The mission statement of The Majlis is as follows:
The Majlis seeks to develop and nurture safe community spaces where people can learn and live Islam, based on the traditional sources of understanding the faith, while acknowledging the particular challenges of our context. Our efforts are focused around religious education, spiritual refinement, love, and service.
In this series of articles I will present some thoughts around how we came to the mission statement that we have and why we did. This first one is on the portion which says, “The Majlis seeks to develop and nurture safe community spaces…”
“The Community”
One of the common ideas that we hear expressed all the time in conversations with people is the idea of “the community.” Why is “the community” like this? Why do people in “the community” always do that? Often in these conversations we invite people to consider what the word “community” means to them and who this “the community” is. When we dive in a little bit we often find that our conceptions around this topic are not clear. We don’t really know what we mean or have much consistency about how we are using the term.
For me “the community” is a term that has many layers. There is the global Muslim ummah, there is my country, my state, and my locality. The most immediate meaning for “the community” is in relation to those who I actually have some sort of engagement with, whether through teaching or social ties.
However we look at it there is no doubt that the idea of community is central to Islam and has a big impact on our religious practice and experience. When we are surrounded by healthy community that helps us to grow and become better we will do just that. If we are around community that is hypercritical, judgmental, nosy, and without focus, then that is what we will be subjected to.
So when we started this organization we wanted to have a community of people who committed to certain ideals, which are mentioned in the rest of the mission statement.
“Safe Community Spaces”
Another component of the mission statement is mentioning that the spaces we seek are “safe community spaces.” This does not mean that they are a free-for-all and everyone can define what that means for them. The rest of the mission statement makes it clear that the foundation for these spaces is the normative teachings of Islam. However, it does mean that we recognize that when we come together if we are not committed to high values of character and manners we will infringe upon one another’s comfort and safety. It does not mean we agree on everything, in fact, we shouldn’t. But it does mean that we will interact with one another with a basic respect for each other’s humanity. The Prophet, peace be upon him, mentioned this in a hadith saying, “The Muslim is the one from whom the Muslims are safe from his tongue and hand.” This, and many other hadiths, are the foundation for what safe community spaces look like.
We also recognize in this process that many of the details of what that means and looks like go back to one’s culture and part of the reason why so many young Muslims feel estranged from Muslim spaces is simply that the dominant culture is not the one that they were raised in — American. So we seek in our space to give room for the subtleties of acceptable American cultural interactions to be prominent, in so far as they do not contradict the clear teachings of Islam. This is not to take away from any of the many beautiful Muslim cultures that our community members have connections to, but it is to recognize that if we are to do Islam in this country, this must be the case.
“Develop and Nurture….Spaces”
The other concept that is mentioned in the mission statement is the recognition that such community spaces must be intentionally developed and nurtured. Yes, we can have spaces that just kind of happen as a result of enough Muslims being in one area. That is not what we were going for. From the beginning we wanted the spaces to be founded on the components mentioned in the mission statement and we knew that in order for that to happen we had to start with teaching and gathering around that. In doing so we were creating a shared understanding and a shared language. This is why when people want to get involved with The Majlis we always tell them that the first thing that they should do is start attending the classes regularly. This is the first step to developing such spaces.
From there though they must be nurtured and that is done through education, spiritual refinement, love, and service. That is what nourishes the collective and keeps it moving together and in the right direction.
We also noted in our wording here that this project has always been about spaces, in the plural form. We must start somewhere, but the goal is to move from there to developing various kinds of spaces where people can express themselves and their religion in a communal setting. That may start as a small living room like space, but it could expand into coffee shops, cafes, barber shops, and women’s gyms. All of these spaces would naturally grow as efforts of love and service and reflect the foundations that they are built upon.