When Ramadan exposes the addiction that rules her life, a struggling Muslim convert is caught between her habit and her faith.

Note: This is part one of a two part story.

* * *

Forty a Day

Ramadan was three days away. Thinking of this, Mar winced and took a drag from her cigarette. The wind rattled the window pane. It was always windy in San Francisco. She lay in bed, propped on her elbow, a glass of lemon water beside her. Two months ago, before she converted to Islam, it would have been a double shot of vodka to help her sleep.

Quitting alcohol wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t a heavy habit. That wasn’t what made her gut knot up.

She exhaled the smoke through her nostrils, watching it fall, then rise, passing in front of the bedside lamp like a line of crows passing in front of the sun.

Her habit was up to forty cigarettes a day, often lighting one from the last. She hadn’t gone to the movies in years because she couldn’t get through two hours without smoking, let alone an entire day.

With a name like Marijuana I was doomed from the start, she thought as she took another drag. Her mother’s work, naming her that. But she went by Mar. No one had ever called her Marijuana except her mother, the DMV, and new teachers on the first day of school – making the class break out in a riot of laughter.

The cigarette had burned down to the filter. She took today’s number 39 out of the pack. For a long time she’d held herself to thirty, swearing up and down that she’d never cross that burning red line. But what use was it? She had no control.

She must have fallen asleep and dropped the cigarette, because she woke when it burned her forearm. “Crap!” she cried out, snatching it up and smacking the sheet to put out a burning bit of tobacco.

She sat up, swinging her bony legs down, and setting her feet with their yellow toenails onto the floor. “Astaghfirullah,” she said. “Sorry for the curse word, Allah.”

Thirty Years of Sucking Smoke

Feeling chilly, she rubbed her arms, thinking that it had been a long time since she’d been touched by another human being. Not since her brief, failed marriage in her thirties.

She’d started smoking when she was fourteen years old, to impress a boy. But instead of becoming her boyfriend, he became physically aggressive with her, then dumped her when she fought his advances. Instead of quitting the cigarettes, her young, stupid self doubled down, finding in the delicate little cylinders a moment of escape and independence – a middle finger to the world.

Now she was forty four. Thirty years of sucking smoke into her lungs.

A vicious coughing bout tore through her, and she nearly dropped number 39 again. When the coughing passed, she dropped the glowing butt into the water glass.

She went to the bathroom, brushed her tar-stained teeth and performed wudu at the sink. Her reflection in the mirror showed a woman on the brink of a chasm, hanging on to a rope. This Islam thing was her last chance. It had to work, and it would, because she truly believed in it. She prayed salat al-Ishaa holding a cheat sheet in her hand, reading the words for each posture of the prayer. She was working on memorizing them, but it was hard.

In bed, she cast one last, longing glance at the pack. Cigarette 40 sat untouched, calling sweetly to her like a mischievous jinn, promising flavor and friendship, but in reality providing nothing more than ash.

She turned off the lamp.

She pulled the blanket – pockmarked with cigarette burns – tightly around herself and fell asleep listening to the rattling of the window pane and thinking of her idiotic 14 year old self, trying to impress a boy. It had all been downhill from there. Her studies suffered. She lost friendships and relationships. She barely made it through college, scraping by with nicotine-fueled late night study sessions as she worked as an at-home sex line operator.

But now she had Islam. Now she had a way forward. If it wasn’t too late.

A Good Word

The next day on the way to work, as she came up out of the Powell Street station a man of twenty five or so asked her for a dollar for food. He was well dressed and didn’t look hungry, though one could never tell for sure, she supposed.

“I’ll buy you a slice of pizza if you like.” Mar gestured. “Pizza by the slice, right there. It’s pretty good.”

“Go shoot yourself, you ugly hag,” the man snarled.

Mar’s eyes narrowed. She wanted to say something vicious and demeaning. But what she said was, “Peace be upon you,” and walked away. Two months ago she would have cursed him out with every filthy phrase known to man, woman or beast. She’d always had a sharp tongue, and as life had soured her heart and spirit, her tongue had become a razor blade.

But Islam had taught her better, and she was trying to change. At one of the Jumuahs she’d attended shortly after her conversion, the khutbah had been all about language. The Prophet, sal-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, said that every joint of the body had to do sadaqah every day, and a good word was sadaqah. He also said, and she remembered this verbatim, “The believer does not insult others, he does not curse others, he is not vulgar, and he is not shameless.”

People came to Islam for different reasons, she knew, but in her case it was all about the Prophet ﷺ. She’d seen a random video about him on the internet, and then had purchased and read a detailed biography of the man. The level of detail astounded her.

And what a man! Unmistakably human, but with the courage of a lion. She’d fallen in love with him, not romantically but from the soul. And that, in turn, had led her to the Quran, which she had realized was the source of strength that the Prophet ﷺ drew from, and the guide that kept him on the path.

So if he told her not to curse, then she would not curse.

Ugly Hag

Striding up Powell Street, dodging tourists, litter and taxis, the beggar’s words burned their way through her mind like creeping lava. “Ugly hag.” She could not object, for he was right, she was uglier than the old rubber mat inside her apartment door. She was so thin that her cheeks looked scooped out, and her hip bones protruded through her pants. Her skin was yellow, and her teeth were stained brown. Her hair was as thin as cut straw, and her left side was burned from when she’d fallen asleep smoking and the sheets caught fire.

Remembering the words of the Prophet ﷺ, she wondered if giving herself a good word counted as sadaqah. “Hang in there, Mar,” she told herself. “You’re Muslim, and in Islam no one is better than anyone else, except by taqwa. Stay the course.” But the words rang hollow in her rickety, worn out heart.

Arriving at her building, she found to her dismay that the sole elevator was under repair. The office was on the second floor. Surely she could make it? But by the tenth step she was gasping like a goldfish taken out of its tank, and gripping the railing with white knuckles. She slowed it down. Take a step, wait a full minute, take a step.

When she was a kid, their little apartment was on the fourth floor above her mother’s bakery. When Mar was done at the bakery, she ran up the four flights to the apartment, taking the steps two at a time. She’d been healthy and happy back then. How had she let this happen? No one ever chose self-destruction, she supposed. Instead they made a series of choices, each one like a little paper cut. Death by a thousand cuts.

Take a step, wait a minute.

You Stink

She was a manager at a call center, with thirty people working under her. They all despised her, as she had cursed them all out more than once. She stopped doing that after she became Muslim, but their opinions of her were formed in concrete, she was sure. Walking in, she didn’t bother greeting anyone. Stepping into her office, she heard someone say, “walking chimney,” followed by low laughter.

A thought hit her, and she froze. With the elevator down, how would she take her smoke breaks? There was no way she could walk up and down the stairs every time.

Yet she did. Up and down the stairs at ten. When she did it again at eleven, she fell to her knees on the stairs, broke into a fit of hacking coughs that left her dizzy, and nearly tumbled down the stairs.

Luckily by noon the elevator was repaired.

At the end of the day, as she stepped into the elevator to go home, three of her subordinates were behind her. Seeing her in the elevator, they hesitated.

“We’ll catch the next one,” one of the women said.

Mar wanted to say, “How about if I fire you all instead?” But what she said was, “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry for being a rotten boss.”

“It’s not that, ma’am.” This was Sarah Kim, a young Korean-American woman who was one of her best workers. “It’s just that…” Sarah looked at the ground. “You smell bad. You stink of cigarette smoke. And it’s catching. Like, if I’m around you, I can smell it on my own clothes later. I’m so sorry.” Sarah turned away, embarrassed by her own words. Another young woman, Katie, stood open mouthed, waiting to see what fiery insults Mar would unleash.

“I understand,” Mar said.

The elevator closed.

Get Through The Day

The next two days passed in a cloud of smoke and with a heart full of dread. Then Ramadan arrived. It was a Wednesday, and Mar had to work, like any other day.

Just get through the day, she told herself. Twelve hours. Half a clock face. The instant the sun goes down you can light up your own little fire.

The converts meeting took place every Wednesday night at the Islamic center. She’d been to four of these meetings already, and to her dismay she had found herself isolated, shut out by the other sisters. She didn’t think it was racial. The majority of them were Latinas and African-Americans, but there were a few white women there too, and occasionally an Arab or Pakistani. But they did not sit with her, did not invite her to sit with them, and didn’t talk to her beyond a salam or a nod of the head.

The exception was Juana, a Latina convert who’d been Muslim for many years, and was Imam Ayman’s wife. She didn’t always attend, but when she did she was a whirlwind, always prepping and serving food, passing out materials for workshops, and cleaning up afterward.  Juana was the only one who spoke kindly to Mar, greeting her with the salam and asking about her experience with Islam so far.

Tonight there would be a special Ramadan iftar. The masjid would provide the main meal, but the attendees were expected to bring side dishes. Mar had decided to bake brownies. Nice and simple, and it was something she did well, or at least she used to. She hadn’t baked in a long time, it was true, but she’d known how to bake nearly anything by the time she was twelve years old. By the time she was fourteen she could have practically run her mother’s bakery by herself, if her mother hadn’t banned her from the shop. “You stink of smoke,” her mother had said. “You’re contaminating the food.” As if she was a disease, not a daughter.

By ten in the morning her hands began to tremble.

It started in the fingertips, a faint electrical buzz, as if she’d touched a live wire and never quite pulled away. She tried to type through it. The cursor jittered across the screen. She backspaced entire sentences and retyped them, only to delete them again.

Her mouth would not stay wet. She swallowed her saliva, but there hardly seemed to be any to swallow. Her tongue felt too large for her teeth, as if it had been swapped out for a horse’s tongue.

She glanced at the clock obsessively. Six hours until sunset. Five hours fifty minutes. Five hours forty five minutes.

Inventing Reasons

At noon she stood up too fast and the room tilted. Her office swayed as if an earthquake had hit. Out on the floor, someone laughed. The sound drilled into her skull. The fluorescent lights hummed – a sound she had never noticed before and now could not escape.

Her body began inventing reasons to smoke:

Just one in the stairwell. No one would know. Allah is Most Merciful. It’s not food, after all. Just smoke. How is it any different from walking down the street and breathing in smog? It shouldn’t count. I’d still be fasting.

Twice she reached for the pack in her purse, then pulled her hand back. Allah was watching. Islam was her deen. She had to stay the course, she must. There was nothing else left for her. Nothing of purpose in this life.

She sat down hard in her chair and gripped the armrests until her knuckles blanched. “La ilaha il-Allah,” she whispered, not as repentance but as a buoy in a rough sea. “La ilaha il-Allah.”

A wave of heat rolled through her. Sweat broke out across her back, under her arms, along her hairline. Her heart kicked like it was trying to climb out of her chest. Her leg began to bounce uncontrollably. She pressed it down with both hands.

By noon the headache came. It was not pain but pressure, a metal band cinching her skull. She closed her eyes and imagined the flare of a lighter. Both her thumbs were heavily calloused from flicking the metal wheel of the lighter. Opening her eyes, she realized she was actually flicking her thumb.

She grabbed her purse and stood up. Exiting her office, she took a step toward the elevator, then stopped. If she went downstairs, she would smoke.

She returned to the office and shut the door. The tremor had spread to her whole body. She sank onto the floor with her back against the desk, breathing like she’d just run a mile.

If she was hungry, she wasn’t aware of it. Thirsty, yes. Her throat was a desert. But most of all it was the cigarettes. She wanted the nicotine, she craved it, she needed it. The hunger pulsed with every heartbeat.

“I’m fasting,” she told the empty room. “I’m Muslim and I’m fasting. Allah, help me out. I beg you, help me.”

Baking Brownies

Home, but not Maghreb time yet. She was exhausted. Her legs felt like matchsticks.

In her apartment, she went straight to the kitchen and opened the brownie mix she’d bought on the way home, feeling ashamed to be baking from a mix. But there was no way she could bake from scratch. Her hands shook so badly she tore the box opening it.

Her cigarettes lay on the counter beside the sink, exactly where she’d left them in the morning. The lighter on top. The familiar geometry. They expanded until they filled her field of vision. The cigarette box, as big as a building, the beautiful contrast of red and white. The lighter, that magical fire maker. They were her friends. Her beloved pets. Her lovers in a world where no one else loved her. In an instant she could light up and inhale, and all this physical pain – the headache, shakes, nausea – would vanish.

“Aoothoo billah,” she said out loud. “Help me Allah, help me.” She thought of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in the early years of his mission in Mecca. Rejected and abused by his people, mocked by those who had formerly loved him. Yet he had persisted in his mission, even in the face of possible death.

She would stick to her plan.

Turning on the oven, her mother’s kitchen rose in her mind: flour dust in sunlight, the long wooden spoon, her half-hippy mother’s CD player belting out Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. You measure from the wrist, honeypie, her mother would say. Not from the cup.

Her hand reached for a bowl and knocked it over. It rolled across the floor and struck the wall.

Her eyes returned to the cigarettes and lighter. She snatched them up, walked to the bedroom. Ignoring the unmade bed, the sheet with holes burned in it, and the glass of water with two cigarette butts floating in it like dead fish, she shoved the cigs and lighter into the pocket of an old winter coat hanging in the closet.

The batter was lumpy. She mixed harder, arm aching, until it smoothed.

When she slid the pan into the oven she waited for that old, familiar scent of baking brownies: chocolate, rich and warm. The scent never came, and she frowned until she remembered that she had very little sense of smell anymore. The cigs had killed it off long ago, along with her sense of taste. Part of why she was so thin. Food tasted like nothing anymore. Why eat if everything tasted like newspaper?

She went to the little bookshelf and slid out her copy of the Quran. Sliding down to the ground with her back against the wall, she flipped it open to the well-worn page of Surah 94, Al-Inshirah:

Have We not uplifted your heart for you,
relieved you of the burden
which weighed so heavily on your back,
and elevated your renown for you?
So, surely with hardship comes ease.
Surely with hardship comes ease.
So once you have fulfilled (your duty), strive (in devotion),
turning to your Lord with hope.

It was true, Allah had relieved her of the burden of a life without meaning. He’d given her light and hope. “But I’m still waiting for the ease, Allah,” she said out loud. “I know it’s coming, but I’m just saying.”

The Uber

The driver was white, middle-aged and portly, with thin blond hair. He glanced at Mar in the rearview mirror as she got in the back seat, pan of brownies in her lap. Within a block he rolled his window down. By the second block he rolled the other one down. At the third he pulled to the curb.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at her. “You can’t ride in my car smelling like that.”

She glared at him. “Like what?”

“Cigarettes. The smell gets into the fabric of the seats. Other passengers complain, I get bad ratings… I don’t need that.”

“I’ll tip you extra.”

“It’s not about the tip.”

Her chest tightened. “I’m going to the mosque. I’m fasting. Please.”

He met her eyes then, briefly, and she saw the decision had already been made. “You need to get out.”

Mar wanted to say, “And you need to run out of gas on a dark road. With a serial killer loose.” But what she said was, “Peace be upon you,” and got out of the car.

