With the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Especially Merciful

It is with great joy that finally, after much discussion and meetings, we have been able to release this confirmation of our unity – for indeed these are simply public words which affirm what most of us have been upon for longer than we realised – in this blessed time of unity, the merciful month of Ramadhan.

I wish to explain a few things about this pledge so that the Believers may be confident in the natural happiness they are feeling at this moment; also we must ensure that there are no misunderstandings, confusion or anything worse.

Firstly – the reality behind such a pledge. For those of us who lead congregations and communities, teach brothers and sisters and those who actively give da’wah in general, this document brings nothing new to the table. When one lives such a life in the real world outside of ones laptop, ghetto, ethnic mosque or Muslim country, the differences in madhab, manhaj and ‘aqidah here in the West play only a small part in our roles and responsibilities in helping the people and providing them daily guidance with the help of Allah jalla wa ‘ala.

For example, although last week was the first in Ramadhan, it was no different to any other week for me with respect to requests for help: one Muslim brother, Ash’ari, with no other family who has been kicked out of his home, needs a Muslim household to stay with until the council can help him; three Maturidi Muslim couples want to have their nikah done, as per the Hanafi school; two sets of Barelwi Muslim boyfriends-girlfriends feel guilty about their relationships and want to get married behind their parents’ backs; one Salafi brother doesn’t believe in the hadith found in Imam al-Bukhari’s collection anymore because some of them “…don’t make sense and go against scientific fact…”; one Salafi brother has stopped smoking cannabis for Ramadhan but is finding the ”…Jinn speaking to him now unbearable…”; a group of new Muslims want an audio recorded version of Prophetic invocations they can learn in their first Ramadhan; a group of Ikhwani-Salafi Muslims need a few hundred thousand pounds to save their da’wah centre from takeover; one new Muslim has problems with the Sahih of Imam Muslim; one non-Muslim wants help with a court case and needs a community leader to give evidence; one Deobandi wants to know whether to go to Madina first or Makkah first whilst he performs ‘Umrah next week; my father wants my zakat to be given to the Tablighi madressa in his village where the children are all orphans and the teachers haven’t been paid for months; one brother wants a fatwa for either a Mut’ah or a Misyar marriage whilst he is away from his wife for one year; one new-Muslim footballer wants to know whether he can break his fast on Matchday; one person who has already been told it’s ok to eat ice-cream from Walls despite their small alcohol content wants a further opinion confirming this; one organiser wants a speech to be given to a youth gathering on the increasing prevalence of hard-drug taking; the Christian inter-faith representative wants a talk on what Ramadhan can bring to Christians; one Maliki-Salafi wants the evidence about why we should do a prostration for forgetfulness in the nawafil prayers and one Sufi Ash’ari next to me in the prayer line wanted to know what to do now that he had missed his ‘Isha prayer but was now on the 14th rak’ah of Tarawih prayers; add to that all the thousands of people who don’t feel the urge to pray or fast even in Ramadhan and then another hundred odd minor miscellaneous fiqh queries from a whole range of different Muslims in my locality, by email and by phone and you’ve got a pretty good idea what one faces everyday in this line of work.

The point? Take away all the stereotypically descriptive names and you’ll realise that they don’t have a single iota of influence in ones resultative solutions; that’s not just me of course, rather that is the case with all of the practising Muslims here in the West who live in the real world and who end up spending their daily lives dealing with the problems of their very diverse Muslim communities.

I lost interest in peoples’ groups, madhabs, names and identities over ten years ago when I decided to settle down in my community to try and get people to focus on their primary objective: to get closer to Allah ‘azza wa jall.

For the mass majority of Muslims in the West, after removing the doubts that have been instilled in them by Islam’s enemies, after learning how to pray properly and after learning to love Allah and His Messenger just that little bit more, the most important things to them are how to get married, how to stop looking at that gorgeous girl from work, how to deal with family disputes and issues, whether Shahid Afridi will open for Pakistan or not and whether Carlos Tevez is best played up front with Rooney or just off him. Sorry to disappoint everyone but scholastic theology, group-think and other delights from the books are not on the agenda for those on the ground; it might be the case for those involved in study and teaching, but then nothing will be changing for such individuals whilst they continue their further studies, and neither should it be. This is not a call for a moratorium on our intellectual legacy and that what we believe to be the Truth, rather it is a reassesing of our priorities, something which seems to occur automatically once the theory clashes with reality in the real world. 

Thus, this pledge is nothing new for many of its signatories but rather it was something that we felt was needed now to ensure that the Muslim don’t become weaker in these difficult times, to act as an advice to those who still live their Islam in a ivory tower of ideals, to act as a reminder to all of us in case even we forget the importance of unity, and to ensure that we all continue to give the very best of our efforts to our communities and our Prophet (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa-sallam) and our Lord ‘azza wa jall without being distracted by the whims, desires, impatience, immaturity and fitnah of those who may want otherwise.

Unity is a strange thing. When it’s there, you don’t really realise it because things are as they should be – normal. But when you lose it, the precious time of the Muslim is wasted trying to compensate for the instability caused by its loss, even moreso when you are like  the signatories who have much more important things to do. Really.

The challenge is to be positive and give the hopes outlined in the pledge a chance to work. Let everyone not worry about who is there and who isn’t, what has happened before and what hasn’t, how difficult things will be and won’t – as long as everyone concentrates on their ownselves and has patience with those that don’t share the same enthusiasm, then let Allah be your witness and busy yourself benefitting this beautiful Ummah with ‘ilm and hilm.

Secondly, I wish to quickly clarify the source of this pledge. It wasn’t actually written by our beloved teacher Shaykh Abdullah B. Bayyah. Rather, it was at the GCRG conference that was organised by the Shaykh that we sat down in a separate meeting and finalised the various issues that needed to be addressed. I won’t say who wrote the actual document unless he reveals that himself but everyone played a hand in editing it and agreeing to it.

As for those who haven’t signed it yet: there is no conspiracy theory and no-one has been left out. Many of these various personalities haven’t responded yet but we decided to release the pledge as it is in this blessed month as a gift to those believers who love to love their fellow brothers and sisters in Islam; it will allow for further scholars to join when they get the time to do so.

Finally, I wish to personally thank my dear brother Zaid Shakir for being the real driving force behind this whole project. He’ll hate me for saying this but he’s been a giant amongst men and he proved what we all know already: to be an Imam takes responsibility and he has fulfilled this amanah and then some masha’Allah.

For all those who wish to forward on and utlilise this pledge, please use the official PDF version below:

Pledge of Mutual Respect and Cooperation Between Sunni Muslim Scholars, Organizations, and Students of Sacred Knowledge

And to Allah belongs all success. Wal-hamdulillahi Rabbil-’Alameen.