By Danish Qasim and Danya Shakfeh

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”  

Habits are hard to break and the Muslim community has a bad habit regarding allegations of spiritual abuse. Different theories are thrown out, people speculate how the abuse could have been prevented, whether or not it occurred, and who are all the people to blame.  Every time allegations enter the public realm, we treat the incident as if we have not learned any lessons from past incidents.  

Without fail, the community finds itself asking the same questions, which we address throughout our site.  The questions include “when should we believe victims?”,  who do we trust?”, how to handle allegations of spiritual abuse, how to view knowledge we received from abusers, and due process.  

So how do we stop being reactive and start being proactive?  For one, we need to have the right systems in place so we are prepared for these allegations.  We cannot just make general calls for “accountability” without understanding that accountability requires enforcement and agreement.  For this very reason, we’ve published a Code of Conduct for Islamic Leadership along with a guide free for everyone to use.  Another problem that people often complain about, and understandably so, is what when organizations release statements regarding allegations of spiritual abuse, the statements are often vague.  The Code of Conduct will solve this because these organizations can refer to their own code. Instead of releasing vague statements that “X leader engaged in spiritual misconduct,” the organizations can refer to the Code of Conduct and refer to a specific violation. Lastly, we can forego the debate of ‘how bad’ the abuse was, because the conversation will be about code violation rather than gravity of abuse or sin.

At this point, the community, not just leaders, need to step up to the plate and put in place proactive systems.  If you are a part of an organization or mosque, then demand that the organization adopt a Code of Conduct. If you are a board member of an organization, then take the Code of Conduct and propose it to your peers.  There is a role we can all play.

Otherwise, we will continue repeating this same pathetic cycle and frankly, lead the next generation of Muslims into sheer disillusionment.  We can blame abusive leaders all we want, but at the end of the day, if we don’t take the reins on this issue, we are complicit. 

Additionally, the Code of Conduct will make violations actionable.  These violations are not necessarily moral determinations that speak to whether someone is a good or bad person.   They do not negate the good an individual has done, nor do they condemn someone’s overall being. A violation simply means that actions against an organization’s ethical code have taken place and the violator may be held accountable for it. 

It’s high time to understand and take accountability seriously. Do not expect other community leaders to do it for you. In many cases of long standing abuse, senior leaders were directly involved in ostracizing and dismissing victims, in other cases they were fooled or inept. For more please read https://inshaykhsclothing.com/home/intro/why-people-dont-help/ 

Finally, we have to be bold and assertive. Show that spiritual placating and appeals to forgiveness where the abuse will continue will not sway you. In many cases, organizations will only take action if their reputation will suffer for not taking action or if they will be held liable. This will motivate them far more than a concern for doing the right thing. If organizations cover up abuse, members of the community can use the Code of Conduct to demonstrate a Board’s lack of commitment to the community and the organization’s hypocrisy.  In some cases, there may be legal remedies too. The bottom line is that each organization needs to adopt a code of conduct so we move from relying on a personality to relying on a procedure

Zakat and Spiritual Abuse: Challenging Manipulative Fundraising in Muslim Communities

https://muslimlink.ca/stories/zakat-ramadan-spiritual-abuse-challenging-manipulative-fundraising-in-muslim-communities

https://muslimlink.ca/in-focus/in-shaykh-s-clothing-supporting-muslim-survivors-of-spiritual-abuse

Here is an interview with In Shaykh’s Clothing founder Danish Qasim on spiritual abuse with Muslim Link in Canada

What do we mean by “spiritual abuse?”  Does it have a universal definition?  What are actions that people often call forms of spiritual abuse, but are in fact, not?  Danish Qasim wrote a primer in our introduction section: Defining Spiritual Abuse – How and We Use the Term.

Dr. Jane McGregor is an author, researcher and trustee of the UK based charity, the Society for Research into Empathy, Cruelty and Sociopathy (SoRECS). She has been a great help to our spiritual abuse research, particularly in understanding the dynamics of sociopathic transaction. Dr. McGregor wrote this post for In Shaykh’s Clothing to help us better understand how bystanders are used to harm empaths.  These concepts are crucial in understanding the covert bullying tactics used by some religious figures in the context of spiritual abuse. 

