hand in their social security forms.
If they become an imam of a mosque, they will be paid either by the mosque (which is itself funded largely through donations) and/or they will receive a small stipend from an overseas organisation. In Australia, the two largest funding sources for imams are al-Rabita al-Alam al-Islami (Muslim World League) or, in the case of the Turkish imams, the Turkish government. The amounts they are paid, as the comment above illustrates, are often fairly meagre.
Of all the options, the best, most dignified and most appropriate is to pay imams, religious leaders and scholars a wage which is commensurate to their importance in our respective communities. Of course, this assumes that religious knowledge is valued enough in our communities for this to even be a viable idea at all; and that is itself not necessarily a given.
However, what models or approaches are available to better fund our scholars, imams and religious leaders?
Here are some hastily brainstormed initial ideas (some of which will be entirely questionable or distasteful). In no particular order:
- We could treat our imams and religious leaders like other specialists and professionals and pay a consulting fee when we avail ourselves of their services. We think nothing of paying a lawyer for legal advice, so we might pay a scholar for religious advice. For example, paying for classes or even, to use an extreme example, paying for personal consultations;
- We, as a community, could establish foundations seeded with donations that then invest the money with the income being used to fund religious leaders;
- Our mosques and other religious organisations that employ scholars and imams might look to establish future revenue streams beyond simple donations when they are first established. For example, when building a mosque, one could also build shops and offices on the site that could then be leased out to fund the maintenance of the mosque itself and the employment of the imams;
- We stop seeing religious scholarship as a full-time job and accept that all imams and religious leaders will seek employment the same as everyone else;
- We only encourage people to seek religious knowledge, which usually means time abroad, after they have acquired an appropriate vocational qualification;
- We privatise our mosques and other organisastions such that people must pay a membership to use them. A mosque thus becomes like any other service provider or facility in which the people using it must directly contribute to its upkeep and operation. This is, of course, a rather extreme measure. Alternatively, mosques could sell memberships which carry particular entitlements beyond that available to normal visitors. A member might be entitled to the front row during Ramadan (for example);
- We could actively and more aggressively promote philanthropy within the Muslim community. For example, many private schools have full-time fundraising managers whose job it is to ‘target’ companies and individuals for donations, sponsorship and the like. At one end of the spectrum, this may mean money bequeathed in people’s wills to the mosque and, at the other end, it could mean corporate sponsorship of particular mosques or events;
- Mosques and other organisations could provide Islamic finance. There have been recent changes to the regulation of non-bank financial institutions in this country that make it easier (and cheaper) for Islamic organisations to provide financial services to their members (as many Christian denominations currently do).
Any ideas?
18 comments ↓
I actually think number four is a workable solution, assuming the shuyukh are prepared to have that second qualification/work skill. I also don’t reject number one, but I can’t see it working, as through ages past, religious leaders/clerics, etc, in all religions tend not to be paid, although there are exceptions (like priests taking money to provide God’s forgiveness).
[...] One reason the Austrolabe blog is worth reading is because it provides an insight into what the most articulate and thoughtful Australian Muslim intellectuals are thinking. Obviously stung by the recent crash and burn of the hapless Sheikh Hilali, the Sir Les Patterson of the Australian Muslim community, regular Austrolabe blogger Amir starts a discussion on how the Muslim community should fund its imams to avoid getting turkeys into the job in future. [...]
Point No.3 would be the one I would support the most, and also believe Muslim Organizations need to start getting involved in. Not to say it becomes an Investment Holdings Company, but to invest in halal trade to further benefit the Dawah, because clearly we cannot continue to hope the donations just keep rolling in.
I’d leave a long comment about this (because my dad’s the director of an Islamic society and thus I can relate very closely to this post), but I have no time… later, insha’Allah!
[...] Amir discusses “Paying our Imams“… sort of relevant to the discussions about our responsibilities to the Masjid. [...]
