warning of personality-based da'wah — by abuaminaelias

In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

I feel compelled to comment on the disturbing proliferation of what I call “personality-based da’wah”. This is “da’wah” (or calling to Islam) rooted in attaching people’s hearts to carefully curated charismatic personas. It is dangerous because our attachment should be to the divine knowledge, the real studied knowledge, and not cults of personality around this or that Shaykh. The Shuyukh and Imams are people like you and me; they are tempted by nefarious love of fame and high-status like you and me; they fall into temptation like you and me. When they are eventually exposed as corrupt or duplicitous, it threatens the faith of their followers who have attached their faith to the charisma of their favorite speaker. And the followers end up making excuses for clear wrongdoing because they view criticism of their favorite Shaykh as a personal attack on their faith. The followers cannot disassociate Islam from their favorite teacher, despite evidence that their preacher has less-than-pure intentions.

I am reminded of the Fitnah in the time of Imam al-Ghazali, a Fitnah for which he fled his high-status position and went into occultation for eleven years, only to return to write his magnum opus, the Revival of the Religious Sciences, a magnificent work we still study today almost a thousand year later. In his time, they used to hold big debates between the scholars of different Islamic schools of thought, sometimes over relatively trivial issues. These debates were attended by thousands of people as if it were a sporting event. Celebrities headlined the event. Whoever won the debate was not the most truthful and knowledgeable but rather the most charismatic and articulate. Al-Ghazali castigated them for their love of the world, high-status, and fame. He laid down strict conditions for holding a permissible debate, none of which were followed by the celebrity debaters at the time. In contrast, the pious scholar Sahl al-Tustari led circles of knowledge to teach believers the subtleties of purifying the heart, the true knowledge and goal of Islam. Sahl would only have a dozen or so people in his audience on a good day.

But today, we remember, honor, and revere Sahl al-Tustari and Imam al-Ghazali, not the celebrity debaters at the time who are merely a noxious footnote in our history, if their names are remembered at all. Authentic da’wah must be focused on quality, not quantity, because a small line of transmitting real knowledge inevitably bears fruit even if it takes several generations to come about. Da'wah is the transmission of faith from one heart to another; it is not AI-written or algorithm-accommodating articles. The success of today’s personality-based da’wah is measured in likes, clicks, followers, donations, ticket sales, and interviews with famous unbelievers. Their Islam has become a “product” to be packaged and sold for mass-marketing by algorithms to solicit donations, sadly at the expense of their integrity. These aspirants to high-status will be forgotten, as their "da'wah" is empty and superficial. At the same time, the few scholars of the Hereafter who transmitted sacred knowledge will be remembered in time.

Popular heart-warming clips, Islamicized self-help derived from secular advice, and eloquent speeches are not enough. The Muslims need to systematically learn the sound creed and beautiful characteristics of faith, which are the basis of all actions. Action without knowledge of faith amounts to little or nothing at all. The Muslims need well-researched lectures from genuine believers who can give them the tools and skills to stand on their own, however boring it may seem; they do not need these polished bit-sized clips that are forgotten the next day.

I dislike the term “celebrity Imams” although it is perhaps aptly applied to some popular da’wah speakers. Allah clearly forbade in His Noble Book to call Muslims by offensive nicknames, nor would the Prophet ﷺ “call out” the Muslims by naming and shaming them; instead, he would make his criticism a general lesson for us all. Do not label any Muslim by this grotesque insult or any other offensive name, for it is against the Sunnah and an egregious violation of a Muslim’s inalienable right to the sanctity of his or her public reputation, as the Prophet ﷺ strongly emphasized in his Farewell Sermon.

To the public callers to Islam who aspire to fame and high-status, I say: The love of wealth, high-status, and fame is more dangerous to your religion than hungry wolves roaming freely among a flock of helpless sheep, as the Prophet ﷺ said. Love of the worldly life is the root of all evil, as Imam of the Heart Hasan al-Basri رضي said. Your aspiration to fame and followers puts you in a precarious position. Your dependence on followers makes you their slave, lest you upset them and lose the high-status or damage the curated online avatar you’ve worked so hard to achieve, which you have foolishly made your livelihood depend upon. You are impotent to speak the hard truths that must be said because your metrics and your bank account will take a hit; perhaps you will even be fired by your board and your career ruined. Do not be deluded by Satan into thinking more and more followers are a sign your da’wah efforts are producing fruit. Quantity is nothing. Quality is everything.