The evening was cooling. The sky was an aging gray battleship shot through with red rust. In the West, fog from the ocean poured over the hills and down into the Civic Center district where she stood. The wind cut right through Mar’s coat. The masjid was two miles away. She took out her phone and checked the bus schedule: next bus in forty minutes. But iftar was in twenty minutes. She felt hollowed out, as if someone had drilled holes in the bottoms of her feet, and all her blood had run out, disappearing into a storm drain in a crimson stream. Reaching into her purse, her hand gripped the pack of cigarettes, squeezing it too tightly.

She thought of the Prophet ﷺ in his Year of Sorrow, after the death of his beloved wife Khadijah and his protector Abu Talib. He had walked all the way to the city of Taif to preach to them. They rejected him and stoned him, and he walked out bleeding from head to toe.

She was not the Prophet ﷺ, but he was her example. She let go of the cigarettes and began to walk.

Breaking Fast

Every step jarred her head. Halfway there she had to stop and lean against a light pole, her breath sawing in and out.

Finally she sat on the edge of a low planter in front of a medical complex, unable to walk further. She could see the masjid in the distance, a block and a half away. She set the brownies and her purse on the planter beside her. The brownies were as cold as ice by now. The sun was gone, disappeared behind the aggressive bank of clouds rising in the west. A minute later the sound of the adhaan rose from her phone. It was time for Maghreb.

Mar had no water or dates, and didn’t want to spoil the brownie tray by eating from it. Excuses, she knew. With trembling hands, she drew the pack from her purse, withdrew a single, sweet cylinder, and lit it. She knew the dua for breaking fast, but did not say it. How could one say a dua before smoking? It would be obscene.

The first drag hit her lungs like rocket fuel. Her whole body sagged. The headache dissolved. The tremors stilled. She smoked it to the filter, watching the sky darken to purple, then flicked the butt into the planter. Shame coursed through her veins. She’d broken her fast with a cigarette. She’d made a joke out of her religion.

She prayed Maghreb on the sidewalk, in the cold, accepting the feel of the hard, dirty cement against her knees and forehead as a kind of penance.

Then she resumed walking. By the time she arrived at the masjid, the converts meeting, which was held in the masjid cafeteria, was half over. She set the pan of brownies on the end of the serving table. No one looked up.

Ignoring the jugs of juice and coffee, she took a large cup of water and a few dates, and sat at one of the sisters’ tables. To her disappointment, Juana was not there. At the front of the room, an Egyptian sister named Ranya was lecturing about the true meaning of Ramadan, which, she said, was not hunger or thirst, but growing closer to Allah.

The sister next to her scooted her chair away, widening the space between herself and Mar. Then the sister on the other side did the same.

When the lecture ended, people went for the food. Someone cut the brownies into neat squares. For a moment her heart lifted. A girl took one. Another. Mar herself had very little appetite. What she really wanted was another cigarette. She accepted a small serving of rice, salad and chicken, and sat by herself. The food had little flavor, but was hot in her belly. It felt good.

Smell Funny

When she was done eating she took her paper plate to the trash can. The brownies were there, in the garbage. Barely eaten pieces, most untouched, piled on top of the plates. A smear of frosting against the black trash bag.

As she stood there, a little boy tossed a brownie into the trash. Mar wanted to seize his ear and call him a wasteful rug rat. But instead she asked him why he was throwing it away.

He shrugged. “It smells funny.”

“Funny how?”

“Like my uncle.”

Mar pursed her lips. “Does your uncle smoke cigarettes?”

The boy nodded, wide eyed. “Uh-huh. How did you know? It’s cool. He looks like a dragon.”

“It’s not cool. It’s what made the brownies smell.”

“Oh, okay.” The boy ran off.

Outside the night air was cool. She walked to the bus station, lit a cigarette and waited, empty brownie pan hanging by her side in one hand. A car passed by with sister Fatima at the wheel – one of the sisters from the meeting. Two others rode in the back seat. Mar knew they saw her – Fatima’s eyes met hers – but they did not stop.

By the time the bus came forty five minutes later, she had smoked five cigarettes, tears running silently down her cheeks, smearing her mascara. She didn’t bother wiping her face. For the first time since she had said the shahada she wondered if there was a place for her in this religion that had already become the only place she had left.

Jumuah

By Friday, the third day of Ramadan, the tremors had moved deeper into her bones.

It was no longer the visible shaking of her hands, though that still came and went, but a hollow, vibrating weakness in her thighs and lower back, as if her skeleton had been replaced with one of those plastic Halloween skeletons, and could not support even her meager weight.

She had slept badly. She always slept badly now. The ten cigarettes she crammed into the hours between Maghreb and bedtime gave her a brief, treacherous calm, and then her heart ran wild in her chest for hours. She woke before fajr with her mouth tasting like burnt paper and her mind already begging. There was just enough time for one or two hasty cigs, smoked hungrily, then she was back to fasting.

The cycle was wrecking her.

Today was Jumuah. From the first week she became Muslim, she’d made arrangements with her workplace to have Friday afternoons off. Now, at the masjid, the women’s section was crowded. The khutbah hadn’t started yet, and voices murmured in Urdu and Arabic. Maybe the women smelled nice. She guessed so. She moved to the wall and lowered herself onto the carpet with her back against it, leaving a clear space between herself and the nearest group of sisters, not wanting to offend them with her disgusting presence.

No one sat near her.

Her mouth was so dry her tongue stuck briefly to the roof of it when she tried to swallow. The headache had returned – not the iron band from the first day but like a small hammer pounding rhythmically on her forehead.

She folded her hands in her lap to hide their shaking.

Imam Ayman began. At this masjid, the women and men were in the same hall, with only a low barrier separating them. Seated, she could see the Imam at the mimbar. He was a tall, lean Palestinian, and was surprisingly young – mid 30s, maybe – and with a very good American accent.

Baby Gods

“Some of you,” Imam Ayman said, “are carrying around little baby gods in your hearts and minds, and praying to them all day long, while thinking you are sincere Muslims. You worship these baby gods instead of Allah, and if you don’t change, I worry you will face an unpleasant surprise when you meet Allah.”

This was different. Mar was intrigued. What could the Imam be talking about?

“Some people are obsessed with wealth. Every decision in their lives – their educational path, career, where they live, their lifestyle, friendships, and how they view other people – is based on the acquisition and preservation of wealth. If they must abandon Islamic principles to increase their wealth, they do so. If they have to cheat and lie, neglect their children, neglect their own health even, mashi, full speed ahead.  Money to them equals success, no matter what else is happening with their family and the world. They don’t worship money physically, but in their hearts they are in a permanent state of sajdah to the almighty dollar.”

Mar nodded slowly. She’d seen a few people like that, though she’d never been one, alhamdulillah. Even though she’d been rough on her workers in the past, and she’d certainly fired people for a variety of things – being drunk on the job, always late, stealing supplies – she’d always resisted pushes from corporate to fire people simply for being slightly less productive than others.

“Other people worship their egos. They post to social media obsessively and check constantly to see how many likes and followers they have. Their entire sense of self-worth is tied to what people think of them. Not what Allah thinks. Not what good they are doing in the world. Their ego is a baby god and they chase it like eager little worshipers.”

A teenage girl in front of Mar turned off her phone and discreetly put it away.

“And some people,” Imam Ayman said, “worship a dirty habit. Gambling, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, porn, zinaa. That’s their own little god. They are slaves to it, as surely as if their necks were chained. They cannot say no to their god, and don’t want to. Their day is structured around it. Their money is spent on it, rlationships are damaged for itk, health is destroyed for it. They leave gatherings for it, stand outside in the cold or the heat for it. They hide it from their loved ones, knowing it’s filthy.”

Mar’s breath caught in her chest.

“They are the servants of their habit. It commands, and they obey. All the while thinking they are servants of Allah. No. They have a baby god riding their backs.”

Mar’s hands tightened into fists.

“And the tragedy,” Ayman said, “is not only that they worship the habit – but that it does not love them, does not forgive them, and does not save them.”

Thirty Years

The words struck Mar with physical force.

For a moment the masjid disappeared and she saw herself at fourteen, leaning against the brick wall behind the bakery, the boy’s lighter in her hand, inhaling and coughing while he laughed.

She saw her mother sitting in the small living room, tears on her face from worry and fear for her daughter who had not come home until one in the morning.

She saw the hospital room where her mother had spent her last days, the machine beside the bed, the way Mar had stepped outside to smoke because she could not exist without it.

Thirty years of enslaving herself to a vicious little baby god that rode her like a demon.

Her chest began to heave. She bent forward slightly, pressing her forehead to her palms, hoping it looked like reflection.

She understood now that quitting smoking during the day was not enough. All she was doing was enduring so she could prostrate to the baby god again at sunset. La ilaha il-Allah. O Allah, forgive me.

The khutbah ended and the prayer began. She prayed where she was, alone against the wall.

Sea in Spanish

On the way out of the masjid, a wave of dizziness hit. Just outside the building was a courtyard with a planter surrounded by a low wall. She sat on the wall, gripping the rough trunk of a tree that grew out of the planter.

A man approached. He was tall, maybe 6’1”, a youngish white guy with close-cropped blond hair. “Sister, are you alright?”

Mar swallowed. “It’s just the fast. I’m not used to it.”

The man chuckled. “None of us are. This is only my second Ramadan, myself. What about you?”

“First.”

“I’m Layth.”

Mar nodded. “Mar.”

“Like sea in Spanish?”

Mar shrugged. “If you like.”

“Hold on.” The man looked around and called out to a tall, elegant African-American woman in a green dress and black hijab. She sauntered over.

“Making friends?” the woman said. She had a Southern drawl. The Carolinas maybe, or the Virginias.

“Babe, this is Mar. It’s her first Ramadan. Mar, this is my wife Khadijah.”

Khadijah sat right next to Mar on the wall, and the blond guy found a chair and pulled it up.

Mar and Khadijah talked about Ramadan, being Muslim, and family, while Layth mostly listened. The two of them were a charming couple, and very obviously in love. Mar noticed how Layth watched his wife as she talked, and how Khadijah reached out every now and then to touch her husband’s arm or shoulder. Mar wondered, had she ever been that in love with her husband? She thought she had, but she hadn’t treated him well, and the marriage soured quickly.

At a lull in the conversation, Mar said, “Don’t you think I smell bad?”

Khadijah touched Mar’s arm. Her hand was warm. “Why would you say that?”

“You smell like ikhlaas to me,” Layth said.

“Don’t be corny, honey,” Khadijah said.

“What is ick-loss?” Mar asked tentatively, afraid she’d been insulted again. If that were the case, it would break her heart. “I don’t know that word,” she finished lamely.

Layth grinned. “I know, learning all the Arabic is a killer. I’m lucky, or maybe unlucky, because I’m fluent. Ikhlaas means sincerity.”

“He’s trying to say,” Khadijah added, “that you smell sweeter than a peach pie, because of your faith.”

Mar’s lower lip trembled, and she began to cry. Khadijah put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

Layth had a red sports car with an engine that roared. He and Khadijah gave her a ride home. They didn’t usually attend the converts meeting, they told her, but if she would be there next week, they would too.

“Layth, why would you be unlucky because you’re fluent?” Mar thought to ask.

“Because of where I learned.”

Khadijah, sitting in the back seat with Mar, put her hands around her mouth and mouthed, “Iraq.”

Mar mouthed a silent, “Oh.”

* * *

Come back next week for Part 2 – Cold Turkey

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

 

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

Related:

Cover Queen: A Ramadan Short Story

Impact of Naseehah in Ramadan: A Short Story

 

The post NICOTINE – A Ramadan Story [Part 1] : With A Name Like Marijuana appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are navigating.

The Name Crisis We’re Not Talking About

There’s a quiet surrender happening in Muslim families across the West:

Khadijah becomes “Kady.” Muhammad becomes “Mo.” Ibrahim becomes “Abe.”

On the surface, it’s just convenience. “People can’t pronounce it. It’s easier this way.”

But underneath, something deeper is dying: The connection between a child and their story.

The First Day of School

Picture this:

Teacher: “Let’s take attendance. Jessica?” Jessica: “Here.”

Teacher: “John?” John: “Here.”

Teacher: “Uh… I know I’m going to butcher this … uh … Moo-HAM-mud?” Class laughs

Muhammad, age 10: “It’s Muhammad. But you can call me Mo.”

From that day forward, he’s Mo.

Not because he chose it. Because he learned: My real name is a burden. An inconvenience. Something that makes me stand out. Something to hide.

And that lesson compounds:

• Age 10: My name is hard to pronounce
• Age 12: My name makes me stand out
• Age 16: My name represents everything I’m trying to escape

By college, “Muhammad” is someone he used to be. “Mo” is who he actually is.

Except it’s not. And deep down, he knows it.

Why Teens Hide Their Names (The Real Reasons)

1. Exhaustion of Explaining

Every. Single. Time.

“How do you spell that?” “Where’s that from?” “Where are you really from?”

After the 100th time, it’s just easier to say “Call me something else.”

2. Wanting to Be “Normal”

When your name is Sarah or Adam, nobody asks questions.

When your name is Fatima or Yusuf, you’re marked as different before you even speak.

And when you’re a teen? Different = bad.

3. Protecting Themselves

Post-9/11, post-Trump, post-Gaza—Muslim names carry weight.

Some teens have experienced:

• Bullying because of their name
• Jokes about terrorism
• Assumptions about your loyalty

Changing your name isn’t just convenience at that point. It’s self-preservation.

4. Not Feeling “Worthy” of the Name

“My name is Aisha, but I don’t feel like THE Aisha.” “I’m named after a prophet, but I’m not holy.”

The name feels like a prophecy they’re failing to fulfill.

What the Quran Teaches About Names

The video explores a pattern most Muslims miss:

In the Quran, names aren’t random—they’re prophetic.

Ibrahim ﷺ (father of multitudes) → Became a father of nations. Musa ﷺ (drawn out) → Drew his people out of slavery.  Muhammad ﷺ (praised) → The most praised human in history.

The name reflects the mission.

And here’s what’s revolutionary: This isn’t just about prophets. It’s about you.

When your parents named you:

• Aisha – They prayed you’d be wise and confident like the Mother of Believers
• Ali – They prayed you’d be brave and just like the Lion of Allah
• Khadijah – They prayed you’d be trustworthy, strong and steadfast
• Yusuf – They prayed Allah would stand up for good no matter the obstacle

Your name isn’t a label. It’s a du’a that follows you through life.

The Hadith That Changes Everything

The Prophet ﷺ said:

“On the Day of Judgment, you will be called by your names and the names of your fathers, so choose good names.” (Abu Dawud)

Think about that:

The Day of Judgment—the most important moment in existence.

And Allah will call you by your name.

Not your GPA. Not your achievements. Not your social media presence.

Your name. The one your parents gave you.

Question: When Allah calls your name on that Day, will you recognize it? Or will you have spent so long going by something else that you forgot who you actually are?

For Parents: What to Understand

1. The pressure to assimilate is real

You might have grown up with your Muslim name in a Muslim country. It was normal. Western names were the ones that people had a hard time pronouncing.

But your child is growing up where their name is:

• Mispronounced daily
• A marker of “foreignness”
• Sometimes a target

This doesn’t make them weak. It makes their struggle different from yours.

2. “Just use your real name” isn’t enough

Telling them to “be proud” doesn’t teach them how to navigate the daily microaggressions.

