Introduction to Spiritual Abuse

What is Spiritual Abuse?

Spiritual abuse is using religion to manipulate, control and bully through the guise of religion, religious principles or claims to spirituality. This includes using religion for personal gain, such as sexual or financial.

A lot of people can have negative interactions with teachers – ignoring salaams, not smiling and overall seeming distant and stand offish. This is not spiritual abuse.

Below are some useful resources we have produced to help the Muslim community gain a better understanding of spiritual abuse:

 

• Defining Spiritual Abuse
• Bullying
• The “All-Seeing Shaykh”
• Excuses as a Form of Manipulation
• Why People Don’t Help
• Why We Tend to Victim-Blame
• There is No Savior: How to be Assertive and Deal with Bullying On Your Own
• The Challenges of Leaving Spiritually Abusive Groups
• Backlash: Silencing Survivors of an Abusive Shaykh
• Do I have to tell my shaykh I’m leaving?
• Lessons from the Nouman Ali Khan Allegations: The Proper Way of Handling Allegations of Spiritual Abuse

Financial

• Identifying and Addressing Financial Abuse By Muslim Organizations
• Financial Abuse By Religious Figures
• Religious Figures and Financial Transparency- Shaykh Hamza Karamali

 More

• Why We Are Not “Naming Names”
• We Need to Address Spiritual Abuse
• Where Do We Go From Here?
• CSA Presentation Child sexual abuse power point by Juhayna Ajami