The Imam Dilemma

By Muhammad James Sutton

Over the last decade, we have constantly witnessed the downgrading of our
Muslims communities. We have witnessed formerly strong communities being
reduced to rubble due to internal conflicts and strife amongst the members of the
community. We have witnessed our beloved youth leaving the Masjid with a
hopeless attitude, and becoming 100% involved in worldly matter because that is
where they can relax and find some piece of mind. One must understand that there
are many factors involved in this reduced state of our Muslim communities, but my
focus will be centered here on the role the Imams play in this dilemma.
I believe one of the primary negative effects an Imam can have on a community is
through mismanagement. This is mainly due in part to the Imams not having any
managing background. Most Imams focused on studying the important issues
involving issues of jurisprudence and how to judge between people, but the actual
skills of how to deal with people were never taught in the centers of knowledge.
This then leads to a bunch of Imams with large amounts of information about the
religion but lacking in the skills in the dissemination of that knowledge. It is very
clear that if a person lacks the skills of dealing with people, he is going to have a
difficult time getting them to accept knowledge from him.
The inability of some Imams to interact with their communities in a beneficial
manner mainly evolves from the Imams inability to deal with the common folk.
See, when a student of knowledge is surrounded by similar students of knowledge
on a regular basis, he begins to lose grips with his former ignorant self. He starts to
forget that he was, at one point in his existence, a very ignorant person that had no
knowledge of the religion. Once the student loses all memories of his past self and
completely breaks ties with his former ignorance, he also breaks ties with the
people who still carry that ignorance. He will no longer be able to communicate
with the people and truly understand their problems. How can a person manage a
people that he is unable to understand?
This state that was formerly mentioned actually goes against the very teachings
that all Imams profess to follow. Our Prophet (SAW) was the best example of a
person who was still able to maintain good connections with the lowest strata of
society. The Prophet (SAW) had reached a level of knowledge that no man on this
earth has ever nor will ever achieve, yet he never lost his ability to interact with all
levels of society. Why is that? How can we lose our ability to deal with the same
people we profess to help? Something is definitely wrong in the translation here. If
we do plan to spend years upon years collecting all types of information to teach

the people with, we should be just as dedicated in preparing ourselves to deal with
those very same people. This is only logical.
Of course, we have to understand that dealing with people on an individual level is
not the same as dealing with people on a community level. However, if a person
lacks the ability to deal with people on a personal and individual level, it is only
logical that he will face even more problems dealing with people in clusters. This is
where the need for good management skills comes in. There is no difference with
leading a community, managing a business and being the president of America.
The only difference is in the amount of people you will be managing at any given
time. A person who can manage a small company well has the ability to do the
same with a large company if he knows how to divide up the tasks. The same goes
for our communities. Our communities need to be managed so that we obtain
results without chaos. We cannot have hundreds of people attending one Masjid
with an Imam who is unaware of how to manage those people. But when we do
have an Imam under those auspices, chaos will be the result, and we will see large
groups of disgruntled Muslims.