What helps:

• Roleplay how to correct pronunciation confidently
• Share stories of when YOU stood firm on your identity (if you have them)
• Connect them with Muslim role models who own their names publicly
• Celebrate when they introduce themselves by their full name

3. Ask yourself: Did you give them this name because of its meaning, or just because it’s “Islamic”?

If you chose it because of a prophet or companion—tell them that story.

If you don’t remember why—find out the meaning together and own it now.

A name with a story is a name worth keeping.

For Teens: Reclaiming Your Name

1. Find out why you were given this name

Ask your parents tonight:

• “Why did you choose this name for me?”
• “What did you hope I would become?”

Their answer might surprise you. And it might change how you see yourself.

2. Teach people how to say it

You don’t have to be rude. But you can be clear.

“Actually, it’s Muhammad, not Mo. I’d appreciate if you’d use my full name.”

Most people will respect it. And the ones who don’t? That’s a them problem, not a you problem.

3. Understand: You’re not “worthy” yet—and that’s the point

You’re named Aisha but don’t feel wise? The name is calling you to become wise.

You’re named Muhammad but don’t feel like you’re doing anything praiseworthy? The name is a du’a that you’re growing into.

Your name isn’t describing who you are. It’s describing who you’re meant to become.

4. Own it publicly

Start small:

• Use your full name on social media
• Introduce yourself by your real name in new settings
• Correct people when they mispronounce it

When you own your name, people respect it. When you hide it, you teach them your identity is negotiable.

The Story I Didn’t Tell in the Video

When I was in high school, I could never find another name to escape from my own, though I wanted to.

And the kids at my school never let me forget how “foreign” I was, though I was born in the same place that they were!  No matter how hard I tried to fit in, they wouldn’t let me because of my name.

Only years later did I realize that my name was actually a shield that protected me from falling into regret. That name that my parents gave me prevented me from falling into the misguidance that literally sidetracks other people for decades, if not their whole life.

That name did make me stand out. But it was only later that I discovered that it made me stand out as a believer, as a servant of Allah.

You are different than everyone else around you, and that’s not a bad thing. Yes, it’s so hard and I know how badly you want to just “be normal” and fit in. But Allah has selected you for something better, more honorable and noble. I promise that you will eventually see that, just like I did ….

Discussion Questions for Families

For Teens:

1. Do you introduce yourself by your full name or a nickname? Why?
2. What would it cost you to use your full name? What’s it costing you to hide it?
3. Do you know the story behind your name? If not, are you willing to ask?

For Parents:

1. Have you ever told your child the story of why you chose their name?
2. How do you react when your child uses a nickname instead of their given name?
3. What does your child’s relationship with their name tell you about their relationship with their identity?

For Discussion Together:

1. How can we honor the names we have while growing into them?
2. What would it look like to celebrate our names instead of hiding them?

The Challenge

This week:

• Teens: Use your full name in one new setting
• Parents: Tell your child the full story of their name
• Everyone: When someone mispronounces your name (or your child’s), correct them kindly but firmly

Your name isn’t a burden to explain. It’s a banner to carry. It’s your shield against sin.

Continue the Journey

This is Night 6 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 7 is our Week 1 Recap—reviewing the biggest lessons from Identity & Belonging before we move into Week 2: Relationships & Boundaries.

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community: https://30nightswithquran.beehiiv.com/

Related:

The Comparison Trap | Night 5 with the Qur’an

When You’re the Only Muslim in the Room | Night 4 with the Qur’an

The post Why Your Teen Wants to Change Their Muslim Name | Night 6 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Rupert Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth elected on a Reform UK slate in 2024 who subsequently went independent because his views on immigration were too extreme even for Nigel Farage, has now formed his own party, Restore Britain. Its policies include abolishing the BBC licence fee, abolishing inheritance tax, abolishing hosepipe bans (cutting immigration is meant to help with that), restricting postal voting, “restoring” the British pub and the High Street (by clamping down on immigrant associated businesses such as barber shops), abolishing foreign aid and the mass deportation of not only illegal migrants but also legal immigrants who they regard as unproductive or burdensome, and the removal of “COVID relics” and the annulment of convictions for breaking lockdown rules incurred during “the darkest time in recent British history, a time where our freedoms were trampled over all in the name of bent ‘science’”. They have not, so far, scored any defections by MPs but a few councillors have defected and some local activists previously associated with Reform, such as the leader of the “Pink Ladies” Orla Minihane (who a few weeks ago told us she wasn’t going to run for a council seat for Reform but dedicate herself to her new Rhiannon Whyte Foundation, named after a worker in a migrant hotel who was murdered by one of its residents; now we know why).

The party and its sole MP have been putting out lots of videos, mostly of Lowe giving speeches and attacking Nigel Farage more than any other single politician. There’s a video of Nigel Farage apparently backtracking on one policy statement and then another, with The Who’s song “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as a backing track (not sure if Pete Townshend’s lawyers are onto it). Another is titled “National Restoration” and consists of a flickering array of old images of 20th-century England: steam trains, ladies in floral prints walking in pretty streets of small towns and sitting down to tea, red squirrels, the cliffs of Dover, RT buses, military band performances. “In 1997, Britain was in good shape,” the voice-over informs us. “We knew who we were, we were still one country; most importantly, the population was stable and immigration was under control.” 1997? Oh yes, the year Tony Blair was elected and eighteen years of Tory government ended. If Rupert Lowe likes Tory government so much, why doesn’t he just become a Tory? But the mention of 1997 makes all the images absurd. AEC Regent or RT buses were a London Transport mainstay from World War II through to the 60s which was finally withdrawn from service in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher first came to power; the route shown, number 152, had last used that type of bus in 1970. Red squirrels were as rare in most of England in 1997 as they are now. Steam trains only ran on preserved lines, as now. You don’t see too many women dressed quite like those in RB’s clips in 2024, but fashions change.

I remember 1997. I was 20 that year. Labour won the election with a landslide and pro-European, progressive parties won a very comfortable majority of the popular vote, with the Tories reduced to 30.6% and wiped out in Wales and Scotland. There was much demand for self-rule from both Wales and Scotland and for peace in Northern Ireland, which everyone knew would not be achieved with permanent direct rule. Immigration had been reduced since the late 1960s, but it was still possible to bring spouses very easily from the “New Commonwealth” countries such as India and Pakistan and many did; the 2001 Oldham riots and the terrorist attacks that year led to spousal migration being restricted so that anyone not making a good salary was excluded (Lowe’s policies include an end to this for countries not included on his “red list”). The Tories were widely derided, were hopelessly divided over Europe with the prime minister calling some of his own cabinet ‘bastards’ and reported as threatening to “f**king crucify” others; they had a reputation for meanness, imposing VAT on domestic fuel in breach of their manifesto, and attacking single mothers from the conference podium (at the time, the electronic dance band The Prodigy released a single called “Smack My Bitch Up”, which caused much controversy as you might guess; a BBC radio comedy show quoted a politician as saying the title was acceptable as it referred to a single mother).

The Blair dream went sour in his second term, but in 1997 there was a lot of optimism and joy at the result. There’s nothing to be optimistic about from Lowe’s pronouncements. Like Farage before him, he blames immigration for everything. Just today, he posted a rant about litter by the side of Britain’s motorways, moaning that “our country is increasingly becoming a third world dump”, and then proclaiming that his government will put “healthy Brits who consistently refuse work” out to work cleaning it up (this is actually a job we currently pay people for) and that there would be “no foreigners on benefits” under his rule either. Elsewhere on his Twitter feed, he has a side-swipe at “the healthy British shirking class”. In another one-minute video posted on Twitter, he tells people who “don’t want to work” not to vote for him and rails against doctors signing people off work on “sick notes” because of headaches and other trivialities, against a backdrop of what looks like 50s London. All just recycled prejudices culled from Sun editorials and Tory party conference speeches.

Restore Britain is a backward- and inward-looking party that appeals to the same people who produce nostalgia videos about the once-great British high street, back when everyone was white and men were men and women were women. Lowe has gained much publicity from his unofficial “rape gang inquiry” over the past few weeks, but in truth he does not care much for the British working class: he proclaims in the 1997 video that “the individual is good, the state is bad” (except when it’s rounding up and deporting people, of course). Restore might not be a neo-Nazi party as it doesn’t have that heritage (although it has attracted a few supporters from that quarter), but he is still a politician that appeals to bigotry while romanticising a past that was never real, offering policies that will leave most people worse off.

Time Hoppers: The Silk Road, an animated film co-written and directed by Canadian Flordeliza Dayrit, had a limited theater release in early February 2026. This indie film is created by Muslim Kids TV and seems to primarily focus on Muslim audiences. 

It follows an inventor father and his daughter who flee from Seattle to Vancouver to keep an invention from being stolen. Once in Vancouver, Layla enrolls at her aunt’s school, Aqli Academy, and forms friendships with her cousin Khalid and two other children, Aysha and Abdullah. The father, Habib, reveals his time-travelling invention to the four children, and they are asked to collect information about Islamic history by watching footage from drones Habib has sent back in time.

However, they embark on a winding rescue mission once Abdullah accidentally time-travels. The three children join him back in time in Baghdad. There, they meet an evil scientist, Fasid, who is plotting to disrupt other scientists’ work. The children chase Fasid through Baghdad, Timbuktu, Cairo, and Aleppo. In every city, they meet and come to the aid of different Muslim scientists, including: mathematician Al Khawarizmi, emperor Mansa Musa, optics scientist Ibn al-Haytham, and inventor of the astrolabe Maryam Al-Ijliyyah. The film ends on a cliffhanger when Fasid and the modern bad guys might join forces, possibly hinting at a sequel. 

Review

As far as the film itself goes, the animation was good overall. The early action scenes of the film in Vancouver and Baghdad were enjoyable to watch, for kids and adults alike. Later in the movie, when the children are running around different cities at night, the animation felt a little stale and slightly sloppy. Fatima from Illinois, who watched the film with her four-year-old daughter and six-year-old son, said, “For their age, the effects were enough.” The voice acting was also good. The sound mixing of the dialogue within the film was of variable quality. In my particular showing, the speech of the characters was distorted to a distracting level for a portion of the film, and Shama in the DMV area experienced the same issue. I appreciated the musical score that accompanied the film. Overall, the film had a good enough production value for an indie project, and I was impressed at how high the quality was. 

I appreciated that the film explored different places in the Muslim world and showed the diversity of the ummah. The plot of the film was personally slightly confusing, and multiple people I interviewed agreed or commented that kids older than ten were bored. The film passed over the various scientific achievements from the past on a surface level, and it would have been nice to further explain them. Many parents I interviewed raved about the Muslim kids playing superheroes and liked seeing characters who were wearing hijab and identifiably Muslim.

Perplexingly, Ibn al-Haytham and Al Khawarizmi were depicted as weak and scared characters with the added trouble of them mumbling, which made them difficult to understand. Whether or not that is historically accurate to the scientists themselves, I would have hoped the film would portray the scientists as superheroes in their own right, similar to how Layla and her friends are portrayed.

The resonating message the film tried to send to kids was not an Islamic one per se, but one that focused on emotional growth. There was an undercurrent about being brave running through the story, but I can’t recall how it was resolved by the end of the film. The plot and some aspects of the film left more to be desired, but I do believe the film tried and succeeded at making Muslim children feel proud about themselves and their rich history

Audiences applauded this landmark effort as the first film for Muslim children to hit theaters in America. My six-year-old son exclaimed he loved the film, specifically, “learning all the new things, seeing all the places, and everything that happened back in time.” He spent some portions of the film covering his eyes due to the suspense in some of the scenes. Out of the 15 kids at our showing, all seemed to enjoy it except for a couple of the older middle school-aged kids.

I’d recommend this film for children between five and nine years old. As a parent myself, I’m excited for my son to see a Muslim animated film as the first film he’s ever seen in theaters. Ghada, another parent at the film screening we were at, said, “It was a good attempt. You have to start somewhere.” Ifrah, who took her six children (ages ten to four months), appreciated that it was just under 1.5 hours, and said all but one of her children seemed happy enough to sit through the whole movie. Nadia from California took her 12-year-old daughter and said, “All in all, it’s a great concept, and we’re happy to support a Muslim animated film.” Paola from Illinois raved, “I loved the film!” and noted how it was so special to see Muslim kids portrayed as heroes. Every parent I talked to seemed to agree on two things: we’re rooting for this film and future projects for our Muslim kids to be a success, and the jokes that the soldiers told were a nice treat for the adults in the audience.

 

Related:

– Farha Film Review: Palestinian Stories Will Be Heard

– 5 Things to Know About The Movie Before Watching It | Review of Bilal: A New Breed Of Hero

The post [Film Review] Time Hoppers: The Silk Road appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

University lectures in Gaza are being held at wedding venues, but attendance has dropped due to financial and other hardships.

This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are navigating.

Why Your Teen Feels Like Everyone Else Has it Better

The Silent Epidemic

There’s a mental health crisis among Muslim teens that we’re not talking about enough:

It’s not just anxiety. It’s not just depression.

It’s the constant, crushing belief that everyone else has it better than them.

Not smart enough. Not pretty enough. Not spiritual enough. Not successful enough. Never. Enough.

And social media has turned this from an occasional thought into a 24/7 assault.

What Comparison Actually Looks Like in 2026

Let’s be specific about what teens are facing:

Morning (before 7 AM):

• Opens Instagram
• Friend posted scholarship acceptance
• Cousin posted vacation pictures
• Classmate posted selfie that already got 2,000 likes
• They’re still in bed
• First thought: “I’m already behind.”

School (12 PM):

• Everyone discussing college plans
• Friend got into Stanford, another into Auburn
• Another friend has 4.0 GPA
• They got a B+ on their final exam
• Thought: “I’m not smart enough.”

Masjid (6 PM):

• Sister memorized another juz
• Brother told that he will be leading taraweeh this year
• A friend’s family going to Hajj or Umrah
• They barely pray fajr on time
• Thought: “I’m the worst Muslim.”

Night (11 PM):

• Scrolls one more time
• Everyone seems happy, successful, put-together
• They feel like a mess
• Thought: “What’s wrong with me? Why does everyone else have it so much better than me? Is Allah punishing me?

This isn’t occasional comparison. This is weaponized inadequacy, all day, every day.

The Psychological Trap

Here’s what makes this so destructive:

1. You’re comparing your “behind-the-scenes” to everyone else’s “highlight reel”

You see:

• Their acceptance letter (not their breakdown at 2 AM)
• Their perfect family photo (not the fight 5 minutes before)
• Their perfect smiles (not how fake they are underneath)
• Their spiritual post (not their private crisis of faith)

You think they have it together. They’re playing the same game.

2. Even achievements don’t satisfy

Get an A? “Well, that other girl got an A+.” Got into college? Well, he got into a better one.” Lose weight? “Well, she’s still skinnier and her skin looks better.”

The goalposts constantly move. You can never win.

3. It becomes an identity

Eventually, you’re not just comparing—you’re defining yourself by the comparison.

“I’m the less-smart one.” “I’m the less-pretty one.” “I’m the less-spiritual one.” “I’m the loser.”

