Al Islaah is an initiative that was launched to facilitate reform, revival, and course correction after some deep soul-searching and sincere introspection with the aim of creating awareness to stop this degeneration into shirk, ghuluww and sectarianism.
Alḥamdulillāh, the initiative was made possible by the extremely hard-working and committed Al Islaah Admins and the support of enlightened visionaries from our own community members around the world.
Al Islaah admins have established online forums giving the scholars, researchers and members of the general public—who have a yearning for the original Islam which the Prophet (Saww) and Ahlul Bayt (as) promoted—a forum for free engagement, so that they may provide logical and evidence-based answers, perspectives and research without the fear of getting bad-mouthed or judged or gagged for daring to express a dissenting voice as would inevitably happen if someone tried to have discussions like these on other religious groups and community platforms.
We have had enlightened critical thinkers and amazingly Qur’ānically-aware individuals in our communities for a very long time, but they were scattered and dispersed around the world with no organization and no common platform, and because there was no forum where they could communicate and discuss or express their views freely, they lived in isolation in their own communities not realising that that there are actually so many like them all around the world MāshāAllāh, and that they are a proper global community.
So it’s heartwarming to see how Al Islaah has brought so many of these likeminded, enlightened, critical thinkers and votaries of Allāh-Centricism and tawḥīd from within the school of Ahlul Bayt (as) on a common platform so that we may all assist and help and benefit each other in our journey towards Allah (SWT) and securing a good future for ourselves in the hereafter InshāAllāh.
Al Islaah is in its infancy and therefore in need of all the support and cooperation it can get. They have a general membership WhatsApp group as well as several other smaller groups where they brainstorm ideas for the way forward.
If you are interested, we can request the admins to add you and any other family members you recommend to some of those so that you may have the opportunity to interact with other like-minded people and also contribute your precious insights and valuable thoughts with all of us and the wider membership as well.
Alḥamdulillāh, there is a growing number of people in our communities who are fed up of the cultish and highly sectarian anti-Qur’ānic divisive rhetoric and hero worship that’s taking over our pulpits, and they either want out of this or an alternative platform where they can reconnect with the real school of Ahlul Bayt which was never meant to be an isolationist sect, but rather a strong Muslim community of individuals committed to upholding the Quran, Sunnah, and promoting the understanding of the dīn as transmitted by the Imāms of Ahlul Bayt.
The school of Ahlul Bayt (as) was supposed to be an inalienable part and parcel of the grand Muslim mainstream in the Ummah, not an isolated cultish sect full of hatred and suspicion for the mainstream and ritualised cursing and bad-mouthing of its icons.
Al Islaah has launched a panel discussion programme called ISNAD where they invite likeminded people from all walks of life to express and articulate their revivalist and reformist views as well as anything else they find worth sharing and thereby inspire others to think deeply about these issues and also develop the confidence to initiate conversation about these matters within their own households and aid the winds of change and reform.
One thing that all Muslims need to do more of is to try and develop within themselves the habit of reading, and listening to, a diverse and eclectic array of scholars, researchers, and speakers who are not afraid to challenge the sectarian paradigms they are born into, and who put the ḥaqq (truth) above the sect. Al Islaah is definitely one such platform.
Shīʿism, particularly the traditional Twelver strand in it, has been badly corrupted by ghuluww, and so while our main focus is to guide Shīʿas back to the true belief of the Prophet (Saww), his family and companions, we also have a lot to offer in terms of what the original fiqh of the Imāms of Ahlul Bayt (as) used to look like before sectarian interests manipulated it, and suppressed many of its authentic aspects which agreed with, and matched mainstream Muslim practice, in order to carve out a separate sectarian identity for the Shīʿa which would make them distinct from the mainstream Muslims in the Ummah.
The ultimate goal of Al Islaah is to bring people on the belief and practice of the early Muslim community of Madīnah which included everyone from the Prophet (Saww) himself to his noble family (also known as the Ahlul Bayt) to his pious companions and supporters from among the Muhājirīn and Anṣār.
In terms of long-term futuristic goals, Al Islaah hopes to inculcate strength, courage and resistance against getting carried away by the strong currents of Imāmocentric ghuluww that are the bane of the Shīʿa sect for the future generations.
Imāmocentricism has replaced Allāh-Focussedness in the Twelver Imāmī sect.
It has degenerated to a hollow cultish ritualistic version of Islam without Allāh and obsessively excessive devotion to Imāms at the expense of Allāh’s Remembrance – something our Imāms would have been most shocked and appalled by. What has happened inside this sect is eerily similar to what happened in Christianity when they moved from Theocentricism to Christ-worship.
