Preamble
As promised here last Friday, today’s article is supposed to be the second part of a letter addressed to Nigerian Imams in this column last week. But by professional norm in journalism it is absurd to serialize articles except by exigency. That is a major difference between a columnist who is a professional journalist and one who is not. It is hoped that the letter published in this column last friday was read and well comprehended by the Imams to whom it was addressed.
In that letter, a brief history of Islam in Nigeria was recalled to illustrate the point made in respect of some inadequacies of Qur’anic schools in Nigeria. That part had to be summarized because some of the addressed Imams, being men of knowledge are capable of understanding it, even beyond its contents both esoterically and exoterically. The supposed second part of the letter, as earlier indicated, is about our Mosques and the major problems arising from them for the Ummah.
There can be no talking of the Mosque without fundamental reference to Imams and the congregations they lead. Actually, nothing is called the Mosque without the Ummah and their Imams.
Imams and leadership training
When Prophet Muhammad (SAW) described learned scholars as the heirs to the Prophets he was referring to the Imams. This is because no genuine Muslim is supposed to be an Imam without first being a learned scholar. there is a sharp difference between a scholar and a learned scholar. The one can be self-arrogated, the other is intellectually evident.
Becoming an Imam, if due process is followed, is like becoming a judge after a period of certified experience acquired subsequent to graduating from the Law School. It is not enough to graduate from a Qur’anic school and teach the junior ones for a few years to be qualified as Imam. Lawyers go to Law School after graduating from the Universities. Doctors go for Houseman-ship after their admission into the Profession just as other professionals go for practical industrial training in their respective fields of discipline.
Apart from graduating from Qur’anic or Arabic and Islamic schools, where do our Imams train as Imams? The answer to this question is that a glaring vacuum still exists for Nigerian Muslim Ummah to fill.
One of the first problems arising from appointing Imams in Nigeria is lack of leadership training. Here in Nigeria, People are mostly made Imam only on the basis of the little they might have learnt from the Qur’an and Hadith or on the basis of heritage (i.e succeeding a father or a grandfather who had been made an imam before). The aspect of dealing with the complexity of human nature, which is the real quality that is supposed to make a person an Imam, is always over-sighted. And even after coming into office as Imam, no special training is ever organized to enable the leader know the enormity of his duty and map out the strategy with which to handle it. No written document is handed over to the new Imam to show where the last Imam stopped and where the new one should take off from. In other words, no records of activities or of achievements are available in our Mosques except by oral transmission and no blue print is prepared by a newly appointed imam. How can there be progress?
Imamate office
Whereas an Imamate office is such that requires periodic relevant courses, workshops, seminars, conferences and trainings, none of these is ever arranged to update our Imams and improve their quality. Thus, our Imams remain static in the belief that they have attained the peak of Islamic knowledge having become Imams. The danger here is that such Imams will not only refuse to see intellectual progress in any other person, they will also resort to envy and oppression since they are not aspiring to attain higher pedestal in knowledge. And in the melee, they will solicit the support of some money bags but ignorant members of their congregations who have been given titles to wrestle down their perceived rivals. This kind of situation has dismantled many large congregations with resultant effect of proliferation of Mosques even where unnecessary. Some Mosques have even come under lock and key for a long period as it has happened in many parts of south west Nigeria in recent times, thereby leaving the congregation stranded
The Prophet’s recommendation
Whereas the Prophet’s recommendation for Imamate is that one should only become an Imam when legitimately chosen and appointed, the situation in Nigeria today is the direct opposite of that recommendation. In the cause of appointing an Imam, Muslim groups gang up against Muslim groups just as families pick quarrels and hostilities against families. Yet, the claim is that they want to serve Allah.
If those fighting to become Imams knew the implication of serving in that office and reporting back to Allah, they would never have even presented themselves for the post. An Imam is the spiritual guarantor of his congregation. He takes responsibility for any spiritual misdemeanor committed by any member of that congregation before Allah.