Your entire identity becomes: “Not as good as…”

What the Quran Says: Stop the Game Entirely

In the video above, we unpack Surat al-Hujuraat [49:11]:

“O believers, don’t ridicule other people; maybe they’re better than you. And women shouldn’t ridicule other women; maybe they’re better than them.”

On the surface: Don’t mock people.

Deeper meaning: You don’t actually know who’s “better.”

Allah is saying: You’re using the wrong measuring stick entirely.

You think you know who’s “ahead”? You don’t.

• The person who seems to have everything might be so far from Allah
• The person that you think is struggling might be Allah’s beloved
• The person you envy might actually envy you

You literally can’t know and you don’t know.

The Three Quranic Corrections

Correction 1: You’re Measuring the Wrong Things [49:13]

“Truly, the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is the one with the most taqwa.”

Not:

• The richest
• The smartest
• The most popular
• The most beautiful

The one with taqwa—who obeys Allah seeking to avoid His punishment.

Everything else? Irrelevant on the Day of Judgment.

Correction 2: There’s Only One Race That Matters (Hadith)

The video shares this powerful hadith:

A rich, noble man passed by. The Prophet ﷺ asked a Companion: “What do you think of him?”

Response: “If he proposes, he’ll be accepted. If he intercedes, people will listen.”

Then a poor man passed by. Same question.

Response: “If he proposes, he’ll be rejected … If he even speaks, no one will listen.”

The Prophet ﷺ said: “This poor man, alone, is better than a world full of the likes of the first man.” (Bukhari)

Translation: External success means nothing. Internal worth is everything.

Correction 3: Allah Designed You for a Specific Path [4:32]

“And do not desire what Allah has given some of you over others… Rather, ask Allah for His bounties.”

Don’t compare. Don’t wish for what others have. Ask from Allah.

Your path is yours. Their path is theirs.

When you spend your time wishing you were them, you’re wasting who Allah created you to be.

For Parents: Warning Signs Your Teen Is Trapped

1. Constant self-deprecation

• “I’m so stupid” (after getting an A-)
• “I’m so ugly” (after seeing friends’ photos)
• “I’m the worst Muslim” (after making a mistake in recitation)

2. Excessive social media use

• Hours scrolling, comparing
• Mood drops after looking at social media
• Obsessing over likes/followers

3. Perfectionism that’s never satisfied

• Straight A’s aren’t enough
• Every achievement is minimized
• Nothing they do feels “good enough”

4. Withdrawal from things they used to enjoy

• “What’s the point? Someone’s always better anyway.”

5. Physical symptoms

• Anxiety, insomnia, appetite changes
• All linked to comparison stress

For Parents: How to Help

1. Model gratitude over comparison

Don’t say:

• “Why can’t you be more like _________?”
• “Look at how well they’re doing!”

Do say:

• “I’m grateful for how special you are”
• “Your path is different, and that’s not just okay, but I have a feeling it will lead to greatness.”

2. Limit your own comparison

If you constantly compare:

• Your family to other families
• Your income to others’ income
• Your kids to others’ kids

They learn: Comparison is how we measure worth.

3. Celebrate effort, not just results

Not: “Great job getting an A!” But: “I’m proud of how hard you worked, regardless of the grade.”

4. Create “comparison-free zones”

• Family dinners = no talk of others’ achievements
• Ramadan = focus on personal growth, not competing with the masjid community

5. Teach them to “unfollow”

Literally and metaphorically.

If following someone makes you feel worse about yourself—unfollow.

If a friendship is based on comparison—create distance.

Protect your peace over maintaining image.

For Teens: The Practical Path Out

1. Delete the measuring stick

Stop asking: “Am I as good as her?” Start asking: “Am I better than I was yesterday?”

Your only competition is the person you were yesterday.

2. Practice the “gratitude reset”

Before opening Instagram, list 5 things you’re grateful for.

This literally rewires your brain—GRATITUDE AND COMPARISON CAN’T COEXIST.

3. Remember: You don’t want their whole life

You want the highlight reel. Not:

• Their anxiety
• Their family dysfunction
• Their private struggles

If you could see the whole picture, you wouldn’t trade. In fact, there’s a whole genre in film and literature dedicated to this very idea!

4. Curate your feed intentionally

Unfollow accounts that make you feel inadequate.

Follow accounts that:

• Inspire without intimidating
• Educate without comparing
• Remind you of your purpose

5. Ask yourself: “Will this matter in 10 years?”

She got more likes than you. In 10 years, will that matter?

She got into a “better” college. In 10 years, will that determine your worth?

Most of what we compare doesn’t matter in the long run.

Discussion Questions for Families

For Teens:

1. Who are you comparing yourself to most? What do you think they have that you don’t?
2. If you got everything they have tomorrow, would you finally be happy? Or would you find someone else to compare to?
3. What’s one thing you’re genuinely grateful for that you’ve been taking for granted?

For Parents:

1. How do you model gratitude vs. comparison in your own life?
2. When you praise your children, do you focus on their unique strengths or compare them to others?
3. What “comparison-free zones” can we create as a family?

For Discussion Together:

1. What would our family look like if we stopped comparing ourselves to other families?
2. How can we celebrate each other’s unique paths instead of wishing we had someone else’s?
3. What does “success” mean to us, outside of what society says?

The Cure Isn’t Confidence—It’s Gratitude

Here’s what most self-help gets wrong:

They tell you to be more confident. To believe you’re as good as everyone else.

But the Quran offers something better: Stop measuring entirely.

You’re not “as good as” anyone. You’re not “better than” anyone.

You’re exactly who Allah created you to be. And that’s perfectly enough.

When you start measuring yourself by Allah’s mercy instead of others’ achievements, everything shifts.

Comparison trap? Closed.

Continue the Journey

This is Night 5 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 6 explores “Your Name, Your Story”—why names matter in the Quran and what your name reveals about your purpose.

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community: https://30nightswithquran.beehiiv.com/

Related:

When You’re the Only Muslim in the Room | Night 4 with the Qur’an

When Honoring Parents Feels Like Erasing Yourself | Night 3 with the Qur’an

The post The Comparison Trap | Night 5 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of MuslimMatters.org.

In Defense Of Zakat for Political Campaigns: An Agument Fom An American Muslim Political Operative

﷽

A Controversial Fatwa

Earlier this month, on Feb 3rd 2026, the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) and the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) published a fatwa that has generated significant contention in the American Muslim community across the nation.

The Fatwa opens the possibility for American Muslims to allocate a minority portion of their zakat, should they so optionally choose, towards qualified institutions to spend on Political Campaigns. Conditions include the amount of wealth that can be allocated, and various requirements on the institutions, such as demonstrating “a track record of positive impact” and being “composed of diverse groups of scholars and relevant specialists”, amongst others.

There are likely no institutions right now that meet all the criteria (particularly because of the requirement for the institution to be the one to ‘collect’ the funds).

Rebuttals to the Fatwa

This Fatwa has resulted in substantial pushback, from exhaustive attacks on the underlying structure and derivation of the fatwa such as the one by Imam Suhaib Webb,

Examining The Zakat Fatwa For Lobbyists (Part One): Background and Terminology

to rebuttals by institutions such as Darul Qasim (link) and naturally many other responses online such as this one by MuslimMatters. More recently we have also seen a letter signed by several ulema in the US.

Even within the fatwa itself they share a link to the dissenting opinion by the Fiqh Council scholars that were not in support of the fatwa: link.

I empathise with many of these concerns, however, there is a dearth of voices in support of the fatwa, which is one reason I’ve decided to submit my opinion as a political operative. Note that whilst I’m focused on political donations in this article, I realize that this is just one (albeit important) part of a multi-pronged strategy to impact change in US policy; for example, investing in mass media is another really key part of that, as is civil service, grass-roots organizing, cultural impact, leadership development, get-out-the-vote programs, street dawah, success in startups or high positions at big companies / wealth generation, etc..

Disclaimer: Whilst I was not in any way consulted about this fatwa by any of the ulema, nor have I sought any of their opinions on this article, I am a political donor, and have worked with Muslim political organizations.

A Justification of the Need

The objections I’ve seen generally fall into the following camps:

1. The underlying derivations / methodology that opens the door to all kinds of unacceptable Fatwas: I’ve seen some really strong technical objections here (definitely watch the Imam Webb one shared above to get a taste of that).
2. Attacking the need / justification for the fatwa
3. Objecting to the practical usefulness / effectiveness of this fatwa
4. Concerns on the ultimate use of the zakat funds on campaign ads with questionable content for politicians with questionable character
5. On the Ulema themselves not being sufficiently qualified, not having the necessary ijaza, being only one particular maslak, etc.

I’m not a scholar so I am not going to opine on #1 or #5, even as I continue to follow their beautiful, respectful and intellectual debate. May Allah swt bless and guide both sides of this scholarly debate. And it is indeed important to me that we’re not doing this in a way that would displease Our Lord.

From Humanitarian Crisis to Political Responsibility

Here is my perspective on why I believe this Fatwa is justified, purely from the lens of a Muslim political operative and donor:

1. Zakat is to help the needy.
2. There are many that are needy across the Ummah, but amongst the top would be the women and children of Gaza, many of whom were made to starve to death.
3. Despite the wealth of American Muslims, and despite the even greater wealth of the Monarchies, almost no amount of our zakat or sadaqa was able to feed or clothe or shelter the 2 million people of Gaza.
4. On the contrary, much of our sadaqa and zakat rotted away in trucks blocked by Israel.
5. The reason our charity could not get into Gaza was ultimately because of US policy, as the US permitted Israel to flout international law in this regard and block almost all aid into the strip.
6. Is it that unreasonable then, to argue that the only solution to feeding the needy in Gaza is a political solution?
7. ⁠Is it not reasonable then to argue that this is primarily a responsibility for / a failing of the American Muslims, assuming we had the potential to influence said US policy through our votes, but most especially, our wealth (will justify this assumption later in the article)?
8. And does it not make it even more our responsibility knowing that it is our tax dollars that were used to buy the bombs that bombarded our brethren?
9. And therefore, is it not then the responsibility of the ulema of the United States to find a solution for this?
10. Given that sadaqa is more of a means of extra personal reward for an individual, vs zakat being more of a divinely prescribed system to alleviate the neediness of Muslims at a societal level, is it not reasonable for the ulema to at least evaluate zakat as the most appropriate mechanism to address this?

Whilst my above argument was derived from the plight of Gazans, it also applies to anywhere else in the ummah where Muslims have fallen into need as a direct result of US policy, at least in cases where we could have influenced the policy (even if in those cases, unlike Gaza, policy-change is not ‘necessarily’ the only way to help). For example, is it not more prudent to try and prevent the Iranians from having to become dependent on aid if the US goes to war with Iran? Do we really want to start attending Zakat fundraisers for Iranians affected by some rogue US action, when we may be able to stave that off via political donations?

Instead of constantly being reactive to the issues of the ummah, what if we could be proactive and prevent those people from becoming in need of charity in the first place? Is it more faithful to zakat to repeatedly bandage wounds, or to remove the hand that keeps inflicting them?

Safeguards and Proper Use of Zakat

Given the above, I really welcome the fact that FCNA / AMJA considered these factors to see if zakat could indeed be permitted. Jazakallah Khair to all the ulema involved, both for and against. Respect to all.

If this fatwa is misused to justify partisan tribalism, personal ambition, or reckless endorsement of immoral candidates, it will be a betrayal of the trust of zakat. But I am eased by the conditions in the fatwa, which clearly require that such donations are only zakat eligible if they are through qualified institutions consisting of qualified ulema and collective decision-making, rather than an individual.

On Zakat needing to be for the Local Poor

One strong argument against this fatwa is that Zakat should only be about taking wealth “from their rich and given to the poor”, that zakat is best when local and that it fits into the pattern of self-serving interests.

1. From the perspective of those of us giving to political causes (assuming good intent), it is precisely to help the poor, since we believe that this is the most effective way (if not, as in the case of Gaza, the only way) to feed them, or better yet, to get the out of that state of perpetual poverty, since we believe that it is US policy that is causing them to be in that state.
2. The idea of giving Zakat to the needy in our community can be seen from the perspective of responsibilities: We’re responsible for the needy in our family first, and then our Muslim neighbors, the local community, and eventually the broader ummah. So why should we jump to the ummah when there is so much need in the local community? Because
   1. We’re the ones that caused them to be in that state, and so one can argue we are more directly responsible for them than for the local community, because we personally bought both the bombs and the bombers that besieged their lives. This should be a hard-hitting fact for all of us, especially for those of us who believe we could have done something about it.
   2. We, American Muslims, are amongst the only ones in the ummah that can affect US policy in favor of our ummatis (at the non-governmental public level). The needy in our local communities have access to at least some social welfare options in this nation; those starving children in Gaza had no one.
   3. As we hear in every international fundraiser, we are Alhumdulillah amongst the wealthier communities in the ummah, and therefore should assist the broader ummah.
3. The comparison with this to building mosques etc. is not applicable, because (amongst other reasons) when we build a mosque, we often in turn have some benefit, whether directly to our families in the form of services, or in the form of tax deductions or tax exemptions. Spending money towards politics for the purposes of alleviating the need in places like Gaza has zero personal benefit of any kind (generally speaking; exceptions exist where hosts may seek some personal benefit from the politician like awards or  preferential treatment). Also, building a mosque is not about helping the needy, whereas this is.

Is Political Advocacy Too Indirect?

I appreciate the argument that this is too indirect: the money physically goes into the pockets of a politician’s campaign account rather than directly to the needy. But I would argue, with utmost respect, that this is short-sighted of the ulema: this is a means, if not in some cases the only means, to provide for those needy; when successful, it will open the gates to all those Muslim governments and the broader ummatis in Europe and elsewhere to feed and provide for those needy.

And Insha’Allah it will allow us to go beyond just giving them some temporary fish to eat, but also the fishing boats to help get themselves out of their state of need, Insha’Allah.

Advocacy in Adversity

Jamaal Bowman

Whilst this Fatwa was in the category of “mu’allafah al-qulūb, which may be translated as ‘those whose hearts need to be softened’”, it would be amiss for me to not call out the fact that for those of us on the ground, this also feels like something that ought to qualify under ‘fi sabilillah’ as well. Why? Because we are facing an extremely active adversary. They boast about defeating pro-Palestinian candidates like Jamaal Bowman and Cory Bush, and have openly declared war on our advocacy efforts:

“You can’t fight today, with swords, that doesn’t work very well, and we have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields with which we engage.” – Netanyahu

We try to react to them, and they too react to us. There is much more to share on this topic that definitely goes broader than just directly influencing politicians, but I’m cognizant of the fact that this fatwa is not about fi sabilillah and is therefore out of scope. I bring it up more for our ulema to realize that the battle of influence over the decision-makers of this country has broader dimensions than just a 1:1 engagement with a politician because of this active adversary factor.

Impact on the local Community

There has been a lot of concern that the community may now use this new fatwa in a way that takes away from the real purpose of zakat. I agree with the concern, but at the same time, the fatwa limits the amount of Zakat that may be given to this cause and I don’t expect that this fatwa will suddenly cause a massive increase in the number of people willing to do this anyway given the disillusionment many feel with politics and the Islamic concerns already prevalent in the community.