By Dr. Jane McGregor

Some people have little or no conscience or ability to empathise with other people’s feelings. There are people who operate as seeming ‘model citizens’, but behind the façade they have interpersonal deficits such as grandiosity, arrogance and deceitfulness, lack of guilt and empathy, and impulsive and occasionally criminal behaviours. In this article I will refer to this sort of person by the catch-all term ‘sociopath’. I use it not as a medical tag but as a social tag to describe someone with no apparent remorse or conscience for hurting and abusing other people. The sociopath is commonly aided and abetted by other people who, for one reason or another, turn a blind eye to the abuse.

In a book I co-wrote. ‘The Empathy Trap: Understanding Antisocial Personalities’, we introduced a theory about abuse in society and the role of different actors who become involved in it. This interaction we termed the sociopathic transaction and the players involved we called the Sociopath-Empath-Apath Triad (SEAT). To take effect sociopathic abuse requires the following threesome: The Sociopath (the person who perpetuates abuse); the Empath (the individual or individuals who stands up for themselves or other people); and the Apath or Apaths (those who are blind or indifferent to the abuse). The usual set-up in the Sociopathic transaction and it goes like this: the empath is forced to make a stand because the sociopath says or does something underhand. The sociopath throws others off the scent and shifts the blame on to the empath. The empath becomes an object of abuse, a situation made worse when the apath/apaths corroborate the sociopath’s perspective and wittingly or unwittingly collude in the abuse. We adopt these roles at certain times and in certain situations. Most of us can develop and improve our empathic abilities, however some individuals have zero empathy (sociopaths) and their traits seem fixed.

There are numerous factors influencing those who engage in passive bystanding or active collusion in abuse. Whether we will help another person out or not can be reduced to something like how comfortable we are about feeling certain feelings in ourselves. Some people are fantastically empathetic and helpful when it comes to showing care and compassion for other people, but have very little empathy when it comes to dealing with someone else’s outrage. Some close down in the face of violence and abuse, and some cut off completely from emotions they are frightened of in themselves.

Whilst passivity can be simply the first reaction to perceived danger and an avoidance strategy engaged in the hope that the problem will go away, it can also be something more sinister; say when someone passively or actively connives in hostilities they witness. The reasons people join forces with aggressors are manifold – they may fear punishment if they don’t go along with the scheme; they themselves may bear a grudge towards the targeted person or persons, or just feel no real connection with them and shut off from feeling concern for them because of this. Or sadder still, they may go along with the situation to revel in a sense of schadenfreude! In such cases apathy becomes not just a lack of empathy but a betrayal of it.

Apathy as a social phenomenon

From infancy we are trained to conform to society’s standards and rules and conditioned to keep quiet, which often means turning a blind eye or putting up with abuses. In the tale by Hans Christian Andersen, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, two weavers promise the Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those who are stupid and unfit for their positions. When the Emperor parades before his subjects all the adults, not wishing to be seen in a negative light, pretend they see the Emperor’s elegant new clothes. The only truthful person in the crowd is a child, who cries out, ‘But he isn’t wearing any clothes!’ All the adults in the tale represent the collective denial and double standards that are often a feature of social life. These are the apaths who are not willing to see and say what is going on before their eyes.

In this context apathy represents fear, collective denial, and social hypocrisy, and at its worst takes the form of collusion. Apathy can be learned helplessness; where an individual has learned over time to behave helplessly and fails to respond to help themselves and other people too. Learned helplessness is not unique to humans. Take the extreme case of ants, which communicate information by leaving pheromone tracks, so that an individual ant encountering a trail made by other ants will follow it. On the rare occasion that a group of army ants are separated from the main foraging party after losing the pheromone track, they begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle and eventually die of exhaustion. This behaviour is called the ‘ant circle of death’. In some circumstances an apath may show ample empathy and concern for others, just not in a particular case or situation. How apaths, who may otherwise be fair-minded people, ignore another person’s distress or suffering or become involved in or collude in abuses enacted upon other people isn’t difficult to understand, though it can be hard to accept.

