Islam and Muslims in Australia by Jan A Ali;

Author:Jan A Ali; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing

Clerical qualification and training

Muslim clergy has an important role to play within Australian Muslim communities and even internationally in terms of providing religious leadership, education in various capacities, assistance in personal and social matters, instructions for compliance with religious obligations, and edicts on what is and is not permissible based on the principles of sharia. For this, members of Muslim clergy require proper and adequate education and training in order to impart the knowledge they have acquired. Usually they go through years of training, including memorisation of the Qur’an and learning Arabic and prophetic tradition.

However, a worrying trend is emerging in Australia where individuals claim to be sheikhs or imams without having any or proper qualifications. The founder of the Forum on Australian Islamic Relations, Kuranda Seyit, describes such individuals as ‘fake sheikhs’, while the former president of ANIC, Sheikh Abdul Azim, calls them ‘Sheikh Google’ or ‘Imam YouTube’.31 The director of the Islamic Sciences & Research Academy at Charles Sturt University, Associate Professor Mehmet Ozalp, explains how this is occurring: ‘At the moment if somebody grows a beard, dons religious attire and is able to quote verses from the Koran, people can fool anyone that they are qualified to be Sheikh. People have no way of checking.’32

Another important concern often raised more generally is that sheikhs and imams in the contemporary period usually acquire their qualifications and religious training, which essentially involves textual studies, from madrasas and ‘Muslim’ universities in underdeveloped countries where the focus is often on teaching the Qur’an, the recorded sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, sharia, and various other Islamic subjects,33 and where there is a disjuncture between religious and worldly education.34 Some of these sheikhs and imam—often called ‘import-imams’ or ‘import-sheikhs’—end up working in Muslim diasporas such as Australia.

Australian Muslim clergy needs to address this in a systematic fashion and find solutions so the confidence of the Muslim population can be secured and Australian state and key institutions can have certainty in dealing with Muslim clergy.

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