Rather, I see this more of a benefit for the wealthier Muslims, as it allows them to help with even more races across the nation. We have a severe prioritization issue due to our wealth limits, but with this fatwa, in theory, we could allocate about 0.3% more of our zakatable wealth towards political campaigns than otherwise (the fatwa recommends 1/8 of our 2.5%). That 0.3% could indeed be the difference in outcomes for certain races. For those that need to give a large amount of zakat, they really would love to be able to diversify a bit, and fund proactive efforts that only US Muslims can do, rather than spend on international efforts that anyone else in the Ummah can do.

Intentions, Incentives, and Safeguards

I’ve also seen community members attack this fatwa as relief for the elite / wealthy in our community, for their personal benefit. To this I want to say that ultimately in Islam, actions are based on intent, which only Allah swt truly knows. IF their intent is to help the people of Gaza, and they choose to use this zakat to reduce the burden they have chosen to take on on behalf of the ummah (as opposed to increasing the amount they send), perhaps arguably helping all of us meet a fard-e-kuffiyeh, then let’s not vilify them for that.

Donations to reactive organizations like Islamic Relief are heavily incentivized, where we get a tax deduction AND tax exemption of our capital gains tax (e.g. via a DAF) AND can use our Zakat for, but proactive political donations to solve real problems at the source get no such personal relief and are pure ‘fi sabilillah’ (I mean that in the literal sense). May Allah swt give them even more and grant barakah in whatever they do. So naturally, reading opinions that claim this fatwa “further enables Muslim stinginess and loss of self-identity” does feel a bit off the mark.

Important concerns around abuse, undoubtedly a grave sin, are addressed in the fatwa itself:

“It is known that there is abuse that occurs in some zakat collection and distribution, and this fatwā does not wish to provide any excuse to increase that abuse. The conditions above are clearly laid out, and the members of this Council cannot be responsible for institutes or individuals who do not abide by these conditions.”

On the Uncertainty of the Efficacy of Political Advocacy

There are many legitimate questions on how all these efforts to influence US policy are ultimately going to help. Many would even argue, with reason, that voting is useless or that politicians take advantage of our naivety to take our wealth without giving anything in return. Others would argue that advocacy has had very low levels of success and so such spending is wasteful and thus should not be zakat.

The Fatwa itself addresses this:

Firstly, it expects the zakat to only be eligible for funds given to institutions comprising qualified experts in both the deen and the field, so, they would know not to be naïve and how to properly do advocacy. Siyasah is always a trade, and fundraisers must always therefore be subject to both pre and post-conditions, whether explicit or implied. When done right, such institutions can have a reasonable level of efficacy and can have a higher chance of success than failure.

Secondly, the fatwa also says this:

“Note that it is understood that no one can be certain of the future; what is required is a strong presumption, or ghalabat al-ẓann, in looking at the final results, or iʿtibār al-ma’ālāt, since even when the Prophet (SAW) gave, there was no guarantee that it would have an impact on the tribal chieftains.”

In other words, we need to do our best, and leave the outcome to Allah swt, and it’s acknowledged that there is no guarantee that our efforts will have impact.

A Case Study: Congressman Ro Khanna

Many ask if any political advocacy has resulted in concrete successes. An example would be Congressman Ro Khanna, whose local community has gotten him to be far better than the vast majority of congress.

Initially he would refuse to sign a ceasefire resolution and instead signed onto HR771 on standing with Israel that blamed even all resulting Palestinian deaths on Hamas, absolving Israel completely.

But now we see him calling it a genocide, having skirmishes with AIPAC, voting against funding Israel (after voting TO fund it, supposedly by accident), calling for the recognition of Palestine, calling for reinstating UNRWA, exposing and linking the Epstein Files to Israel, and so on. Many people seem to think that politicians just do all this out of their own accord, without realizing that almost everything that comes out is a result of direct and continuous behind-the-scenes advocacy, through a combination of bottom-up street power (Activists Occupy Office of Rep. Ro Khanna After He Refused to Sign On to Ceasefire Resolution), and, critically, top-down donor incentives. You often need both the carrot and the stick.

On the Imperfection of Politicians

Politicians can never be assumed to be principled. Even if at times they may appear principled, and even if somehow in their hearts they truly are, we really have to always assume they are not, even as we should always demand that they be. I know that sentence is confusing, but worded as it is on purpose, to highlight that it requires continuous work to keep them on the right track. And even if a politician were principled, it doesn’t mean they’ll act the correct way without the necessary support and pressure they need from their constituents and donors (and yes, even if they are Muslims).

Politicians play their games. We must expect that. But we also need to learn to play ours (within the bounds of permissibility of Islamic siyasah of course). If a politician doesn’t do as we expect, whilst we should not absolve them of their moral responsibility, we need to consider it as our own failing:

Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said, “You see the believers as regards their being merciful among themselves and showing love among themselves and being kind, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it.” – Sahih al-Bukhari 6011

Zakat, Public Interest, And Net Outcomes

But if we’re arguing that they are not principled, there is a valid objection on why should our sacred zakat money go to such folk’s campaigns? Additionally, those campaign ads may contain content that is unislamic, and further, these politicians may have other platform policy points that may not match our values.

Firstly, the Fatwa itself addresses this. It says,

“More pertinently, they firmly establish a broader principle: at times, the public interest may require allocating funds even to the wealthy, to non-Muslims, or to those of questionable personal character, when that secures a general benefit for the Muslim community.”

Secondly, remember that the goal of the funding is not to help the politician: it is to move the needle towards our goal. The funds are for two general purposes:

1. To help bring to power the political candidate that is more aligned with our goals, or prevent the political candidate that is against our goals from coming to power.
2. To generate leverage with a politician, so that we have a higher likelihood of influencing their votes by giving more weight to our words.

The result we seek is in the form of better votes, or to use their platform to amplify a narrative more amenable to our prioritized goals. In other words, what matters is what net outcome we’re able to achieve, and whether the net outcome is better or worse. Ultimately, the fatwa argues that “the goal of such funds must be to benefit the welfare of the Muslim community”, then (and only then), can it potentially be zakat eligible.

But can successful advocacy really lead to national policy change?

The US Congress

US policy is technically made by the Legislative branch (although there is a lot the executive branch can do, especially nowadays, without legislative approvals). This consists of 100 senators, and 435 congresspersons. To influence policy, we’d need about half that in each. In congress, if we can influence around 210 of them, we’d be able to push for policy in our favor. So, whilst the Ro Khanna “success” story is nice, it clearly is not enough. We need to do that in hundreds more districts.

However, given that there are (and can effectively only be) two parties, in theory if we can influence party leadership, we can get larger chunks of that support just by the fact that the majority simply follow their leadership or party platform. Investing in folk with the potential to be leaders of the party should be a priority. No doubt the path is very long and very hard to get to actual policy change, but it’s possible.

Folks like Ro Khanna (D) are a good example of that as his profile gets larger within his party, but even a Mamdani, who may not be a legislator but has the potential to influence the party platform as Dem candidates seek his coveted endorsement, which may in turn allow us to get much larger numbers of congressmen and even senators in favor of humanity. Thomas Massie (R) may represent primarily libertarians, but if we show that his positions on Israel can attract enough donors on his side to counter AIPAC’s attempts to unseat him, this can encourage many other Republicans to consider the same.

Influencing the Executive Branch

US policy is ultimately conducted by the executive branch though, the leadership of which is elected to power, and the rest are appointed or careerists. The best way to influence here, again, is to help bring to power the presidential candidates that are most amenable to our goal. Unfortunately, so far this has been a challenge as both party candidates have been extremely pro-Zionists, however, we can see the potential for change by bringing in more America-First republican candidates on the Right, and more Anti-War Democrat candidates on the Left. An effective strategy must involve influencing both parties. This need not be at an individual institution level, as they may choose to focus on one side or the other, but collectively across all Muslim political institutions, we need to make sure we have coverage of both parties.

A key part is going to be funding other activities as well like leadership development organizations or investing in mass media etc., but given that those are 501c3 activities that are already tax deductible, I’m leaving those types of activities out of the discussion (also leaving out 501c4 activities such as endorsements which donors can avoid capital gains tax on if they donate stocks).

Why is money even required?

How do the lawmakers that make the laws of this country, or the executive branch that execute those laws as policy, become our representatives in the first place? There is only one answer: votes. All the money in political campaigns is ultimately to buy those votes. And all that lobbying by AIPAC etc, is to offer the money to buy those votes: buy an Ad to reach a million voters, and they have a chance to buy a million votes. Additionally, the better a candidate is able to do in their fundraising, the more endorsements become available to them, and again, those endorsements in turn help them get even more money, and sometimes even voting blocks.

The point: if we want to affect policy, we have to donate. And today, this is a big ask for our community, as those donations will not be tax deductible, nor receive benefits of tax exemption, nor be allowed to be spent from zakat. The effective cost is quite high, the efficacy is quite low, and therefore the potential impact subdued.

On Geopolitical Strategy and Islam

The fatwa bases its argument on the category of Zakat in the Qur’an called “mu’allafah al-qulūb, which may be translated as ‘those whose hearts need to be softened’”. It goes on to describe how the prophet SAW used spoils of war (not Zakat) to non-Muslim Arab chieftains across Arabia to dissuade them from coalescing together to fight the Muslims. The fatwa argues why this can be extended into this category of Zakat using various precedences set by other individual scholars throughout history with regards to this category, but that’s not what I wish to argue for or against about, since that is the realm of debate for the Ulema, of which I am not.

I do, however, want to highlight the importance of political strategy, and use that story from the seerah (amongst others) to argue that the prophet SAW was, subhanallah, an extremely savvy political strategist, and recognized the role wealth can play in shaping outcomes. For more on this, I would recommend the reader spend the time to get to know the works of Dr. Tareq Al-Suwaidan, who shows that the Seerah has another dimension of study, that of Strategy:

How Prophet Muhammad (SAW) Mastered Strategy | Dr. Tareq Al-Suwaidan

Dr. Al-Suweidan asks some pertinent questions: such as why did the prophet SAW send sahaba such as Usman RA or Jaber bin Abi Taleb RA that were not under any threat of oppression to Abyssinia, or why even after such esteemed sahaba lived 15 years in Abyssinia no one new embraced Islam, and why the prophet SAW didn’t call them back until 7 years after the hijra?

Applying Strategic Lessons Today

The answers to these lie almost entirely in global geopolitical strategy and wargaming. That is just one example (in addition to the one shared in the fatwa on placating the tribal chiefs), and I’d recommend following Dr. Al-Suwaidan for much more, but the point is that geopolitical strategic planning is such a core part of what the prophet SAW was continuously engaged in throughout his prophethood.

Our American ulema should also be versed in this study given how involved our government is in shaping geopolitics around the world. And not just our ulema of course; our political strategists must also learn the strategic lessons the seerah has to offer.

This is how this fatwa can be seen: one part of a multi-pronged strategy to build enough power to influence geopolitics in favor of creating a more just world. And it explicitly invites the two classes of experts to come and work together towards it. The net result would be a win-win for all, as the advocates are able to do more, and the ulema are able to help keep their moral compass straight.

Scholars, Power, and Contemporary Realities

It is encouraging to see scholars grappling not only with textual questions, but also with the geopolitical realities facing American Muslims. One sign of this is how one of the ulema in FCNA, Sh. Yasir Qadhi (in a fascinating study of the history of the Printing Press, all the way from the acquisition of paper-making technology via Chinese POWs in 751 CE, to the Islamic World’s substantial development and proliferation of the process, to the unfortunate rejection of the printing press for Arabic scholarship from its invention in 1440 till the next 400 years), suggests how the ulema should have dealt with the issue of the Printing Press (a relevant example because it’s what Darul Qasim used in their statement to argue against this fatwa):

“The rise and eventual decline of paper and of the printing press is symptomatic of the rise and fall of the ummah…. My point here, if the scholars had adopted the printing press and they had included and incorporated it into their system, they could have incorporated the best of both worlds and they could have taken this and made sure that some new system is built. But by shutting themselves off completely, what happened? Subhanallah, by 1800 the average Muslim has never read a printed book because there’s still the penalty of death.” – Yasir Qadhi

Ideally we have ulema that truly appreciate the fiqhi challenges, whilst at the same time understanding the strategic necessity of things like the printing press for the ummah, “because with the printing press comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes power; every type of power: economic power, political power, religious power” (Yasir Qadhi). And only with power can we play a role in making a more just world. Or be left powerless to stop deliberate policies of starvation against our ummah.

Institutional Capacity in the American Context

Combining this with the fact that these Ulema have had to deal with the real impact of US policy right at home, like cease and desist orders on Islamic Funeral Homes, attacks on the EPIC City project and interacting with US politicians in countering real-world Islamophobia, the result is that AMJA and FQNA collectively constitute a diverse set of ulema not just with high levels of religious knowledge, but also the political exposure, the deep yet diverse historical knowledge, and most importantly, the strategic thinking ultimately required to address the needs and responsibilities of the modern American Muslim.

At the same time, it is reasonable to expect FQNA / AMJA to have a process that engenders trust from the broader ulema community as well.

What could be improved in the Fatwa

The Fatwa may well have areas of improvements on the Fiqhi elements; dissenting Ulema have already been talking about that. I wish instead to add my opinions on what could be improved from the perspective of a political operative.

The fatwa has the following hard requirement:

“reputable institutions collect and distribute zakat funds on behalf of the body of Muslim in any locality”

It requires institutions to “collect” the funds first, and then distribute; this unfortunately does not meet the majority of the need, which is to do direct donations to a politician on the direction of some reputable institution. Ideally we would have wanted the fatwa to use a word like ‘through’ instead of ‘collect’, because as it stands the practical use of this fatwa is certainly constrained quite a bit because of it.

Zohran Mamdani

Perhaps we could create some PACs, though PACs are only allowed to give up to $5000 to any given candidate, which isn’t sufficient to generate tangible leverage with a candidate. A SuperPAC could work though, however, SuperPACs are typically obscured, e.g., the main one we used for Zohran Mamdani was New Yorkers for Lower Costs, so it may be a challenge to have a SuperPAC meet the requirements of having a diverse set of ulema on its board etc.. As such, building institutions compliant with this Fatwa may require more deliberation.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into the semantics of the word ‘collect’, in which case a clarification from the authors would be welcome.

In Conclusion

There is no doubt that the fatwa is controversial, and that there are many respected scholars that have expressed dissenting opinions. But Alhumdulillah, I for one, as a Muslim political operative, am extremely thankful for this issue being taken so seriously, and for our ulema to try and find solutions, not for our sake, but for the sake of our ummah.

We should see this as a sign of maturity of our community that we’re even talking about the importance of political power, and a sign of hope that this fatwa is symptomatic of a turning point for our influence to rise again to help make America and the world a more just place for all, even as it comes from the sense of despair we felt from our inability to protect the people of Gaza.

May Allah swt bless our intention to move, and may He guide us towards the best path, and may He forgive us for failing the ummah, and may He forgive our American ulema and leaders for their shortcomings, and may He alleviate the suffering of the ummah.

The post Op-Ed: Can Zakat Be Used For Political Campaigning? An Argument In Favor appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

How do you know if you should stop fasting for Ramadan? How does fasting impact insulin resistance, testosterone, fertility, and weight gain? And, of course, we all have those other questions too: do injections break your fast? What about taking eye drops? What about inhalers?

