Many Muslims may dissagree with my stance, but when it comes to voting within a non-Islamic country, I really don’t see the point. It is easy to inovate witin this age we live and stray away from true Islamic teaching. I have heard Muslims say that voting for Obama was like votng for the lesser evil; that he has the Muslim’s best interest in mind. But have people lost touch with the reality of Sunna. We are to migrate to an Islamic land and support that government. Oh, yes, many Islamic countries are aweful when it comes to dictatorships and human rights. Yet if the Islamic community as a whole would band together and quit bickerig amongst one another over racial and cultural issues, then maybe we could get somewhere. We Muslims get upset at other countries for steriotyping us as “radicals” and “terrorist,” but we treat our own kind (neglecting race and creede) even worse. As an American born citizen, I can not become a citizen of most Ilamic countries. But yet I could become a citizen of most kafr ones. There must be a change in our hearts, fo the last days are upon us. Inshalah, we will be ready for that Great Day of Judgement. For now, we Muslims are not setting the bar too high.

I think this US election gives some insightful lessons for our Muslim communities. This is one of them.

In US national elections, they have been trying to get young voters to get involved for years. They weren’t able until this year. Whatever they found in Barack Obama, and not McCain, got them to care. Though it is debatable of what Obama did differently then the previous Democrate nominees, for the first time, a nominee went to where the youth are. In our current times, the internet & mobile devices.

Masjid need to realize that youth wont come if you put together some random pizza party and put up a random black-white flyer outside the masjid. You have to go where they are.

Solution: If you are running for Masjid elections, connect with the youth on the issues they care about and go where they are.

Ahmed

Doing 4% less does not get you 4% less.

Doing 4% less may very well get you 95% less.

That’s because almost good enough gets you nowhere. No sales, no votes, no customers. The sad lie of mediocrity is the mistaken belief that partial effort yields partial results. In fact, the results are usually totally out of proportion to the incremental effort.

Big organizations have the most trouble with this, because they don’t notice the correlation. It’s hidden by their momentum and layers of bureaucracy. So a mediocre phone rep or a mediocre chef may not appear to be doing as much damage as they actually are.

The flip side of this is that when you are at the top, the best in the world, the industry leader, a tiny increase in effort and quality can translate into huge gains. For a while, anyway.

Its quite unfortunate to hear about the problems that many of you are facing in your masajid. Alhamdulillah, our masajid is wonderful and the youth are very active. I think it is very important for the youth to remain active, but at the same time, they must receive proper religious instruction and guidance from the imam. I have also seen some masajid where the youth are heavily involved, but they turn the masjid into a party zone.

If anything, we should set up some sort of system of checks and balances between the youth and the uncles to insure that one group does not go to any extreme. Also, the Imam needs to do their part to insure that there is always an open line of communication. Constructive criticism, and I emphasize the word “constructive,” should be encouraged so that the masjid is always seeking ways to consistently improve.

my 4 cents:

1: Make the imam the ameer of the community, not the doctor uncle who donates the most money. Whatever the Imam says should be good enough for the rest of the community. The board should always be behind the Imam and not force him to follow them.

2: Make a youth group and allow them to have their own committees so that they can be groomed to take over the masjid soon. Allow the youth group to have representation on the board of trustees.

3: Make all finances transparent. One masjid I was a part of would post where every cent was going on the bullitin board to the point where everyone even knew how much the Imam was making a month (this may be a lil far), but it helps trust grow within the community.

4: Have representatives from one masjid be board members or liasons to other community masajid. Too often, masjids in the same vicinity have soo much drama and competition between them. One person who steps forward and agrees to act as a liason who in reality end this problem by maybe assigning a simple draft as “We will always prefer Eid together, etc”

Finally, I’ll say this: some of the most talented people in our community are not involved in any of our organizations. This is a major mistake on our part if we let it continue.