But like any other thing Nigerian, Imamate has been grossly monetized and thus the process of putting people in that office has been seriously corrupted. That is why most of our Imams are half-baked intellectually and even bankrupt morally.
Office of Muadhdhin
Ironically, what the Prophet recommended for competition is the office of the Muadhdhin. That office was the very first ministry established by the Prophet shortly after he was appointed a Messenger of Allah. It is the Ministry of Information. The importance attached to that Ministry and the rewards accruing to the Minister in charge were such that even the Prophet sometimes wanted to play the role of a Muadhdhin. The first Minister in that office (Bilal), a liberated black slave from Abyssinia who embraced Islam had to be personally trained by the Prophet even as he was handed over to Zayd bn Thabit for thorough literacy. The purpose was to ensure that he did not misrepresent Islam or the Mosque or the Prophet in any way. That shows how important information is in Islam. But here in Nigeria, especially in the South West, no office is worse relegated than that of the Muadhdhin. It is an office which anybody at all can be asked to occupy. And in no other aspect of the Mosque is ignorance more exhibited than that of the Muadhdhin. Some Muadhdhins can hardly recite correctly the traditional call to prayer which is their very first duty. Yet, the Imams do not care to train or correct them since that office, to them, is immaterial.
Prophet Muhammad (SAW), who initiated the Ministry of Information and advised Muslims to vie for its occupation did not do so in vain. Without dissemination of adequate information, Islam would not have spread beyond Makkah. And today, the world has come to realize the effect of information dissemination in propagating an ideology or even selling a product. The Jews and the Americans can testify to this fact. Yet, that very aspect of Islam is the main victim of relegation in our Mosques. The connotation here is that you can only advertise a product you posses effectively if it has a sellable quality. Most of our Imams do not value publicity because they lack the quality with which to promote the product in their possession.
Functions of the Mosque
When the Prophet established the Mosque, he did not design it for Salat alone. He knew that Muslims would seek knowledge and therefore attached school and library to it. He knew that by the nature of Islam, Muslims would always need to clean up before offering Salat. He therefore attached toilets, baths and ablution place to the Mosque. He knew that members of his congregation would disagree and seek resolution or redress. He therefore attached court to the Mosque. He knew that some Muslims would fall sick and require medical care. He therefore attached clinic to the Mosque. He knew that there would be need to plan strategy for propagating Islam and for protecting Muslims against internal or external aggression. He therefore attached a deliberation forum to the Mosque in the name of parliament. He knew that his congregation would need a secure place to keep their money and other valuables and therefore attached a treasury (now called bank) to the Mosque. Thus, the Mosque is the center of all Islamic activities including buying and selling.
Today, all these have virtually been severed from our Mosques and that is why Nigerian Muslims are contented with just a small space to build a small Mosque where they can just offer Salat and disperse. Even in doing this no thought is ever given to any possible future increase in the population of the congregation. The result is that most of our Mosques have no space for anything other than Salat.
Imams as leaders
Imams are supposed to be leaders by the grace of Allah, not just because they lead their congregations in Salat but much more because they guide the Ummah aright and admonish them against wrongdoings. They are typically what Prophet Muhammad (SAW) called shepherds. And their congregations are their herd. But there are questions to ask here: when last did our Imams take the census of their congregations to know the gender delineation of their followers? How many people in their congregation are adult and how many are youths? How many members of their congregations are employed? How many are not employable but encouraged with training and counseling? Why are the employable ones among them not employed? How many professionals are in their congregations? Of what use are they to the Mosques? How many in their congregations are married? How many are qualified for marriage but not married? Why? How many are widows and widowers? How many are orphans or aged? How many of them are sick and hospitalized? How many have withdrawn their wards from schools either for loss of jobs or for lack of financial ability to keep them in schools? How many are indebted? How many are imprisoned and for what reasons? What role do the Mosques play in the lives of all these members of their congregations?