Dr. Saadia Mian is here to cover all these common questions, and more, in the latest episode of the MuslimMatters podcast!

Anse Dr. Saadia Mian serves as an instructor for the Ribaat Academic Institute. She teaches the Quran memorization class entitled ‘The Crowning Venture’ and is also a tajwid instructor. She is board-certified endocrinologist and runs her clinic, ‘The Functional Endocrinologist.’ While in medical school, Anse Saadia traveled to Syria to study Arabic, Quran, and sacred knowledge. She has ijaazah in the Hafs recitation from Shaykh Abu al-Hassan Al-Kurdi (May Allah ﷻ be pleased with him) and Shaykh Krayem ar-Raji, an ijāza in the Forty Hadith of Imam Nawawi (may Allah ﷻ be pleased with him) and the Forty Hadith of Palestine. She is the author of the book, ‘The Crowning Venture: Inspiration from Women Who Have Memorized the Quran’ along with a companion journal, and also ‘Hormones in Sync,’ which will be released in Fall 2026.

Related:

Prepping The Mind, Body, And Soul For Ramadan

[Podcast] Man 2 Man: Decaffeinated – Physical Prep for Ramadan

The post [Podcast] Faith, Fasting, and Metabolic Wellness with Dr. Saadia Mian appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

There’s a certain type of politician and political activist who is quick to take credit when his party wins, but will blame everyone but himself and his allies when they lose, and can be very inventive in doing so. In the aftermath of the 2015 election, when the Liberal Democrats lost many of their seats both in the affluent suburbs and the rural south-west where they were the major exception to the Labour/Tory two-party politics of the rest of England, the theory was put about that they lost so many seats because the public had been warned by the Tories of the danger of a Labour/SNP coalition in the event of a hung parliament (i.e. one with no party majority), anything but admit that their conduct during the coalition government had angered many of their former supporters and that many of the others actually wanted the promised referendum on EU membership. The other day, I came across an article on the previous election, in 2010, in which Labour lost power and were replaced by that Tory/Liberal coalition which implemented austerity measures so as to quickly pay back the debts the previous government had incurred while bailing out banks to ensure that people did not lose their savings, while also sneaking through some tax cuts so that a future Labour government could not reverse them. The blog article blamed the Guardian for endorsing the Lib Dems and the intellectual Left for voting for them instead of Labour.

A brief look at election maps of the 2010 and 2005 elections will show that Labour lost considerably more seats to the Tories than they did to the Lib Dems (though they did lose a few, such as Norwich South). In 2005 there was a swathe of red on the map running eastwards from north Wales to the Humber estuary, taking in all of the urban areas of Yorkshire and Lancashire; in 2010, there were two, smaller, separate red sections. The “Red Wall” had already started to fragment. Labour also lost a swathe of seats running southwards from the Pennines down to the Midlands, which we might call the “Red Column”, to the Tories as well as a number of seats in the Thames estuary and the large towns (as opposed to cities) of the south, the Midlands and East Anglia. The Lib Dems, although they increased their voter share by around 1%, actually lost five seats (this is an estimate, as electoral boundaries had changed). Labour’s vote in the north Midlands was reduced to just the urban areas, while the urban islands further south disappeared.  This could not have been down to a Guardian editorial; the decision of the Sun newspaper to switch its support to the Tories would have been more significant, but there is no reflection on why Labour lost so much support in this part of the country.

Labour’s strategy in the late 90s was to target the same voters who had defected to Thatcher’s Tories in 1979 and after: lower-middle class or ‘C2’ voters, as well as voters in the Midlands and those from working-class backgrounds in places like Essex who had moved beyond the cities as their circumstances improved. The theory of the time was that for Labour, the classes above C2 (meaning the wealthy and salaried professionals, classes A to C1) will never vote Labour in large numbers while those below (D and E) always will, so need not be targeted. To target the working class was seen as electoral suicide; people who talked of it were perceived as Scargillites or dinosaurs. Blair’s government was influenced by the now disgraced (and always regarded with much suspicion) Peter Mandelson, who early on in the Blair government told Peter Hain, a minister of state in early Blair cabinets and a cabinet minister later, that the working class had nowhere else to go. A little over twenty years later, that same working class sent Boris Johnson back into Downing Street with a substantial majority. A major contributory factor may have been Blair’s decision to allow migration of workers from eastern Europe into the UK in 2004, when other EU countries did not, as was the norm when weaker economies joined the union. I have written about the effect this had on the labour market in the UK at the time and it was not as simple as “they’re taking our jobs”: a ready supply of migrant workers frees employers from having to invest in or take risks on local talent, and when many of them are not setting up homes here but living in rooms and sending money home, they will not demand wages appropriate for living and raising a family in the UK. Academics like to stick their fingers in their ears and talk of the “lump of labour fallacy”, but in a country with a labour market as loosely regulated as ours is, a buyer’s market does not favour the working class.

Blair won a landslide in 1997 and a respectable majority in 2001 on a pro-European and pro-Maastricht platform. Leaving the EU was lunatic fringe politics at that time; Labour had lost elections it fought on the pledge of leaving the EEC in the 1980s. By 2010, the Tories could gain the largest share of the vote and by 2015 a majority on the basis of a pledge for an EU referendum in their manifesto. As they were in coalition with the Lib Dems in the 2010 parliament, they could not deliver it as the Lib Dems were opposed; they finally did in 2016. The 2015 election and Labour’s performance is often judged as Miliband’s failure — either by running on an “old left” platform or being too indistinguishable from the Tories — but the 2016 referendum result shows otherwise: that was a Brexit election, and Tony Blair had lost it in 2004 before Ed Miliband ever ran for leadership. It is possible that, had the Tories won a majority in 2010 and held the referendum a few years earlier, maybe in the afterglow of the 2012 Olympics, the result would have gone the other way, but we can only speculate. The Lib Dems in coalition only postponed the inevitable as regards the EU referendum and did little to mitigate the Tories’ austerity drive.

The Blairite faction has a tendency to take the credit for Labour’s wins when they are in charge, but blame everyone else (and especially the Left) for the losses (if one of theirs loses, as with Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, he will be accused of tacking too far left). They assume Blair won because he was Tony Blair, and because he alone knew what had to be done, and ignore the factors in his favour, particularly the constant scandals that afflict late-term Tory governments and the Tory vote being split with a hardline anti-Europe faction such as the Referendum Party, Brexit Party or Reform UK; they also ignore the fact that his actions led to a dramatic loss in the party’s fortunes in their third term which the new leadership failed to put right after Blair got out before his mess hit the fan. The 2005 result, where Labour won a majority off 35.2% of the popular vote, should have been a wake-up call, but it was not heeded and the party let Gordon Brown run unopposed for the leadership as if he had a right to it (when you point out that Blair won this election by the skin of his teeth, his fans simply counter “he won”). They are also as messianic and blind to their leaders’ faults as the Corbyn cult were to their leader’s: they mistake cowardice and meanness for wisdom and they trivialise major mistakes, even crimes: our involvement with the Iraq war in Blair’s case, the collusion in the Gaza genocide in Starmer’s. They expect lifelong Labour supporters to just accept this as the cost of winning. They expect whole sections of society to just accept getting shafted for the same reason, because they’re not as important as another group of people whose votes they need, whether it’s the old working class under Blair or Muslims under Starmer, and are shocked and angry when there is no acceptance.

There is also a tendency towards superstitious reasoning. This also affects Democrat supporters in the US. The previous two times a Labour party went into an election in government but with a different prime minister to the elected one, Labour lost, they say, so Labour should just get behind Starmer despite such things as the party’s persistent low opinion poll ratings, sometimes well below 20% with Reform UK polling over 30%. Labour have never actually ousted a sitting prime minister; Harold Wilson resigned of his own accord in 1976, and Blair in 2007 having stated in 2004 that he would not seek a fourth term, i.e. contest an election in 2009 or 2010. I heard the same reasoning from the late Victoria Brownworth, a Democrat-supporting journalist in the US, about whether Joe Biden should have stood down as candidate on account of his failing mental state during his presidency: the last time a Democratic president declined to stand for a second term (Lyndon Johnson in 1968), his successor lost, as did Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice-president who succeeded him as candidate. That’s two occasions each in each country. There just aren’t enough cases to establish a pattern; James Callaghan and Gordon Brown served three years each and failed to be re-elected for different reasons.

Labour are a year and a half into a five year term; they have all that time to give people a reason to vote Labour in 2029. Mid-term blues are not a new thing but Labour or the Tories continually scoring 21% or less definitely is. It could be that the Reform vote will tear itself apart come 2029 as Restore Britain absorbs much of the racist vote that previously went to Farage’s party, but that is not a risk Labour can take. Labour must understand that if they do not cater to people’s needs, Reform or Restore Britain will cater to their prejudices while their “thinking vote” will not show up if there is any alternative and sometimes even where there is none. There is a sense that we expect better of the Labour party: this sentiment was heard often during the antisemitism debate, and should be heard louder in any debate on the Government’s support for Israel during its genocide in Gaza and its repression towards those who oppose it here. We also do not vote Labour expecting swingeing cuts to disability benefits or special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision in schools. The prospect of a far-right government led by Nigel Farage, let alone Rupert Lowe, off 30% of the vote because of the legacy parties’ unpopularity is a dire one; the leaders will get by on law work, public speaking and think tanks, while ordinary people suffer. If Keir Starmer cannot take this on, he should step aside and leave the job to someone who can; if the party continues to perform poorly in local elections and by-elections, it must take the initiative before it is too late; if you go into the next election and poll the predicted 19% to Farage’s 30%, you will not have the Left or the Guardian to blame.

This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim youth are actually facing.

The Loneliness No One Talks About

There’s a specific kind of loneliness that Muslim teens experience that most parents don’t fully grasp:

It’s not just being physically alone. It’s being the only one who:

• Doesn’t drink or smoke weed (marijuana) at parties
• Steps away to pray during lunch
• Fasts during Ramadan while everyone else eats
• Can’t go on a date like everyone else
• Sits quietly while friends talk about their weekends

It’s the loneliness of being visibly different in every single space.

And the constant question underneath: “Is it worth it? To be the weird one? The one who doesn’t fit? The one that other people always have to make exceptions for?”

The Two Types of Compromise

In the video above, Dr. Ali explores how Muslim teens face two simultaneous pressures:

External Pressure:

• “Just one drink or one hit, no one will know”
• “Why can’t you just be like everyone else?”
• “You’re taking this religion thing too seriously”

Internal Pressure:

• “What if they’re right? Am I being extreme?”
• “Everyone else seems fine. Maybe I’m the problem.”
• “If no one here knows I’m Muslim, does it even matter?”

Here’s what makes it dangerous: The compromise always feels small at first.

Just one prayer missed to avoid awkwardness. Just one lie about why you can’t go to that party. Just one time staying silent when someone disrespects the Prophet ﷺ.

But these “small” compromises add up slowly. And eventually, you look in the mirror and don’t even recognize who’s looking back.

The Prophet Who Was Completely Alone

Prophet Yusuf’s situation was extreme:

• No community – Enslaved in Egypt, zero Muslim friends
• No freedom – Literal slave with no autonomy
• No support – Separated from family, isolated
• Maximum temptation – Powerful, beautiful woman who wanted him
• Zero consequences – “She locked the doors… no one would ever know”

If anyone had an excuse to compromise, it was Yusuf.

But his response Surah Yusuf, [12:23]:

“I seek refuge in Allah! He is my master, who has treated me well. Indeed, wrongdoers never succeed.”

Notice what Yusuf does:

1. Immediately centers Allah

• Not “I can’t”
• “Ma’adh Allah”—I seek refuge in Allah
• His refusal is rooted in his relationship with Allah, not fear of consequences

2. Remembers his identity

• “He is my master, who has treated me well”
• Even in slavery, even isolated, Yusuf knows doesn’t forget gratitude
• His identity isn’t tied to his circumstances

3. States a principle

• “Wrongdoers never succeed”
• This isn’t judgment of her
• It’s truth: Compromising never leads where you think it will

What Happened Next (The Part We Skip)

Here’s what most people forget: Yusuf went to prison. For years.

He did the right thing. He refused to compromise. And he suffered for it.

No miracle rescue. No immediate reward. Just years in a cell because he chose integrity over comfort.

Sit with that.

Because this is what we don’t tell Muslim teens: Sometimes doing the right thing costs you. Sometimes being the only Muslim in the room means you pay a price.

But here’s what the Quran shows us: Even in prison, Yusuf didn’t lose himself.

He taught tawheed to his cellmates. He served them spiritually. He remained Yusuf.

The cost of compromise is always higher than the cost of integrity.

The Surprising Truth About Integrity

Here is a point that challenges conventional wisdom:

“People don’t respect compromise. They respect conviction—even when they don’t share it.”

This is backed by research:

Studies on “moral credibility” show that people trust and respect individuals who maintain consistent values, even when they disagree with those values.

Translation for teens:

• When you water down who you are to fit in, people tolerate you—they don’t respect you
• When you own your identity confidently, people might disagree—but they will respect you

The college student in Dr. Ali’s story learned this:

“When you stopped being yourself, did people actually like you more? Or did they just tolerate a version of you that’s easier to ignore?”

Answer: “I think they stopped respecting me.”

For Parents: What Your Teen Isn’t Telling You

1. The pressure is relentless

You experienced Islamophobia. But you had a Muslim community to retreat to AND you already had developed your identity years before.

Your teen is often the ONLY Muslim in:

• Their friend group
• Their sports team
• Their classes
• Their workplace

They don’t have the luxury of retreat. It’s constant navigation.

2. Compromise happens in secret

You see them pray at home. You don’t see them skip prayers at school.

You see them fast. You don’t see them lie about why they’re not eating lunch to avoid the questions.

You see hijab. You don’t see the internal debate every morning about taking it off.

By the time you notice, the compromise is already deep.

3. They need tools, not lectures

Telling them “just be strong” doesn’t help when they’re the only one not drinking or partying.

What helps:

• Roleplay responses to common scenarios
• Connect them with other Muslim teens who are navigating this
• Share YOUR stories of standing alone (if you have them)
• Celebrate when they make hard choices, even small ones

For Teens: Practical Tools for Being Yusuf

1. Pre-decide your boundaries

Don’t wait until you’re in the moment to figure out what you’ll do.

Decide NOW:

• Will I pray even if I have to explain it?
• Will I correct people when they mispronounce my name?
• Will I skip events that require me to compromise?

Yusuf didn’t deliberate when tempted. He’d already decided who he was.

2. Find your “prison mission”

Yusuf found purpose even in prison—he served his cellmates spiritually.

Where can you be “Yusuf” in your hardest space?

• Be the one person with integrity in your group
• Be the one who doesn’t participate in gossip or bullying or ridiculing someone weaker
• Be the one who helps others even when you’re struggling

PURPOSE BEATS PRESSURE EVERY TIME.

3. Know that being alone doesn’t mean you’re wrong

Sometimes being the only one means you’re the only one brave enough.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

“Islam began as something strange and will return to being strange, so glad tidings to the strangers.” (Muslim)

You’re not weird or a freak for staying true to yourself. You’re exactly where you should be.