The main qualifying attribute of the apath that renders them a willing accomplice is poor judgement resulting from lack of insight. This may be linked to reduced empathy for the targeted person or group. The apathetic person might bear a grudge, be jealous or angry, or have a sense of being let down by the individual or group concerned, and in consequence may be as keen as the aggressor to see the target defeated. Hence, the apath may be willing to join forces with the perpetrator because they too have something to gain from the evolving situation. At other times the apath doesn’t want to see ‘bad’ in others, so chooses not to see it. On still other occasions, they might choose not to see because they have enough on their plate and don’t possess the wherewithal or the moral courage to help the targeted person at that time. Usually, and whatever the reasons for their active or passive involvement, what happens during the course of interaction with a perpetrator of abuse is that the apathetic person’s conscience appears to fall asleep. Apaths walk in and out of situations in a trance-like state. It is this scenario that causes people blindly to follow leaders motivated only by self-interest. We excuse bullying, outrages, even murder, on the grounds that the leader knows best, regarding the injured and maimed targets not as fellow humans, but as objects deserving of abuse.

“If we want to get rid of rankism in the spiritual communities we’re going to have to make the holders of high rank accountable to the parishioners in some way.“

People have different rank and positions in society and such rank is necessary for the function of a society.  Nevertheless, no matter what our differences are, we are equal in dignity.  Rankism is the assertion of one’s superiority at the expense of others’ dignity.  To be clear, rankism is the misuse of rank – not a challenge to rank itself.

Dr. Robert W. Fuller is one of the foremost authors on this topic. Below are some key points from his book dealing with rankism, Somebodies and Nobodies. Listen to Dr. Fuller discuss these points and more in the videos below.

Rankism insults the dignity of subordinates by treating them as invisible, as nobodies… Nobodies are insulted, disrespected, exploited, ignored. In contrast, somebodies are sought after, given preference, lionized. (Fuller, 5)

It’s crucial to get one thing straight from the start: power differences, in themselves, are not the culprit. To bemoan power differences is like bemoaning the fact that the sun is brighter than the moon. And rank differences merely reflect power differences, or rank differences are not the problem either, any more than color or gender differences are innately a problem. Difficulties arise only when these differences are used as an excuse to abuse, humiliate, exploit, and subjugate. (Fuller, 4).

The outrage over self-serving corrupt executives is indignation over rankism. Sexual abuse by clergy is rankism. Scientists taking credit for their assistant’s research is rankism. More generally, rank-based discrimination is an ever-present reality in society at large, where it takes its greatest toll on those lacking the protections of social rank- the working poor. (Fuller, 3)

It is important to recognize rankism and realize that it is not acceptable and there is no wrong in insisting on your own dignity in the face of rankism.

Below are some interviews we conducted with Dr. Fuller on this topic:

Robert W. Fuller earned his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University and taught at Columbia, where he co-authored Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics. After serving as president of Oberlin College, he became a citizen diplomat and set about improving international relations during the Cold War. During the 1990s, he served as board chair of the nonprofit global corporation Internews, promoting democracy via free and independent media.

After the Cold War ended with the collapse of the USSR, Fuller reflected on his career and realized that he had been, at different times in his life, a somebody and a nobody. His periodic sojourns into “Nobodyland” led him to identify rankism—abuse of the power inherent in rank—and ultimately to write Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank. Three years later, he published a sequel that focuses on building a “dignitarian society” titled All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity. With co-author Pamela Gerloff, he has also published Dignity for All: How to Create a World Without Rankism. His most recent books are Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship?, Genomes, Menomes, Wenomes: Neuroscience and Human Dignity, Belonging: A Memoir, The Wisdom of Science; The Theory of Everybody; and The Rowan Tree: A Novel.

 As a recognized authority on dignity and rankism, Fuller’s ideas and books have been widely covered in the media, including The New York Times, National Public Radio, C-SPAN, The Boston Globe, the BBC, Voice of America, and O, The Oprah Magazine.

You can learn more about Dr. Robert W. Fuller by visiting his website.

Over the past two decades, Islam in America has seen the rise of the “celebrity shaykh.”  While our scholars and da’ees (preachers) play an important role in our religion, a cult of personalities has replaced the roles of a knowledgable scholars of moral integrity.  Some Islamic “shaykhs” and preachers have gained so much clout that questioning them is synonymous with questioning God himself.  This has allowed some religious figures to get away with a great deal of spiritual abuse.  Below is a series of brief videos by Shaykh Rami Nsour explaining this phenomenon in our Islamic tradition, how to spot spiritual abuse, and what we should do: