Blog

Masood N. Khan M.D.

Charlotte is a fast growing, economically vibrant, one of the sub-mega towns of North America. I have been a resident of this town since 1991 and have witnessed great changes in the demographics of the Muslim community especially as it relates to their places of worship/ community centers, at various locations in the town. These centers are built with relentless and “never-ending” fund raising activity that has involved millions of dollars. I am sure Charlotte is no different from other big cities. Majority of times, the emergence of a new center at a new location is not purely the result of unquestioned necessity based upon demographics and geographical needs, but rather, not uncommonly, based upon differences and grudges between groups of Muslims that don’t get along in one center and have to part their ways. This situation gives rise to two very legitimate questions:

1. How effective these centers are in achieving goals that make a difference, internally within the community and externally in the neighborhoods they are located or in the city at large?

2. Is building of such huge centers a good utilization of community resources?

Having attended congregational prayers in big centers round the year, and having witnessed the spiritual hustle and bustle of Ramadan, having been part of their Sunday Schools of very mediocre, feel-good standard and having been obliged to attend various social activities that gather people on dinners to gossip and do hoo haal, I have often wondered if we have succeeded in creating a sense of productively interactive community, with collective, cohesive and dynamic action to achieve modest but noble goals that do make a difference. Other than providing a huge social platform under the pretence of preserving certain religious practices that are mostly repetitive and ritualistic, and giving few position-hungry individuals in the community, a sense of self-gratification and self-importance as they try to hold on to positions, perpetually in the executive body, these centers have failed to produce, neither a commendable change in our attitudes and behavior nor have operated successfully in any project that could be claimed to have made a difference in the lives of people and in the neighborhoods where they are located.

The answer to the first question therefore is a pathetic negative. The answer to the second question is really not difficult to figure out. Do these centers represent a good utilization of community resources? Of course not! except perhaps in case of a few rare ones.

The financial and other resources applied in such centers not only amount to a waste, but are also shining examples of inglorious extravaganzas. Further, it is not uncommon to notice that these centers have partly or wholly subsisted upon, and promoted within the community, hostilities and conflicts among various groups to a disgraceful waste of human energy. With few rare exceptions, in the collective analysis, emergence of huge centers are examples of terrible mismatch between the financial resources they utilize and their ability to produce any results.

This situation demands serious scrutiny. It is time Muslims should begin thinking seriously about the applied functionality and result-oriented utilization of their centers which are sitting in the community consuming huge financial resources to virtually no avail.

Real productivity of a given center is directly proportional to interactive involvement of its members within, and their cohesive and dynamic action without. For both of these positive forces, there is an obvious void in big centers.

It is a common and time-tested experience that cohesiveness and coordination is very effectively achieved with small groups. People living in extended but closely located neighborhoods naturally develop mutual awareness and bondage. It is easy to draw them to common goals. Motivational energy such an environment would generate, can do wonders. Only a smaller and modest center therefore can provide a nurturing environment that would foster the ingredients of effectiveness and success. The constituents of such a center will have tighter and well bonded network of families with a strong sense of belonging to the center. Such connectivity is a prerequisite for developing programs and implementing them successfully to achieve results. Small but well organized projects with achievable goals can easily be launched under an honest process of periodical review and evaluation, for example:

• The center can hold after-school enrichment classes for the students.

• Fireside chats with experts could be conducted with teenagers to address their social, emotional and religious challenges.

• Well-to-do members in the community could set aside scholarship funds for gifted students to pursue higher education.

• Could tap the services of psychosocial counselors to intervene and provide direction in marital and domestic crises.

• Could form response teams in the community to be available to provide help to those facing catastrophe and loss.

The list goes on. When small but committed and cohesive groups take up the challenges, results are great.

Smaller center will not burden the community with ugly and never-ending fundraisers. People attached to the center, by virtue of their connectivity and mutual interaction, will know exactly what is being achieved and at what financial tag. Accordingly money will be raised with mutual consultation and planning and approaching and presenting concrete plans to those blessed with capital, not by professional fundraisers who often stage an embarrassing show exploiting the Prophet and Quranic verses to shame the audience in order to extract money. Such fundraising activities are followed usually by lulls and pauses leaving people to wonder how the money was used and what are the results. In a smaller center with committed individuals, a responsible, task-sensitive raising and allocation of funds is not only possible but will ensure their proper utilization. The resources at work to achieve results are never wasted in a smaller center, because mutual accountability is so direct, interactive and open.

Now let us evaluate the lectures from the pulpit which are laboriously boring and unnecessarily fiery and acrobatic with words. Such lectures, a constant feature of the big centers, are nothing but a source of amusement and interesting time pass for the audience. Do they bring about any change in the attitudes and behavior of the people? Not at all. People come, listen enjoy more than listen- praise how good was the lecture, and like sheep even run to shake hands with the sheikh at the end of the lecture, only to go their own old ways. Nothing changes and this drama is repeated weekly at Juma or off and on at other occasions. Scientific studies and research in the field of education, about how people absorb knowledge, has confirmed two possible ways that have been effective and successful.

1. They voluntarily sit in small groups with eagerness to learn, reflect and interactively delve into topics,

2. They go through structured education with regular evaluation, as in an institution.

Adult learning through free hand big lectures that are often delivered to crowded audience, are extremely poor means to educate. Small centers will have the ease of coordination and organization of intense value-oriented learning sessions geared towards character building where personal effort, mutual research and interaction will be the underlying methodology.

Now let us turn to check the contribution of these big centers in the betterment of the neighborhoods they are located in. Do they have a very positive image by their benevolent action and their cooperation in the already existing projects that are in operation in the neighborhood much less initiating one? It is zero. Muslims who flock around a center, mostly are not even aware of what is going on in the neighborhoods they are in. In big centers Muslims enter into the premises like ants, complete their religious rituals or social functions and disperse back quite oblivious to what they owe to the neighborhood their centers are located. Has the center interacted with the non-Muslims who live around? Have Muslims from the center participated in any local improvement programs? Hardly at all! A smaller center could easily diffuse into the neighborhood and develop relations with non-Muslims with care and love. Islamaphobia will not be eradicated by shouting against it. Muslims will have to make the people around them aware of who they are by their benevolent actions and interactions. Modest but effective programs in the community could be developed with non-Muslims in the neighborhood. It requires a clear understanding that charitable work should transcend boundaries of faith, ethnicity and language. Again a small cohesive group will have better chances of developing such understanding and conviction.

A huge center that serves as a gathering place to perform religious congregations and social functions where Muslims assemble to feel good and feel psychologically secure, is not going to bring about any change in their attitudes and conduct and it will not change their image in the neighborhood and the city. Such a center is indeed a waste of resources. It is high time Muslims scrutinize deeply what should be the role of the center/ mosque and how best to fulfill that role. Smaller and modest centers deeply interactive with the neighborhoods they are in, and highly motivated and cohesive within, only can bring about positive change and contribute to human society at large. So whenever there arise slogans to build yet another big center in the city consuming tremendous resources financial and otherwise, let us remember that waste is a crime. A network of 20 small centers in the city that are highly palpable in the neighborhoods because of their benevolent contribution towards bringing about positive results in the lives of the people are of course preferable to 5 huge centers with no vision or results.