4. Build your refuge

The Prophet Yusuf had Allah. Who/what do you have?

• A Muslim friend who gets it (even if they’re far away)
• A weekly halaqa or youth group
• Daily Quran that reminds you who you are
• Regular check-ins with someone who holds you accountable
• Remember that as you build and develop your relationship with Allah, you too will find immense comfort and relief in your own personal relationship with Allah, just like the Prophet Yusuf

You can’t survive isolation without a refuge.

Discussion Questions for Families

For Teens:

1. Where are you currently compromising to fit in? Be specific.
2. What would it cost you to stop compromising? What’s it costing you to continue?
3. Who is your “refuge” when you feel alone in your values?

For Parents:

1. When was the last time you stood alone for your values? Share that story with your teen.
2. How can you create a home environment where your teen feels safe admitting when they’ve compromised or fallen?
3. Are you celebrating when they make hard choices, or only noticing when they fail?

For Discussion Together:

1. What does “success” look like? Material comfort? Or integrity maintained?
2. How can we support each other when doing the right thing costs something?
3. What’s one area where we can all be more “Yusuf”—uncompromising in our values?

The Ultimate Question

Yusuf spent years in prison for his integrity. But he never spent a single day unsure of who he was.

Can you say the same?

Or have you compromised so much that you’ve forgotten your own name?

This Ramadan, maybe the question isn’t “How do I fit in?”

Maybe it’s “Who do I become when I stop trying to?”

Continue the Journey

This is Night 4 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 5 tackles “The Comparison Trap”—why measuring yourself against others is destroying your peace, and what Surat al-Hujuraat teaches about true worth.

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community: https://30nightswithquran.beehiiv.com/

Related:

When Honoring Parents Feels Like Erasing Yourself | Night 3 with the Qur’an

5 Signs Your Teen is Struggling with Imposter Syndrome | Night 2 with the Qur’an

The post When You’re the Only Muslim in the Room | Night 4 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

I see it every year. Two weeks before the moon is sighted, a specific “Ramadan Anxiety” starts to settle in.

It’s a heavy, unspoken pressure. We feel the sudden, frantic need to “fix” fractured family ties that have been broken for years, as if a change in month could magically override years of boundary violations and deep-seated trauma. We are told this is the month to ask for what we want—to cry in Tahajjud—as if our spiritual performance is a transaction that will force the universe to grant the wishes our hearts desire. But what if we’re too numb to even know what to ask for? What if the tears just won’t come?

So, we put on the mask.

We have turned Ramadan into a competition. Who reads the most Quran? Who stayed up the latest for Taraweeh? Who has the most “productive” schedule? We post polished pictures of our Ramadan decor and our perfectly set Iftar tables, but let’s address the elephant in the room: Many of us are faking the “Ramadan High.”

The Exhaustion of the Competition

When we focus on the competition, we are essentially performing for an audience of people—even when we’re standing alone in the dark at 3:00 AM. We worry about how our journey looks to others because if we aren’t “doing,” we’re forced to “be.”

And “being” is terrifying.

“Being” means admitting that you’re entering the holiest month feeling burnt out. It means acknowledging that you’re angry, or that you’re struggling with your mental health, or that you feel like a fraud. We mask because we’re afraid that if we show our true, messy selves, we won’t be worthy of the Rahma (mercy) we’re seeking.

The “NPC” Muslim

In our digital age, it’s easy to slip into being the “NPC” version of a Muslim—the non-player character who just mindlessly follows a script, reciting words we don’t feel and smiling through the burnout because that’s what the “level” requires.

Why do we do this? Because looking within is painful. It’s much easier to finish a reading goal than it is to sit in silence and ask: “Why am I so disconnected from my own heart?” But as a therapist, I have to tell you: We cannot bypass our humanity to get to our spirituality. Allah doesn’t want the programmed version of you. He didn’t ask for a filtered, hollowed-out performance.

He asked for YOU.

The one who is tired. The one who is struggling. The one who doesn’t have it all together. If we spend thirty days ignoring our internal reality just to keep up with the competition, we aren’t “growing”—we’re just suppressing. True ‘ibaadah isn’t found in mindless rituals; it’s found in the raw, honest space where your real life meets your faith.

Trading Performance for Presence

As a therapist, I want to challenge you to drop the “perfect” act this year. Honesty with ourselves and others is the only way to actually experience the healing this month offers. Here’s what that looks like:

 – Honest Du’a (The “Unfiltered” Prayer): Instead of reciting a laundry list of things you think you should want, try being radical. “Ya Allah, I feel nothing right now. Please meet me in this numbness.” That is a more sincere prayer than a thousand words you don’t mean.

 – Authentic Boundaries: If “fixing family ties” means breaking your mental health to sit with people who belittle you, honesty looks like protecting your heart while praying for theirs from a distance. Healing isn’t a performance for the relatives.

 – Measuring “State” over “Stats”: At the end of the day, instead of asking “How many pages did I read?”, ask yourself: “Was I present for one minute today? Did I let myself feel a real emotion without judging it?”

 – Community Vulnerability: When someone asks “How is your Ramadan going?”, try dropping the “Alhamdulillah, amazing!” mask if it isn’t true. Try: “Honestly, it’s been a bit of a struggle for me mentally this year, but I’m taking it one day at a time.”

The mask protects us from being seen, but it also prevents us from being loved and healed. This year, let’s try something different. Stop “performing” Ramadan, and let it just be. Bring your actual, messy, aching self to the prayer rug and see what happens when you finally stop pretending.

 

Related:

– Recognizing Allah’s Mercy For What It Is: Reclaiming Agency Through Ramadan

– Ramadan In The Quiet Moments: The Spiritual Power Of What We Don’t Do

 

The post The Ramadan Mask: Why We Perform Piety And Bypass The Soul appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

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Massive US file release withholds the telling facts leaving investigative journalists, historians and bloggers to speculate on the larger picture from the crumbs on offer.

Co-authored by Mufti Abdullah Nana and Dr. Shafi Lodhi

Picture the last time you donated during Ramadan. Maybe you were scrolling through your phone after taraweeh, watching a video of children in Gaza searching through rubble. Or perhaps you sat in your masjid as a charismatic speaker painted scenes of suffering so vivid you reached for your wallet/purse before he finished talking. You gave $100, $500, maybe more. You felt that catch in your throat, that pull of obligation and compassion.

Now answer this: what if someone told you that $30 of your $100 donation went not to buy food or care for children, but into the personal bank account of the person who asked you to give?

Would you want to know? Would it matter to you?

In early February 2026, a review of IRS Form 990 filings revealed that Human Appeal USA had listed $2,040,887 in payments to legal scholar and activist Khaled Beydoun for “professional fundraising services” during the fiscal year ending in 2024. According to the same filing, Beydoun had raised $7,120,440 for the charity through online crowdfunding campaigns. In other words, nearly 29 cents of every dollar donated was recorded as compensation for a single fundraiser.

Beydoun has denied receiving any personal payment, calling the filing a “clerical error” and stating that the funds were directed to a nonprofit organization focused on combating Islamophobia rather than to him personally. Human Appeal USA has echoed this explanation. But as advocacy groups have pointed out, no proof has been provided that the money was transferred to such an organization, and the charity has not amended its IRS filings to correct the alleged error.

Whether the specifics of this case are ultimately resolved in Beydoun’s favor or not, the controversy has forced the Muslim community to confront a systemic problem it has long avoided discussing. That problem is the widespread, undisclosed practice of commission-based fundraising that is far bigger than one person or one charity.

The Gold Rush

Every Ramadan and Dhul Hijjah, when Muslim giving reaches its annual peak, a well-oiled machine kicks into gear. Crowdfunding platforms compete for donor dollars. Influencers and professional speakers fan out across the country, appearing at masajid and speaking events. Their appeals are polished, their rhetoric powerful. Children are dying. Families are starving. The ummah is bleeding. Give now. Give generously. Allah is watching.

Millions of dollars flow in. Six-figure paydays for individual fundraisers during Ramadan alone aren’t unusual.

Meanwhile, at your local masjid, a different version of the same story unfolds. A visiting speaker arrives, often someone with name recognition and social media following. He delivers a moving khutbah. He talks about our duty to the suffering, about standing before Allah on the Day of Judgment and being asked what we did when our brothers and sisters needed us. Then comes the appeal. Checks are written. Cash is collected. The speaker leaves with his cut, a percentage negotiated privately with the masjid board, unknown to the congregation who just opened their wallets.

This is not overhead, the legitimate costs of running a charity that everyone accepts. This is a commission. A finder’s fee that scales infinitely with how much emotional urgency the fundraiser can generate.

Ask yourself: Did you consent to this? Did anyone tell you? Did you have a choice?

When the Experts Settled This Debate

Outside the Muslim nonprofit bubble, this question has been settled for years.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals, the largest professional body representing fundraisers in the world, is unequivocal. Standards 21 through 24 of the AFP Code of Ethical Standards explicitly prohibit percentage-based compensation, finder’s fees, and commissions tied to the amount of money raised. Standard 23 states that compensation “may include bonuses or merit pay in line with organizational practices but may never be based on a percentage of funds raised.” Standard 24 directs members to “decline receiving or paying finder’s fees, commissions, or compensation based on a percentage of funds raised.”

The National Council of Nonprofits is equally direct: “It is NOT appropriate for a nonprofit to compensate a fundraising professional based on a percentage of the money raised.”

These are not obscure positions. They represent the consensus of the entire professional fundraising world, built on decades of experience and hard learned lessons. The charity scandals of previous decades taught the nonprofit sector a painful lesson about what happens when financial incentives are misaligned with charitable missions.

The reasoning behind the prohibition is straightforward. Commission-based compensation puts personal financial gain above the donor’s trust and the organization’s mission. It incentivizes short-term cash grabs over long-term relationship building with donors. It creates pressure to use manipulative tactics that maximize the amount raised in a given moment rather than tactics that serve the organization’s genuine needs. And when donors eventually discover that their heartfelt contributions were significantly diverted to pay a commissioned agent, it erodes trust not just in one organization but in the entire charitable sector.

Percentage-based compensation doesn’t just create a conflict of interest; it makes the conflict the entire structure of the relationship. The fundraiser’s personal income directly competes with the donor’s intent and the charity’s mission. The more they take, the less it reaches the cause. Every charity dollar that goes into the fundraiser’s pocket is a dollar that doesn’t feed a hungry child or rebuild a destroyed home.

The Muslim nonprofit sector is operating as if it is exempt from these standards, as if the rules of ethical fundraising don’t apply to Muslim organizations.

What Islam Actually Says About This

Some defenders of commission-based fundraising in the Muslim community invoke the Quranic concept of al-amileen alayha,  those employed in the collection and distribution of zakat, who are themselves entitled to a share of the funds they collect. This is mentioned in Surah At-Tawbah as one of the eight categories of zakat recipients.

“Zakah expenditures are only for the poor and for the needy and for those employed to collect [zakah] and for bringing hearts together [for Islam] and for freeing captives [or slaves] and for those in debt and for the cause of Allah and for the [stranded] traveler – an obligation [imposed] by Allah . And Allah is Knowing and Wise.” [Surah At-Tawbah: 9;60]

The argument goes that since Islam itself recognizes that those who collect charitable funds may be compensated from those funds, there is nothing wrong with paying fundraisers a percentage.

This argument confuses categories in a way that does not survive scrutiny. The Quranic provision for zakat collectors envisions fair compensation for the labor of collection and distribution.  It does not create a percentage-based commission structure that scales infinitely with the amount collected. There is a fundamental difference between paying a worker a fair wage for their time and effort, and paying an agent 29% of every dollar that passes through their hands. The classical jurists who discussed the share of the amil (collector) debated appropriate limits precisely because they understood the moral hazard of allowing collectors to enrich themselves disproportionately from funds intended for the poor.

This distinction was recognized not only in theory but in lived institutional practice. Maulana Ashraf ʿAlī Thānwī explicitly condemned the commission model in the context of religious fundraising. He wrote1:

“Madāris kī ṭaraf se kamīshan par safīr rakhna sharṭ fāsid hai.”
 “Appointing an agent on a commission basis on behalf of madrasas is an invalid condition.”

In the terminology of fiqh, sharṭ fāsid is not a mild critique. It denotes a legally defective contractual condition that corrupts the agreement itself. In other words, the problem is not merely optics or excessiveness; the very structure of tying religious fundraising to a percentage incentive is considered unsound because it distorts intention, creates exploitation risk, and undermines the trust inherent in charitable transactions.

Islamic contract law (fiqh al-mu’amalat) provides additional clarity. The principles governing hiring and employment (ijara) emphasize that compensation must be clearly agreed upon, transparent to all relevant parties, and free from gharar (ambiguity, uncertainty, or deception). When a donor gives sadaqah or zakat believing that their contribution is going to feed a starving child, and a significant undisclosed portion instead goes to compensate a fundraiser, the element of gharar is plain. The donor did not consent to that allocation. They were not informed. The transaction, as presented to them, was misleading.

There is a broader principle at stake as well. Muslims are called to a standard of honesty and transparency in financial dealings that should exceed, not fall below, the ethical norms of the societies in which they live. If the mainstream nonprofit world has concluded that commission-based fundraising is unethical, the Muslim community should be leading the conversation, not trailing behind it, and not exploiting the gap.

The Crisis of Knowledge

Most Muslim donors have absolutely no idea any of this is happening. They see appeals for Gaza relief, Yemen famine aid, and Syria orphan care. They give because they want to help desperate people. The campaign page doesn’t mention commissions. The masjid announcement doesn’t mention commissions.

The emotional context makes this even worse. These appeals weaponize human suffering and religious duty. Images of dying children. Stories of families fleeing genocide. Reports of famine and disease. Donors give out of religious obligation and emotional urgency, often during Ramadan when they’re fasting and spiritually heightened. Taking undisclosed percentage cuts during these campaigns—campaigns that exploit the most vulnerable human beings on earth to open wallets—should shock our collective conscience.

“Donors give from a place of spiritual obligation and moral anguish. To exploit that emotional state while concealing how their money will actually be divided is a betrayal of trust that carries weight in this life and in the next.”

Technically, some of this information is discoverable. IRS Form 990 filings (the same documents that brought the Beydoun arrangement to light) require that nonprofits disclose payments to professional fundraisers. But these filings are dense, technical documents buried in databases that ordinary donors never access. The information is legally available in the way that a needle is technically available in a haystack. No one browsing a crowdfunding campaign page encounters a disclosure that reads: “28.7% of your donation will go to compensate the fundraiser promoting this campaign.”

At the masjid level, the opacity is even worse. When a traveling fundraiser stands at the minbar during the last ten nights of Ramadan and delivers a devastating account of children dying in a war zone, and then the donation requests are made, there is no announcement that the speaker will be taking 15% or 30% of whatever is collected. The congregants who give, often sacrificially, often from modest means, often with tears in their eyes, are making a decision based on incomplete information. They believe their money is going to the cause. They are not told otherwise.

