Brothers - The Weakest Link (by Saad Omar)
Published by Saad Omar February 4th, 2007 in IslamMashallah, a very well-written and honest account of “the weaker gender” by brother Saad Omar (of the Ghazali Project). Unfortunately I have to say I agree with everything written in this message.
For too long, brothers have been considered the weakest link of the Muslim community. We hear often that the sisters are executing their duties as faithful ladies at far higher proportions than their male counterparts.
This is not a stereotype, but a fact. Ask a 23 years old sister trying to find a compatible spouse. I would estimate that good sisters outnumber good brothers at a ratio of 10:1 at the least. That means for every 10 sisters that are out there, 9 will have to settle for brothers who are not as committed to the struggle. Realize that this estimate is my most conservative estimate and when you consider that a significant portion of the brothers turn overseas to find their spouses, there are even fewer suitable future potentials for our sisters.
Lets put the topic of marriage aside for a moment. For too long have the men slept and refused to stand up. Look at our two famous Muslim American brothers, Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X and then consider our own lives. Muhammad Ali stood at the face of a nation and affirmed his beliefs and in doing so was stripped of his most prized championship belt and years of his in prison. Malcolm X stood for truth and justice and paid the dearest price, his life.
Once again, now consider our lives. We walk a cheap imitation of their lives as we attempt to follow the stereotypes of so-called alpha males imitating pimps such as Jay Z or 50 cent. If we have not fallen pray to that fake hip hop culture, we may imitate preppy idols such as Timberlake or Usher who must include one song in each album talking about cheating on their latest girlfriend just to remind us of their true character. They are not only the scum of the earth; they proudly display their pathetic nature.
We spend hours in the gym attempting to beef up our bodies as our minds and souls remain seriously neglected. Then we turn to the internet during late hours of the night for our secret lives of AIM flirtation and pornography.
We act as if we are slick. That no one knows what we are up to. We walk around Islamic conventions as we are the imitation of Prophet walking on earth but every moment that we find ourselves alone, we spit on the Prophet’s legacy.
We wear the cloak of Moses over the heart of Pharoah.
This is not a negative message but an honest one. It is time for the brothers to rise. I refuse to live my life under the stigma of being “one of the brothers,” a disgraced gender known for sloth, foul play, and ignorance.
The movement to reverse this downward swirling path that brothers find themselves in is called the Fatooha. It is a movement that will proceed under the mentorship and vision of Imam Zaid Shakir. I call you to it. It is a movement that existed during the Classical Islamic period and inculcated principles of Chivalry that later directly led to the concept of Chivalry in Medieval Europe.
The concepts found in the King Arthur series and similar literature, directly stem from the Fatooha Movement.
Brothers, it is time to rise. Where are the Abu Bakrs, Khalid bin Walid, Ali, and Bilals amongst us? Mediocrity has never been acceptable and definitely is not now.
Whether you choose to be part of the Fatooha Movement or not is secondary. My primary message is the follow, as brothers, we have done a grave injustice to the rest of the community, namely the sisters. But that is now in our past. It is time to stand up as men, not in a superficial media-defined sense, but in a profound way. And maybe, someday in the future, we will not only be worthy of our future wives but the princes that they will stand in awe of.
This is our mission
30 Responses to “Brothers - The Weakest Link (by Saad Omar)”
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Is Saad married?
“We wear the cloak of Moses over the heart of Pharoah.”
That’s a strong comment…
MR, no, but aren’t you engaged?
Good piece masha’Allah
!
his point of seeking excellence in generality is a good one. Villianizing one gender and praising another is dishonest to reality. Points of Malcolm and Muhammad Ali are of people in a time of great social upheaval. Marriage of 23 year old sisters - well many brothers who are into the deen seek marriage as early as possible therefore limiting the number of brothers 24 and up who are available.
that is some deep article, as a young 17 year old muslim this is only the a fraction what is happening to the male race of muslims beleive me its alarming what you find out but the dissapointing fact is that we become used to it so we accept it and allow it. we let them live their lives like that and we dont bother of trying to even try and help these brothers change their ways. i meen, me myself ive commited many sins alhamdullilah i had that person that knew how bad what i was doin was and regardless decided to help me no matter how hard it was for him to change my way of thinking he did. so i think as the respectfull sheikh sed we need to stand up get out of our confort zone and help these brothers. im talkin from experiance
walikumsallam
hassan
hassanthemainman@hotmail.com
I totally agree with this article. On the contrary, as a female, I believe we have many flaws as well.-We are all human and make mistakes, but that is the virtue of life. Making mistakes but learning for them and not repeating them.
I agree with this article on some things, but degrading the brothers to the extent of bringing all under the banner of excessive sinners is a generalization. Being a female i think there are many flaws within the sisters community but to bring someone up is to not take them so low that they cannot rise again. But is to overlook the bad and focus on the good and the good will overtake the person completely just how Haq will always prevail over Batil
I like this article, and I think it will lead to a lot of positive discussion. I liked the fact that he brought up problems of pornography and the pervasive influence of hip-hop music/culture in muslim youth.
But saying that brothers are letting sisters down, and implying that brothers engage debauchery all day while muslim sisters are at home doing zikr is a little inaccurate. I see sisters sinning openly as well. That message is just inciting another source of division in our community. Brothers vs. Sisters…great, just add that to an already action packed fight card: Sunnis vs. Shias, one ethnicity vs another, hanafi vs. whatver, HT vs the world, PakCola vs Thumbs up, etc. I don’t think that was the intetion of the article, but that is what I got from it.
This whole gender war thing is completely counter- productive. Men and women experience unique stressors and pitfalls, and we have unique strengths and weaknesses. I guess the author is saying that brothers are not as focused when it comes to the idea of marriage, I guess that is true–I’m not sure.
One thing I will add is that when a generation of youth grow up, they will take with them the lessons and qualities of their mothers and their fathers. Brothers often study the lives of the sahabah but they all too often neglect learning about the Mothers of the believers. SubhanAllah just think about the power of the title given to the wives of the Prophet (pbuh). Study their lives and inshaAllah your heart will love their noble characteristics. You’ll understand that if you want a wife like Khadijah (RA), you’ll need to be a man like Muhummad (PBUH). Something Shuhaib Webb mentioned in his lecture series Mothers of the Believer (buy it).
Assalamu Alaikum everyone
thank you for replying to this article.
please allow me to clarify why i wrote this article. the goal of this article is not to “degrade” brothers and to “elevate” sisters. both groups have problems, naturally, but as a brother who has been involved with the Muslim community in America for the last 10 years, i have seen an imbalance and this is what i’m trying to address. The idea is not to put down my gender, rather to shake it up so that we can rise and be real men. my belief is that although people will disagree with me (and i welcome all advice), i want to spark a conversation that has been for too long ignored and even if i have to be a little provocative to spark that discussion.
as far as the comment that i am leading to a gender divide like the sunni-shiate one i think is a little excessive. nor was i claiming that sisters are at home all day making dhikr. i want to lead to a discussion, not a fight. besides, most people are going to get married anyways so they will have to live with the opposite gender. if you don’t think marriage is an issue for older sisters, you are gravely mistaken. there is a huge problem and i really don’t care if i get attacked on articles such as the above one, the time for silence is over.
Wa Allahu Alem (Allah
knows best)
May Allah
bless all of you for contributing to this discussion.
(btw..i didn’t address sister’s faults or issues, cuz i am focusing on brothers with similar challenges as me)
yeah I agree with Salwa… we have many many flaws and the Prophet (PBUH) said that the people of hell will mostly be women beacuse since we have no work we have a lot of time on our hands to talk behid other people’s backs and cause fights.
Plus, we are a mans meakness- unfortunetely
Someone:
Mohammed ( PBUH) never said that.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam.arabic/tree/browse_frm/month/1998-02?_done=/group/alt.religion.islam.arabic/browse_frm/month/1998-02?&
Just press Ctrl F and put this in it to see where someone explains that that is wrong : Abu Sayeed al-Khodri
A few anti-Islamic websites bring up this false “hadis” to make their argument against Mohammed (PBUH)
” beacuse since we have no work we have a lot of time on our hands to talk behid other people’s backs and cause fights ”
yaAllah u kiddin, right?
OH LORD…
Please please please, everyone do me a favor! before we quote hadith…lets please take the time to consider context
this whole, most of the people in hell are women and then saying its because “we stay at home” and have time to backbite… we really have to be careful because
1. the hadith is argued about very much by the muhadith
2. even if its authentic we don’t know if there are more women because there have generally been more women to live on earth and so there are more women than men in the paradise too
3. no where in the hadith does it say anything about staying at home, in fact, many of the women in the Prophet’s time were very active
4. lets not forget that the rumors made about Aisha (R) were in a large part made by men…women are not the only backbiters
anyways, there are so many things wrong with such just saying a hadith like that and then adding probable reasons.
i actually am really sorry about sounding very harsh here, please forgive me for that but for years i have been hearing that hadith being quoted incorrectly, and now i am hearing it from a sister and it really bothers me
please forgiveness my brashness in writing this reply
your brother
saad
Jazakallahu Khair Saad (and Haseeb for posting it),
You’re right- there is an imbalance when addressing the commitment to deen and social activism with Muslim youth.
As a Muslima, I see this all the time. Most of the brothers in my community have made it very clear that they want to marry someone from ‘back home.’ This is a very relevant issue- thank you for giving it the attention it deserves.
One last comment, I think it would be inappropriate to label people practicing their deen as being apart of any movement besides Islam.
Salam Aliekom
God bless u brother Saad
Aside from what i said, i thought the article was really good and brought up some issues that need to be confronted and need to be taken care of. Good article in raising awareness of many issues that are usually just pushed aside for many reasons. The brothers need to be role models for their future/ n wives only then can the society flourish as muslims.
I find it interesting that any time a sister comes to me with a question, I give an answer and she accepts it. Any time a brother asks me a question, I brace myself for a very long argument. This article has much truth in it.
Salams,
A lot of people don’t understand different types of writing. Brother Saad’s words were not excerpted from a textbook or an academic journal. They were an expressive way of getting a point across. Anyone who likes to pounce on the fact that “he didn’t mention sisters’ faults” or that “you can’t generalize men” most likely does not realize (as I did not for a long time) that language is used in different ways - *obviously* he doesn’t mean that all brothers spend their nights flirting on AIM and watching pornography, it’s a way of bringing peoples’ attention to a particular issue.
A while back I wrote an article in which the point was to highlight the loss of certain aspects of Islam in Muslims and the Muslim world, while trying to add a more nuanced understanding of America by discussing our religious liberties here. I gave some examples of some ugly behaviors that are unfortunately common in parts of the Muslim world and I was throttled for it - not surprisingly from Muslims from that part of the world who did not have a solid command of the English language or for that matter an understanding of the various ways the language is used. I’m sure those same people would have gone on for hours on the eloquence of Arabic and Urdu and Farsi and balagha/rhetoric, poems and poetic licensure, but when it comes to those of us whose primary language (and therefore mode of thinking) is English we end up being limited to the most basic use of the language because others do not understand its various uses.
A side point I suppose, but important I think.
~Mujahada
Bismillah,
I want to comment about this article. I liked the article and I didnt see it as causing or possibly leading to distention between men and women. I have to agree though with the fact that there are so few good rightoues brothers to find and more upright sisters.
This could be due to several factors: more women on the planet. The numbers are larger.
Someone mentioned here the rightous brothers get married earlier and that I find true as well.
Sisters are also at fault as well. Many a sisters do walk around with the cloak of Moses and many a sisters that become rightous are decieved by satan to become arrogant in their rightousness such that if a brother comes to them with good iman and akhlaq, they chug that because of so and so reason etc that are in essense not valid.
Also, the sins of brothers mentioned in the article, i.e, pornography, flirtation, popular culture are desire chasing sins which can be corrected.
it is showing immaturity of the muslim men nowadays, however it is not arrogance(which is a more dangerous disease).
Many men that do get married change these ways, as more responsibilities are heaped on them. For many thoughts of raising their children become priority and they give up these habits.
I think although there is a dichotomy between religious upright sisters and seemingly not so cool and just okay brothers but I think that if these brothers do marry these sisters, the sister can and might straighten them out and this usually happens so in muslim countries,
where freedom to chose your own spouse is not there as much as in the Western world.
Another serious problem though i see as a sister is that those sisters who are involved heavily in MSA work or community Muslim work have difficultites finding husbands that are religious and involved in community work especially if sisters go into high power careers such as law, medicine namely.
The sistesr that do eventually get married to religous guys are not in these high power careers. And the market made by religious guys is only for stay at home wives who are not highly educated or in careers as mentioned before.
This is a serious problem for the muslim ummah in general. If intelligent and talented women are discouraged from using their talents solely on the basis because they will have to compromise their marriage by marrying a less religious nice guy who doesnt mind them going into these careers, possibly making more money, and working for the muslim community or *gasp* being smarter than them.
Dont get me wrong: I am the farthest thing from a feminist. And I am traditional enough to know to respect my husband even if he is less smarter than me(which i would not even think about) or even if he makes less money than me(which it would not cross my mind or make a difference). However, the muslim young men might see it differently.
Unfortunately, I found this out too late. For me, I was encouraged all my life to utilize my talents irrespective of my gender by both of my parents.
However, that did not mean finding a religous guy……
As an “older” unmarried sister, I found this article vindicating. I hope the brothers do step up. (not to say we sisters don’t also have our faults of course). I do want to point out that the “pervasive influence of hip-hop culture” that a commenter mentioned is oversimplifying it. Yes, of course a lot of the music that is commercially successful is complete crap, but a lot of hip hop artists are hella dope–and, um, Muslim (Mos Def, Talib Kweli to name a few). Conscious hip hop is profound, uplifting, and intellectually satisfying. Let’s not discount it all.
And jazak Allah
khair brother Saad for stepping up–good luck with that mission!
Thank you for all your comments. Jazakallah khair to all of you for your responses.
Its time to be real with ourselves and our communities, and may we all step up and become the chivalrous men like those our ummah was founded upon.
Ameen
.
I agree with the premise of your argument- that brothers are lagging behind in deen compared to sisters - however I dont agree with the intricate details attached to the article that are built on exaggerations and supported by no facts.
You mentioned percentages and ratios quite a few times in your analysis which are your own personal forcasts and have nothing to do with ground realities. Let me remind you that a mo’min is supposed to speak the Truth only, and if hes’ not sure about something, he doesn’t speak at all. Thus, I would think twice before making generalizations/stereotyping any gender or group for the sake and wellbeing of my own imaan.
The are two major obsticles that are preventing or rather discouraging brothers from becoming full-time muslims (as opposed to part-time) are marriage and financial responsibility that comes with it. The fact is that young brothers are sexually and emotionally frustrated. And Most paren’ts are not willing to let their daughters get married to a young (and probably broke) bloke in college who is not capable of upkeeping the financial responsiblity that comes with marriage. Thus parents think marriage is a detestable and disasterous idea for kids in college.
Muslim guys who’re in the dating scene have the same argument that since they cant afford to get married, might as well date around to relieve sexual tensions in school and have some fun. Mind me, the cost associated with marriage has become a huge financial milestone. once they graduate and have steady flow of income, they’d go back home or find a woman here(depending on taste) to settle down with. Thats why they resort to that.
I’ve been a practicing muslim for most of my youth years, never dated or went out with women, and I am also a living example of someone whose been turned down and screwed over many times by parents mainly on financial grounds. And now I am starting to agree with the argument proposed by not-so-practicing brothers; it makes more sense and is feasable. My iman has been deminishing lately and I dont think marriage is something really worth waiting for…might as well enjoy your life and end up marrying the one you’re destined to be with.
A reply to the last comment
assalamu alaikum
i welcome disagreement but that last comment i am sorry to say does not follow any logical sense.
you say that i am not following the sunnah of speaking truth by creating generalizations and stereotypes. lets be careful when using the english language, to generalize is to make a comment that relates to a majority of people, to stereotype is to say that a specific person within a group follows that generalization. and you are right, we don’t have sociological statistics on the religious committment of faith, mostly because that is almost impossible to empirically measure, however, a long term committment and years of work with the muslim community enables me to confidently make an estimate so your comment of a “mumin” speaking truth or staying silent is really not appropriate here and Allah
knows best.
as far as a muslim becoming a full time muslim being blocked by marriage or the financial committment doesn’t make any sense to me. there is a strong difference between marriage completing halfing your faith and being a full time muslim…
so wait, are you then claiming that because we can’t afford to get married or are turned down that we date and then marry the girl. im sorry brother, but because this idea is dangerous, i have to be a little blunt in my response to this.
that is completely whack. to say that due to our worldly means we have to turn away from the ideal is crazy. our trust is Allah
. so please lets stay consistent with our desire to speak truth.
im sorry but this response is not personal but such a comment is just very frustrating. i understand you are hurt or disappointed but we are not fair weather muslims. and marriage is not fard (obligatory), maintaining our principles definitely are.
anyways, i’m done
please forgive me if i was too harsh but yeah…i COMPLETELY disagree with what you said, almost every line.
may Allah
bless you and He knows best
-saad
not to be mean or anything but marriage for some guys doesnt solve problems either. There are brothers that cheat on their wives some at a lower level of only flirting and night time AIM and some at more extreme level of having affair with non-muslim or muslim women.
Either way, no one is free from the sin except by the fadhl of Allah
Aza Wa Jal.
That being said, it is truely difficulty for brothers to get married if they do not have their education completed or financially stable.
One possible solution is to marry older women that are financially stable on their own and make out an agreement with them and when the brother is on his feet, he may support her.
However, despite this being USA and hencenot many societal taboo, this seemingly islamic idea is not very prevalent sad to say and i am not sure how many older mature women will marry younger guys ( I am talking about a 28-30 marrying a 22-23 brother). I know most guys wont mind but women might.
Rasool SAW has said that a young man should fast and engage in other activities to avoid thinking about these sexual tensions, etc.
I would like to start off by saying how is turkey saad! inshaillah you’ll find success. Anyways i agree on this article and for the person who quoted the hadith needs to get the facts straight. It’s not a good idea to wrongly quote someone. Tariq Suboh from Indiana/Palestine
I believe the article was written out of concern for our Ummah. Despite the that both brothers and sisters within our ummah have issues and are not perfect. The man in Islam has a great, great responsiblity…which too many of them fail to realize. A woman out of her compassion is better able to grasp the degree of responsibilty as a wife and a mother. But whether a man is married or not, he will work (it’s upto him if he’s going to work for his family or himself).. he will struggle (either fall prey to society or be mindful of his family) etc.
I agree with the article..the point is clear but strong. And i hope that it does inspire our brother and uplift them…as well as our sisters to support the men in our lives to be all they can be without fear!!