ISIS/ISIL: Between Goats, Sheep, Nostalgia and a Leadership Dilemma

Written in August 2015

It is no secret that a number of Muslims from the Trinidad Muslim community have left the twin islands to journey to Syria to support or join the Islamic State (IS/ISIS). There have been a number of reports locally and internationally about this phenomenon. Trinidad is not the only Caribbean island plagued by this, as people have left from many of our neighbouring countries to join ISIS. In a recent discussion among the members of a local NGO, it was noted that this convergence of faith, emotional trauma, social ostracization, nostalgia and psychological manipulation have created a perfect storm. This article will not go too deeply into the roots of where this all started, as there are many articles written about the formation and lure of ISIS. The aim of this article is really to put a public voice, from within our own community, to this crisis that is currently taking place and to offer a potential pathway to addressing this issue.

We know. Leaders in the Muslim community hear of Muslim men and women who have left. Just recently, as this article was being written, news came of another Muslim woman who may have left to join her husband who is already over there. Average Muslims in the community know. When you have an entire community’s population dwindling in “down south,” it is hard to miss. When you hear people making plans to go and selling all their possessions and encouraging others to go, it is hard to miss. When you get the news of men, women and children dying, it is hard to miss. We know. We may not want to know, but we know. Yet still, we are silent. How many Muslim leaders have come forward publicly to address this cancer in our communities? We talk about it in veiled references and may make generalized statements hoping that they fall on the right ears. However, while we are making generalized statements, ISIS is making very specific statements. ISIS is making specific statements that tell Muslims that they are not true Muslims if they do not migrate. ISIS is making specific statements that tell Muslims that they will live a life closer to Islam if they migrate. ISIS is systematically and strategically recruiting our young and old, while we are here making generalized statements about using intelligence and following the Prophet. We are not coming out and saying that ISIS is a cancer; that ISIS and the warped ideology in which it is rooted, that supports the wanton killing of noncombatants or the wanton killing of anyone (Muslim or not) who does not support their interpretation of a faith we hold dear, is so corrupt that some of those who get there realize that they have been sold a cat-in-a-bag. We are not coming forward and stating clearly that Muslims who live in that part of the world have come forward and spoken clearly of the atrocities ISIS has visited on their lives. So while we are being politically correct, ISIS is being politically strategic in amassing resources.

One reality that may explain our impotence in coming forth and addressing this directly is that we ourselves might be confused. We ourselves may be wondering about the validity of ISIS. We ourselves might be caught between the nostalgia of a caliphate and the feeling in our hearts that what ISIS is doing is wrong. As a result of being caught in this position, we fail to act. In so doing, we have displayed the weakest of faith, according to the statement of the Prophet (saws). Let there be no doubt, ISIS does not stand for Islam or Muslims, based on normative Islam. This is not a politically correct stance, this is a morally, ethically and Islamically sound stance. You cannot correct injustice with injustice - this is an Islamic principle that forms the basis of the social fabric. We know in our hearts that something is wrong with this Wahabbist (ideology popularied by Saudi cleric Abdul Wahhab decades ago), Takfirist (position that claims that you are not a Muslim if you do not believe as they do) chameleon. We have precedence in our Islam to support this when the Prophet (saws) reminded us that a wrongdoing is that thing which scratches at our hearts/chest and makes us uneasy, even if we were told of legal opinions that makes it sound right. In our collective ignorance - and possibly arrogance - we have adopted a position that the historical legal narrative of dividing the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb/Kufr, makes it necessary for us to support Dar al-Islam without reservation. We have adopted the cultural baggage of those who had negative experiences during the early and mid-centuries of Islam through a process of cultural hegemony.

When we take normative Islam, and we look at the establishment of Medina and the stories we were told as children and youth about the period when Muslims ruled, it creates a sense of euphoria. As a young Muslim, you want that, because you see your identity as different from what is around you. We have been taught that we are different. This has been drummed into us. Hadith that should have resonated with us spiritually, that should have focused on our hearts, were taught to us in a way that made us focus on our physical surroundings. The spiritual detachment we should have adopted was replaced with a literal and physical detachment. This created a psychosis in the Muslim mind. On one extreme, he was confused and could not cope with the changes Islam wanted of him, so he called himself Muslim, but engaged in a lifestyle that was non-conducive to Islam. At the other extreme, he was certain that the only thing he could do was get away, and so his contempt for anything that was not like him grew. His logical end, therefore, is fertile ground for ISIS. This view is not ignorant of other factors that analyze the nexus of historical narratives, skewed teaching and social obfuscation. However, we are seeing this play out in our families and communities.