The emotional context makes this worse. These fundraising appeals are not selling magazine subscriptions. They are tied to the most visceral human suffering: genocide, famine, orphaned children, bombed hospitals. Donors give from a place of spiritual obligation and moral anguish. To exploit that emotional state while concealing how their money will actually be divided is a betrayal of trust that carries weight in this life and in the next.

The Reform We Need

The path forward requires action from institutions that already exist and already claim moral authority over the Muslim community’s collective life.

 – National Muslim organizations, fiqh councils, and nonprofit networks must develop and publish explicit ethical fundraising guidelines. These guidelines should be modeled on the AFP Code of Ethical Standards and should contain clear, unambiguous language banning commission-based compensation for fundraisers. Fundraisers should be paid fair salaries, flat fees, or hourly rates for their work, never a percentage of the money they raise. This is the established standard in every other sector of professional fundraising, and it is long past time for the Muslim nonprofit world to adopt it.

 – Every fundraising effort must include mandatory disclosure at the point of donation. Whether online or at a masjid, donors must be told before they give how much of their donation will go to fundraising costs, administrative overhead, and third-party compensation. This information should be prominently displayed, not buried in fine print or tax filings that no one reads. Informed consent is a basic Islamic requirement for a valid transaction.

 – Masjid boards must ban commission-based fundraisers and publicly disclose the flat fee that they pay visiting fundraisers. The figure should be announced to the congregation before the appeal begins. It should not be buried in obscure filings or hidden away. If a fundraiser is being paid 20% of whatever is raised, the people writing the checks deserve to know that before they write them.

 – Crowdfunding platforms serving the Muslim community must require charities to disclose fundraiser compensation arrangements on the campaign page itself. Donors should not need to file FOIA requests or dig through ProPublica databases to learn how their money is being allocated. The information should be right there, next to the donate button.

 – Every Muslim nonprofit should publish an accessible, plain-language annual report showing how funds were allocated. Not just an IRS Form 990. Instead, a clear, readable document that any donor can understand, showing what percentage of funds went to programs, what went to administration, and what went to fundraising compensation.

Why This Hasn’t Happened

There is an uncomfortable reason why these reforms have not already happened.

Many individuals who sit on the boards of major Muslim organizations, who speak at their conventions, who would be tasked with writing these ethical guidelines, are themselves participants in commission-based fundraising. Some are the most prominent voices in Muslim America.

The conflict of interest is structural. The people with authority to reform the system are often the ones profiting from it. Asking them to write guidelines that ban commission-based fundraising is like asking someone to vote for a pay cut. It is not impossible; people of conscience do act against their own financial interests, but it requires acknowledging why this conversation has been avoided for so long.

This is also why reform cannot be left to insiders alone. The donor community, the millions of ordinary Muslims who fund these organizations with their charitable contributions, must demand change from below. Donors should ask direct questions before giving: How is the fundraiser being compensated? What percentage of my donation goes to the cause? Will you show me a breakdown? If the answers are evasive, the donor should give elsewhere.

Scholars and community leaders who are not entangled in the fundraising circuit bear a particular responsibility to speak on this issue clearly, without hedging, and without worrying about alienating colleagues who benefit from the current arrangement. The community needs voices that are not compromised by the very practice being examined.

The Trust We’re Breaking

Every dollar a Muslim donates in the name of Allah is an amanah. It is a trust placed in the hands of the charity, the platform, the fundraiser, and every person in the chain between the donor’s intention and the beneficiary’s relief. The Quran warns, in Surah Al-Anfal:

“O you who believe, do not betray Allah and the Messenger, nor betray your trusts while you know.” [Surah Al-Anfal; 8:27]

The Beydoun controversy is not one person’s scandal. It is a window into a system that has operated for years without adequate scrutiny, accountability, or transparency. The question is not whether Khaled Beydoun personally did or did not receive $2 million. The question is how many other arrangements like this exist across the Muslim nonprofit landscape, undisclosed, unexamined, and unknown to the donors who fund them.

Ramadan is days away. Millions of Muslims will open their hearts and their wallets in pursuit of Allah’s Pleasure, giving to causes they believe in with a sincerity that should humble anyone involved in the process of collecting and distributing those funds. They deserve to know where their money is going. They deserve honesty. They deserve a community that holds its institutions to a standard worthy of the trust being placed in them.

Donors: ask questions before you give. Masjid boards: adopt transparent policies and disclose what you pay fundraisers. Existing Muslim institutions and fiqh councils: draft and publish clear ethical guidelines, even when doing so is inconvenient for those in your own ranks. Scholars: speak on this without equivocation, even if doing so costs you your speaking fees.

The time for this conversation was years ago. The next best time is now, before another Ramadan passes with millions of dollars flowing through a system that betrays both the donors and the beneficiaries.

 

Related:

– Zakat Eligibility of Islamic Organizations

– This Article Could be Zakat-Eligible

1    Ashraf ʿAlī Thānwī, Ashraf al-Aḥkām (Tatimmah Imdād al-Fatāwā), Karachi: Idārah al-Taʿlīfāt, 318.

The post Where Does Your Dollar Go? – How We Can Avoid Another Beydoun Controversy appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

This is Lakemba – the suburb that Pauline Hanson claims makes people ‘feel unwelcome’ – on the first night of Ramadan

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Muslims donate four times more than the average adult in Britain but banking restrictions mean many humanitarian projects already affected by aid cuts will not get donations

Buckets passed around mosques, fundraisers shared on WhatsApp groups and televised appeals will raise hundreds of millions of pounds for charity over the coming weeks of Ramadan.

Much of the £2bn raised by British Muslims each year comes when giving surges during the holy month, but the full potential of that support – especially at a time of US, British and European government aid cuts – is being limited by challenges charities say they face in sending money abroad.

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Exclusive: AFP comment comes as Bilal El-Hayek, mayor of Canterbury Bankstown, says One Nation leader’s comments ‘will incite someone’

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Federal police say they have “received reports of a crime” in relation to comments made to the media by Pauline Hanson this week.

But an AFP spokesperson did not say whether they had begun a criminal investigation, only that they would have more to say “at an appropriate time”.

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Israeli police raid compound, arrest staff and curb Muslims’ access as Ramadan begins

A six-decade agreement governing Muslim and Jewish prayer at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site has “collapsed” under pressure from Jewish extremists backed by the Israeli government, experts have warned.

A series of arrests of Muslim caretaker staff, bans on access for hundreds of Muslims, and escalating incursions by radical Jewish groups culminated this week in the arrest of an imam of al-Aqsa mosque and an Israeli police raid during evening prayers on the first night of Ramadan.

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This series is a collaboration between Dr. Ali and MuslimMatters, bringing Quranic wisdom to the questions Muslim families are actually navigating.

The Question That Sometimes Breaks Families

“How do I choose between obeying my parents and preserving my deen?”

This is the question I hear most often from Muslim teens in my practice. And it’s the question most parents never expect their children to ask.

For parents who sacrificed everything—left their countries, worked multiple jobs, endured discrimination—to give their children “a better life,” this question feels like ingratitude. Like rejection.

For teens navigating dual identities, generational gaps, and pressure from all sides, this question feels like survival. Like breathing.

And the tragedy is: Both are right.

The Real Conflict Isn’t Islam—It’s Culture

Here’s what makes this so painful: Most parent-teen conflicts aren’t about Islam at all. They’re about culture masquerading as religion.

Common scenarios:

• Marriage: Parents insist on someone from “back home” who speaks the language. Teen wants to marry a convert or someone from a different ethnic background. Both parties claim “Islamic values.”
• Education: Parents push medical/engineering/law careers (financial security). Teen wants to study Islamic studies or social work (meaningful impact). Both claim they’re honoring Islam.
• Mental health: Teen needs therapy for anxiety/depression. Parents say “just pray more” because therapy wasn’t available in their generation or because of the social stigma surrounding mental illness in the community. Both want the teen to be “strong in faith.”

The pattern: Parents equate their cultural experience with Islam. Teens separate the two. Neither side realizes they’re arguing about different things.

What Surat Luqman Actually Teaches

In the video above, Dr. Ali unpacks ayaat 14-15 of Surat Luqman, which present a revolutionary framework:

First, the obligation [31:14]:

“And We have commanded people to honor their parents. Your mother bore you through hardship after hardship…”

Clear. Non-negotiable. Honor your parents. Especially your mother, whose sacrifice is beyond measure.

Then, the boundary [31:15]:

“But if they pressure you to associate with Me what you have no knowledge of, do not obey them. Still keep their company in this world courteously…”

The Quran itself creates space for respectful disagreement.

The Five-Step Process Before Disobedience

But—and this is critical—the ayah about “do not obey them” is not a free pass. Classical scholars emphasize that this is a last resort after exhausting all other options.

The Islamic Process:

1. Make extensive du’a

• For Allah to guide you AND your parents
• For Allah to soften hearts (yours AND theirs)
• For Allah to show you if you’re wrong
• Duration: Weeks, not days. Months if necessary.

2. Consult knowledgeable, righteous scholars

• Not friends who’ll validate you
• Not random internet fatwas or AI
• Actual scholars who know you, know both fiqh and understand the circumstances of your dilemma, and will tell you hard truths
• Ask: “Am I obligated to obey in this situation?”

3. Examine your intentions brutally

• Is this really about protecting your deen?
• Or is it about wanting things your way?
• Are you certain this will cause harm, or just discomfort?
• Your nafs (ego) is a skilled liar—be honest before Allah

4. Try every respectful avenue

• Involve family mediators
• Involve community elders that your parents respect
• Give it TIME (parents sometimes need months to process)
• Show maturity through actions, not just arguments

5. Understand what “harm” actually means

Clear harm:

• Forcing you into marriage without consent
• Preventing halal marriage while you’re at serious risk of sin
• Demanding participation in shirk or explicit haram

NOT harm:

• Discomfort
• Disagreement with their timeline
• Thinking they’re “old-fashioned”
• Wanting to study something they don’t approve of

If you’re unsure which category applies, that’s exactly why you need scholars, not solo decision-making.

What Parents Need to Understand

If you’re a parent reading this, here’s what your teen might not be able to articulate:

1. The world they’re navigating is genuinely different

You grew up surrounded by Muslims. They’re often the only Muslim in the room.

You had clear cultural scripts. They’re writing new ones, sometimes on a daily basis.

You could be Muslim without explaining. They have to justify their existence daily.

This doesn’t make them weaker. It makes their challenge different.

2. “We sacrificed for you” can become a weapon

Your sacrifice is real and valid. But when it’s used to shut down every conversation, it becomes:

• A debt they can never repay
• A guilt that poisons the relationship
• A barrier to honest communication

Try: “We sacrificed because we love you, not so you’d owe us your entire future.”

3. Your timeline isn’t universal

You married maybe at 20. The economy has changed.

You never needed therapy. Mental health wasn’t discussed; that doesn’t mean it wasn’t needed.

Your arranged marriage worked. That doesn’t make all arranged marriages right for everyone.

Their path can honor Islam AND look different from yours.

4. Involvement ≠ Control

You can be part of their decisions without making all their decisions.

Teen wants to marry someone you didn’t choose? Be involved in the vetting process, but don’t veto based purely on ethnicity.

Teen wants a different career? Discuss practicalities, but don’t threaten to cut them off for not following your dream.

What Teens Need to Understand

And if you’re a teen reading this, here’s what you might not see yet:

1. Your parent’s fear comes from love

When they say no to early marriage, they’re thinking: “What if it fails and ruins your education?” or “He’s just not mature enough to handle such a complex situation and I don’t want him to get hurt.”

When they push a certain career, they’re thinking: “I don’t want you to struggle like I did.”

When they resist therapy, they’re thinking: “What if people think we’re bad parents?”

Their methods might be wrong. Their motivation is usually love.

2. You don’t have all the information

You see your situation. They’ve seen hundreds of similar situations—and the outcomes.

You think they don’t understand. Sometimes they understand too well because they’ve watched others fail.

This doesn’t make them automatically right. But it should make you pause before assuming they’re automatically wrong.

3. Obedience in good matters builds trust for hard matters

If you fight them on everything—curfew, chores, family gatherings—they’ll assume your “religious” disagreements are just more rebellion.

But if you show responsibility in the small things, they’re more likely to trust your judgment on big things.

Strategic obedience in neutral matters = earned trust in crucial matters.

4. Boundaries with honor is an art

You can disagree respectfully. You can say no kindly. You can set boundaries without cutting them off.

The Quran model: “Do not obey them” AND “keep their company courteously.”

Both. At the same time. But once again, only as a last resort.

Discussion Questions for Families

For Parents:

1. Which of your expectations for your child are Islamic requirements vs. cultural preferences?
2. Are you willing to be involved in their decision without controlling it?
3. What would it take for you to trust their judgment on a major life decision?

For Teens:

1. Have you completed all five steps of the Islamic process before considering disobedience? Be honest.
2. If your parents said yes to what you want, would the problem be solved? Or would you find something else to disagree about?
3. What does “keeping their company courteously” look like practically in your situation?

For Discussion Together:

1. Can we separate “I disagree with you” from “I don’t respect you”?
2. What would it look like to honor each other even when we disagree?
3. How can we bring in trusted mediators before conflicts escalate?

The Both/And Approach

Here’s what Surah Luqman teaches: It’s not parents OR yourself. It’s parents AND yourself.

You can honor them AND maintain boundaries. You can love them AND choose differently. You can be grateful AND establish your own identity.

But this requires:

• For teens: Exhausting all respectful options first
• For parents: Creating space for respectful disagreement
• For everyone: Assuming good faith, not bad intentions

When to Seek Help

If your family dynamic includes:

• Threats of violence or disownment
• Abuse masked as “discipline”
• Complete refusal to communicate

This goes beyond normal parent-teen tension. Get help from:

• Trusted imam or scholar
• Muslim family counselor
• Community support organizations

Don’t suffer alone. Islam provides resources for these situations.

Continue the Journey

This is Night 3 of Dr. Ali’s 30-part Ramadan series, “30 Nights with the Quran: Stories for the Seeking Soul.”

Tomorrow, insha Allah: Night 4 explores “Being Muslim in Non-Muslim Spaces”—the story of the Prophet Yusuf maintaining his integrity in Egypt, the most un-Islamic environment possible.

For daily extended reflections with journaling prompts, personal stories, and deeper resources, join Dr. Ali’s email community: https://30nightswithquran.beehiiv.com/

Related:

Who Am I Really? What Surat Al-‘Asr Teaches Muslim Teens About Identity | Night 1 with the Qur’an

5 Signs Your Teen is Struggling with Imposter Syndrome | Night 2 with the Qur’an

The post When Honoring Parents Feels Like Erasing Yourself | Night 3 with the Qur’an appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Beyond disproving the tired tropes of Muslims hating the west, Australian Muslims can show us what a month of practising to be a better person looks like

As Australian Muslims prepared for Ramadan this week, the leader of the second most popular political party in the country, Senator Pauline Hanson, said of them: “Their religion concerns me because [of] what it says in the Qur’an … They hate Westerners … You say, ‘Well, there’s good Muslims out there.’ Well, I’m sorry. How can you tell me there are good Muslims?”

None of this is surprising. This same senator has twice worn a burqa into parliament, wrongly claimed that halal certification funds terrorism, and wanted a royal commission into Islam.

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