O you frauds! Some of you aspirants to fame skim from the top of the innocent believer’s donations to fund your lavish lifestyles, bloated salaries, fancy houses and cars, and expensive travels to Hajj every year for photo-ops; some of you charge exorbitant fees for speeches about Islam, knowledge you know very well should be free; some of you commit plagiarism and academic fraud without shame; some for you happily and ruthlessly smear your critics in coordinated campaigns, anyone who might threaten the pipeline of your precious funds.  I am appalled by your malicious envy, Imams of Misguidance! Some of you elope to foreign countries to indulge yourself with prostitutes in a “secret marriage” that Imam Malik ruled as adultery. He would have stoned you to death if the legal conditions were met. Still, your fragile conscience is satisfied to stretch the opinion of other scholars who ruled the secret marriage as makruh or “despicable” even though they would not annul such legally dubious marriages. I suspect they would stone you, too, if they knew how you twisted their ruling to treat these women as sex objects to be discarded. These women are your victims, who trusted in your high-status, who trusted in your feigned righteousness; they are the witnesses against you on Judgment Day. Sugar-sweet words do you have in public, but a vicious wolf hides in your heart. The signs of your hypocrisy are as clear as day to me! Your misdeeds will come to light in time, if not in this world, then definitely in the next. O you brood of vipers! The constant lure of abusing your trust for fame, fortune, and pleasure to exploit the good-willed believers means the Devil will forever have the means to destroy you if he has not already succeeded. You still have time to repent, so do it now before you meet your deathbed suddenly or witness the horror of the Sun rising from the West. I warn you because I care about your afterlife, as I care for anyone who says there is no God but Allah, and if I did not care, I would not warn. Allah guide you straight back to Him!

To the followers, I say: You can learn from many sources, for even Allah might indirectly support His religion at the hands of a wicked scholar who occasionally speaks the truth, as the Prophet ﷺ said, but your heart must be firmly attached to the Quran, the Sunnah, and the Way of the Salaf. Bite onto the Sunnah as if your life depended upon it, because it does. These revealed texts are the core of our religion, not any charismatic personalities, however pleasant they are in public. A skilled preacher might benefit you with heart-warming stories and reciting divine sayings, but you do not know the intention in their hearts. They may be motivated by love of the Dunya, or even harbor hypocrisy, which Allah will eventually expose sooner or later. Attach your hearts to the Lord Almighty and His Messenger ﷺ above all else. Seek true knowledge in a systematic and structured way from the historical scholars whom the Ummah has agreed upon: Abu Hanifa, Al-Shafi'i, Malik, Ahmad, Al-Tahawi, Al-Nawawi, Al-Ghazali, Al-Qurtubi, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Rajab, Ibn Kathir, Ibn al-Jawzi, and more. Rely not on heart-warming stories and ephemeral video clips, which are essential for strengthening your faith but are not enough in themselves. Read and study; learn Allah and His Messenger's ﷺ original language so you have direct access to His glorious revelation, then no one can fool you; be tolerant of the boredom of rigorous study and daily struggle; consult the preeminent commentaries and the judgments of our senior scholars, the true Shuyukh, who are usually correct yet make mistakes like everyone else, but do not entirely rely on others to tell you what Allah said, lest the hypocrite preachers lead you astray, as they themselves are astray. Know what Allah, His Messenger ﷺ, and the Great Imams said, and what they meant, to safeguard your religion from the many charlatans and ignorants polluting our da’wah space. May Allah protect the sincere believers!

Lastly, I removed my picture from everywhere I could on the internet. I tried succeeding in the “personality” da’wah market for a time, until I realized that its corruption is a perpetual danger to myself and, more importantly, the innocents in our Ummah. I do not want people to attach themselves to me; I wish they would not take knowledge for me because of my personality, but rather take knowledge from the sources I took it from, and I do not desire to be credited for any of it. I welcome your honest criticism, I ask you to double-check my work, for even my most hateful enemies have strengthened my work despite their desire to destroy me. Be brutal if you must; I can take it.

In fact, I give unrestricted permission for everyone to take some point of wisdom from a text I translated without ascribing any of it to me. I am confident my Lord will reward me in the Hereafter, which is the only time it counts. So take from my work what benefits you and leave what you reject from me, for I err like all humans err. Share the beautiful Hadith you found and help the Muslims in their faith; you have no need to mention or cite me at all. My wish is to spread the prophetic knowledge as far and wide as possible while remaining as obscure as I can. My boring lectures will not get the number of views as the well-polished TikTok videos, but for me to improve the lives and faith of just a handful of believers who listen is more beloved to me than a large heard of prized red camels, more than everything over which the sun rises and sets. And I swear by Allah as my witness, I have never and will never ask you to donate to me, for a pure intention is a priceless gift from the Merciful, and I will not allow anything to taint it, especially money.

Anything good and true I said came from Allah Almighty and His Messenger ﷺ but everything false and wrong I said came from Satan and my own ignorance. I ask Allah’s forgiveness for my shortcomings, and then your forgiveness, and I repent to Him as best as I can. I ask Allah to protect the sincere believers, to foil the plots of hypocrites and monsters among us, and to save us all from the evil within our own selves.

Success comes from Allah, and Allah knows best.