I would say any of the options from 2, 3 and 4 sound good – perhaps a combination?
this is a very important issue… the real question in my is not why dont we pay the imams enough, but why dont we develop meaningful forms of residual revenue to pay the imams when we see that our existing approach isnt working.
we find many large, expensive masjids across America… and too often there is a fetish to build larger (and emptier) masjids with more expensive upkeep. these resources would be better utilized if we pooled together money and began investing them in meaningful investments to generate continuous funding, rather than treating masjids (or imams’ salaries or other important matters that need funding) as huge money pits that need to be continuously filled.
We could for example bring together money to invest in real estate. That real estate could be developed, rented out, etc. to generate funds. An individual may not be able to make such an investment, but if we can build million dollar masjids, I think the community can be convinced to raise funds for such a project to be established as a waqf.
This is an important mechanism given to us by the Shari’ah and its high time that we start utilizing it. This is something that the Companions used to do, although in their time, they would mostly set aside agricultural properties as waqf. That may not be feasible for us today but other forms of waqf can and should be developed.
Excellent points, Abu Bakr. Jazak Allah khair.
The waqf idea is good. Maybe, instead of agriculture, people could allocate shares in their businesses to these purposes. For example, a person establishing a new shop might keep 90% of the shares for himself but allocate 10% non-voting shares to some sort of charitable organisation. Each year, dividends would be distributed with a portion going to the charity.
Alhumd’illah a good article. I had 2 comments:
1. Option 6, as you said is a bit extreme and probably against the Sunnah. Paying for services is fine. But paying to get the front row of the Masjid, is way off track. People who could not afford the membership couldn’t earn the Ajar. Unfortunatley, that is our capitalistic nature talking.
2. One major overlooked issue is the cause of the problem. Masajid, Islamic Institutions, positions of Imams were never meant to be administered/financed by individuals/communities. These were always entities that were meant to be responsibilities of the Islamic State. When these entities become responsibilities of individuals, personal agendas and other dysfuntional behavior arises. Unfortuntately, we abandoned the Islamic Sate and are paying for it in all aspects of our lives.
Just my 2 cents.
It is true that much of this was administered by the state in the past… but do not underestimate the importance of Awqaf… almost EVERY major companion who had significant land holdings set some of them aside to be used as awqaf… many brothers have a generous spirit of giving to this very day, but our efforts can be better channeled by the establishment of awqaf.
I seriously believe that our community leaders, religious and financial, need to sit down and start developing ideas and projects for the development of suitable awqaf that will help give financial stability to our islamic institutions and to fund islamic activity.
There is also the issue of trust. I know plenty of wealthy Muslims but nobody wants to give money to a mosque or organisation if it’s going to be run by the sort of people who often run our community organisations; organisations that have, in some cases, a history of less than transparent dealings, nepotism, corruption, incompetence and generalised uselessness. Part of attracting funds and donations into community projects is making sure those projects are run and managed by people who can be trusted by the donors. Sadly, this is more difficult than it seems.
Assalamu ‘alaykum,
This is *such* a vital topic. One of the problems even in the Muslim world, since the introduction of Western education has been an attitude among some that the best and brightest kids are sent to study medicine, engineering, law etc. whilst the dunce of the family goes off to become the imam, because the former are valued whilst the latter simply isn’t. Now, I am certainly not having a go at all our imams, many of whom are wonderfully intelligent, spiritual and altruistically-motivated people (and I have met some who like this masha’Allah), I’m just complaining about the attitude of not valuing religious vocations.
Another problem for the Muslim community is that we are ’startups’ in the Western world. Whilst older religious communities–particularly Christian–have the benefit of established resources, buildings and institutions behind them, we are in comparison, a new religious community. We have to do it all from scratch.
But, we can learn from the older religious communities here. I think having things like bookshops, nursing homes, halal-butchers & supermarkets, coffee-shops as part of a masjid complex would be fabulous and be a source of rental income to help pay decent wages for Imams.
And long-term trusts that we could setup to educate and attract the best and most knowledgeable imams would be such a dream!
We also need to reform mosque admin. boards if you ask me. Way too much in-fighting, status & ego squabbles, ethnic divisions etc. that take away the energies from serving Allah, subhana wa t’ala.
(My comments are made with the reservation that I am not an Imam, nor am I related to an Imam, so I am a relatively clueless layperson).