Take this historical narrative, followed by a history of grievances against Muslims (colonialism, imperialism and multiple wars in the Middle East - the global representation of Islam), and then combine that with the desire of a Muslim who wants a better world, who dreams of being surrounded by Muslims alone because of the ideas stressed through Wahabbism, and you can see that it is not difficult for him/her to be misguided into thinking that this path is the path to perfection. This nostalgia, coupled with ignorance, is a dangerous combination. If those migrating knew better, their knowledge and discourse of Islam would go beyond the differences between the polemics of Islam. When the only substantive discourse in which they can engage is how we are better and different, then it becomes clearer that there is an astounding level of ignorance and arrogance that has enveloped the Muslim mind. Now, let us link that to the Islam in Trinidad of the 80’s and 90’s, where we were constantly told that we had to be different and we had to prepare to defend our Islam. When we are told that we are different and that to acknowledge that difference, we had to eschew anything that was not like us, how could we not expect to see Muslims leaving en-masse to join something that is fulfilling this historical desire that was bred into them by those whose hearts had become corrupted, but who donned the robes and illustrated the speech patterns of the scholars? The community is reaping the logical consequence of that which was sown into the hearts and minds of Muslims.

The emotional trauma of losing those close to you or the economic struggles experienced by some, also play a role in their migration. When there is a void to fill, you will seek to fill that void. The Islam of Difference cannot and will never fill that void in Trinidad. The Islam of Difference will always make its subjects want more and want something different, with an addicted lust that may eventually result in poor decision-making.

To condense the reasons why we cannot support ISIS and should not support ISIS into a bullet list, that can easily be shared and distributed, we can use the following 5 points:

1. The legal legitimacy of the caliphate cannot be unilaterally called by an individual or handful of individuals
2. It is against Islamic ethics and principles to aggrandize the killing of human beings
3. Islam stresses a regard for the sanctity of human life, to the point that death is not the first course of action
4. There is a gross violation of the Prophetic tradition of engagement even in times of war
5. The push for the creation of a hegemonistic, domineering, isolated Islamic polity is not based on normative Islam

I want to wrap up where I began. I want to turn back to leadership. We are not providing a viable alternative to what is being spread and shared. We are not addressing it publicly, with one voice. We are the voiceless, whispering in a backroom, and trying to compete with someone who is out in the open on a blowhorn. Our Islam is being prostituted before our eyes and we are watching our community fall victim to it. Turbulence Theory suggests that when turbulence occurs, radical changes need to be made to restore balance and equilibrium. In thinking of a proposal to do something different:

• Publish the names, publicly, of all those who have left. Put it up on notice boards in the masjids and send out on your electronic communication. Once done, urge your community to block the means of communication with those who have left - Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS messaging, etc. You do not feed a cancerous idea; you stifle it.
• When you hear of people who are planning to leave, have an intervention; a real intervention. Leaders from different communities (Muslim and non-Muslim) should form a contingent and go to the person’s home. Bring out the WHOLE community to that person’s home. Show them a connection that is better than the one they are apparently feeling from this alien group thousands of miles away.
• Publicly speak out against and challenge this phenomenon anytime the opportunity presents itself. This should be heard in minbars, radio programmes, and any other public outlet. The average Muslim needs to hear a different voice other than the popular voice on social media.
• Create a public education campaign by having those knowledgeable about its development and antithetical approach to Islam host a series of discussions around this topic. It needs to be clear. It needs to be present. It needs to be vocal. This is not about chiming in with those who say that we are not saying enough. This is making a plea to tell our own youth and members that there is something different out there

As this was being written, I came across this verse in my email, from the third chapter of the Qur’an. It states, “Allah will not leave the believers in the state in which you are now, until He separates what is evil from what is good nor will He disclose to you the secrets of the Unseen. But He chooses of His Messengers (For the purpose) whom He pleases. So believe in Allah. And His messengers: And if you believe and do right, you have a reward without measure.” Maybe this purging that is taking place is a process to clean the Muslim spirit in Trinidad. Maybe this mass exodus is the catalyst to help Muslims in Trinidad realize that we dropped the ball on this amanah, this trust, about 25 years ago, when pride took over and our collective conscience became warped. Maybe the return of this chicken to its roosting place will help us make the necessary internal changes (spiritual and internal to the community) so that we may see the condition of our collective conscience change for the better.