Except for the rich ones among them on whom they confer titles, how many have they periodically visited at home as a matter of courtesy or as a way of encouraging them to keep coming to the Mosque? How many have they counseled socially, politically, economically or matrimonially if only to help them morally or psychologically in solving their problems or in furthering their progress? If these imams drop dead today (and death can come any time) how many members of their congregations will sincerely miss the Imamate in them?. Perhaps another fundamental question may be necessary here. Do their Mosques have bank accounts?
Mosque buildings
Our Imams should know that the buildings which we call Mosques are not meant for Salat alone. Those buildings are like beehives of activities for Muslims to solve their spiritual and mundane problems through interactions with their fellow brothers and sisters as well as through the guidance of their Imams. Besides following them in observing Salat and listening to their sermons every Friday, Our imams should know that Muslims who are regular in their Mosques have a right to some material benefits if only in kind?
Material benefits
The real essence of the third pillar of Islam (Zakah) is to enable some under-privileged members of the congregation to benefit materially from the Mosque. If Zakah is not organized by the Mosques in terms of collection, distribution and administration, how will Imams be able to fulfill these obligations? Most members of the congregations are indifferent to the payment of Zakah for two reasons: (1) they do not trust the managerial abilities of their Imams to handle huge amount of money or other treasures coming through them because they have seen eagerness for wealth acquisition and avarice in most of those Imams. In other words, they believe that most of those Imams struggled to become Imams for self-enrichment. And that alone has eroded the dignity of that supposedly venerable office. (2) Most of Those Imams cannot emphasize the payment of Zakah to their congregations because they are not knowledgeable enough about zakah and minimum taxable amount of wealth (Nisab) from which Zakah is supposed to be paid. The disagreement among those imams on this has created doubt and dilemma in most of them.
Mosque without Zakah
If the above points had been made very clear to Nigerian Muslim congregations, the amount of money accruable to our Mosques from Zakah would have helped tremendously in solving most of the pecuniary problems that are throwing most poor Muslims into the field of begging. This is a further evidence that population is the main wealth of Nigerian muslims today the utilization of which is not explored for the benefit of the poor and the indigents. However, rather than studying the rules of Zakah and explaining them to their congregations, most Imams prefer to run after rich Muslims in pursuit of Zakah for themselves. They have forgotten that whatever amount they collect as Zakah is not fully meant for them but for the poor members of their congregations and projects needed by the mosque as they (Imams) too must pay Zakah as a compulsory fulfillment of an Islamic obligation.
The topic here today is not about Zakah. But touching it briefly as just done is to show how the Mosque can effectively maintain social welfare for the Ummah. And that can restore the confidence of the congregations in their Imams. The issue of Zakah will be fully addressed in this column in the near future In sha’a Llah.
That our Mosques have not lived up to expectation is not the end of story. Righting the wrong is one of the foremost characteristics of Islam. It is better to be late in doing the right thing than not doing the right thing at all. We can still start to put things right as from today.
Our Imams can start by taking the census of their congregations with a view to knowing their followers more closely. They can start by setting up committees for social welfare; for education; for health; for conflict resolution; for Zakah; for guidance and counseling; for economic growth and skill building; as well as for information and publicity. Each of these committees should have experts in the listed areas as their chairmen. And then, a central body headed by the Imam or a competent person should be put in place to oversee those committees and direct them as to what to do and how to do it. As a matter of trust and sincere commitment to the service of Allah, no Mosque should operate without a bank account which in Islamic parlance is called treasury ( Baytul Mal) which should serve as the power house of the Mosque.
Conclusion
As a Muslim community, we have lived with a system for hundreds of years without achieving the necessary objective. In the process, we have lost most of our best hands and even our best heads to the other side of the bridge. We cannot afford to surge ahead with an unprofitable attitude. We must change the system! The Muslim Ummah must be made to see why they need the Mosque as much as the Mosque needs them. Experimenting with a new system will not only put a stop to basking in the euphoria of the past, it will also engender a durable legacy for the current generation of Nigerian Muslims. Our attitudes as true Muslims must conform with the divine rules and regulations of Islam.
