Division in our Religion (A personal experience)

Division in our Religion (A personal experience)

A`udhu billahi min ash-shaytan ar-rajim. Bismillahar-Rahmanar-Rahim.

Differences don’t have to cause division. As Muslims we have to be very careful. It is very easy to be deceived by shaytan. Especially by our own people. When I first reverted to Islam I was very blind to the different beliefs of people in the same religion. I was very naive to just think that everyone got the same message of Islam as me. Actually there are many different messages being spread.

Scrolling through youtube one day I found a certain scholar who made a video on a very specific topic that I was looking to learn about. After that his face kept popping up everywhere on my youtube searches. Subconsciously his face became imprinted in my brain as a pious scholar, without knowing anything about him.

One day I stumbled across his website when looking for online courses. “Oh i recognise this guy!” I thought. I signed up to his email list. Every day I would get emails from him about different courses. Until one day I signed up for one. I had to.. it was 50% off.

The course was about Tawheed. I actually enjoyed it A LOT. I learn’t so much and would often cry when I heard him talking about the prophets. I just loved to learn about the deen. I signed up for more courses.

Sometimes he would say things that I wasn’t too keen on. But I would just take it thinking, well this must be the way. But then I started paying close attention to what he was saying after a comment that left me feeling very off. “None of you must take any non Muslims as friends. You must ditch them immediately”. I was a little shocked at first. If all Muslims thought this way than how would I ever have found the deen? I was a none Muslim for 23 years of my life.

I asked him “what about my mum? She is not a muslim”. But he wouldn’t answer. As if to imply that I shouldn’t remain with her. I knew this was wrong. I completely dismissed the thought of ditching my mum but deep down there were things niggling in my subconscious. Especially if mum and I ever got into an argument, I would sometimes think of what he said. The thought of not treating someone equally because of their religion really started to get to me. Is this what Islam is?

He started saying other things that were red flags to me. Like telling us the west is bad and that we should all go and live ‘back home’. Meaning Arab countries or Pakistan, Bangladesh ect. Telling the sisters that we shouldn’t watch any non Muslim female personal trainers because we are getting sin by looking at them. Saying that Mufti Menk and Hamza Yusuf are frauds and not correct ect. I was sad because I listened to these scholars a lot that he hated so much. I felt so much light from these very people that he hated.

I even signed up to his match making website! To try and find a potential husband. It was all very stupid of me to be honest. I always knew something didn’t sit right about his teachings but he was talking about the prophet so much that it’s hard not to listen. When someone talks about someone you love so dearly and then acts so pious, you can be blinded by their fabrications. “If you compare your prayers with their prayers, your fasting with their fasting, you will think that your worship falls short. But they will go out of this faith as an arrow darts through a game beasts body” – Said by the Prophet Muhammad PBUH.

Right then I ditched all of it. I stopped attending his classes, came off the website and didn’t go to any of the ‘meet-ups’ he was planning. I was done with this spreading of hate. It just seemed like he had more bad to say of everyone than good. He was guided and everyone was wrong.

THAT is what you need to look out for when taking advice from scholars about the deen. Do they appear open minded? Do they feel like their way is the only way and everyone is wrong… and if you’re wrong that makes you not a Muslim?… This is very dangerous behaviour and the very same behaviour of the ones in our ummah who are mercilessly killing under the name of Allah, the most merciful.

Back to blog

Leave a comment