One thing that I liked when visiting London for the first time in 2 years earlier, was that their mosque complex at Regents Park has a small area which has a few shops, a cafe and restaurant. I thought that it was a great idea because in the surrounding area there are no halal places and so on, so for some visitors to the mosque it could have been vital.
Something like this seems like a great idea in order to get revenue, if you ask me.
Although I wrote this in the context of how we pay our imams and religious leaders, the same issues relate to our we fund the upkeep of our masajid. One doesn’t need to look far to see that many of our mosques are in a state of disrepair, filthy or have disgracefully inadequate facilities for women. Some of this, such as the women’s prayer area issue, might be ideological and some of it, such as the filth, might be cultural but having spoken to a number of committee members for some of these mosques, part of the problem is money. According to them, they often don’t have enough money to pay cleaning staff, fix toilets, or provide women with an appropriate place to pray.
Again, as Umm Yasmin mentions, there are a lot of problems with some of the mosque boards and the intra/inter-ethnic squabbling and bickering. There are also the usual allegations of corruption, mishandling of funds and so on that seems to characterise many community projects, so it is not surprising that the more affluent members of our community may be reluctant to hand over the necessary wads of cash to these people.
Part of the problem is therefore how do we make sure the people running our mosques and community organisations are decent, trustworthy and well-adjusted people who are there because they want to help the community and not because of some pecuniary benefit such as bolstering their status within their particular racial/ethnic group or the like. Difficult question but hopefully one that will solve itself once the Australian Muslim community develops.
One exception (and there are several) to the above are the Turkish mosques. I don’t know how they fund their upkeep (I know Diyanet looks after their imams) but, almost without exception, the Turkish mosques are well looked after and clean.
I think the mismanagement and organization problems will not be solved until we start paying people to run the Masajid. In the U.S. it is the norm that the largest donor usually gets ‘elected’ to the board. Even though they may have no organizational skills, nor any interest in running the Masjid, but it sort of satisfies their a) ego/status, b) they feel like they are doing something for their Religion. Problem is that there is no accountability. Nobody wants to get the ‘big’ donor upset and if he/runs the Masjid into the ground, there is no accountability (except with Allah, but I don’t think they realize this). In order to get well run Masajid you need to pay. The phrase ‘You Get What You Pay For’ holds true.
A few comments on some of the options:
#2 – Singapore uses a variation on this theme wherein MUIS, which is part of the Singapore government, provides for the salaries of the imams (my understanding is that the imams are government employees). Maintenance of the masajid, I believe, are funded in part by MUIS and by individual contributions. MUIS also helps to fund the construction of the masajid. Every month, I have several dollars deducted from my paycheck, which is forwarded to MUIS for the masajid construction fund. Waqf is also used here, but I believe that is primarily used to fund the various madrassahs.
#3 – The masjid in Tempe, Arizona (which is where I first made shahadah) has a similar development. When that masjid was constructed back in the early 80s, a primary school building and a restaurant/grocery store was also built at the same time on the property.
#5 – This suggestion was made here in S’pore several years ago by then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.
Great points, Masha’Allah.
I would just like to expand on point 3 and Abu Bakr’s point about real estate. This is already underway in a mosque/centre in West London, whereby adjacent land was bought by them to build flats and offices for rent. That way, the mosque/centre has a steady monthly income.
Aside from that, many of the rooms/halls are often used for lectures, workshops and business meetings (even weddings) from Muslims around London.
This mosque/centre has a library, canteen, counselling services and provides Islamic, Arabic, English and computer courses. They also have a range of cultural, social and educational projects like exhibitions, homework clubs etc. Alhamidulillah.
I think its very important for a mosque to also be a centre. Aside from the revenue aspect, as a mosque alone, non-Muslims can find it intimidating but as a centre aswell, it will/has encouraged more involvement and better community relations, from what I can see.
What a productive thread this is, masha’Allah. What about if the new Council of Imams had a trust fund established as part of their mandate that Muslims nationally could contribute to. And part of that waqf would allow various mosques to apply for funds for upkeep and for paying imams. They would have to demonstrate regularly that the money actually is going to where it is supposed to be going, but we have a new Council, fresh without any allegations of impropriety and it would be such a good start.
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