This week’s guest on the Friday Bulletin is Haj Sheikh Mirza Abbas, a figure who has been and continues to be present in many cultural arenas, from America to European countries, especially England. A Sheikh known for his humility, he has dedicated most of his time to teaching for many years. If time permitted, we would certainly ask him many questions and share his memories.

1- Please describe your experience as an Imam of a Friday prayer congregation?

Life is a journey and for us to be successful we need to be equipped and what you equip yourself with becomes a source for facing these challenges and to attend to them the way how Prothets and Saints of God have dealt with. I have been in this field of propagation and actually on this journey of life for the past 20 years after my studies in the seminary for 13 years. I left the hawza in 2005 and became the Imam of Jumma in Birmingham UK and carry on teaching, educating, guiding and comforting the needy. Here I found people desperate to find peace and consolidation from the community & religious centres and want to equip themselves with religious teachings that can enhance them to face the challenges that life throw at them. I learnt how to consolidate them, comfort them, and be a symbol of love, strength, and care. All Shi’i communities all across have a set pattern and you see lots similarities. I face the same issues and similar personalities but different name, individuals belonging to the same archetypes. The interesting period was when I served as an Imam Jumma in Nottingham and the reason because I was faced with many students from different countries and Nottingham was more of a diversity in comparison to Birmingham. Nottingham is also a university type a town. Many students and young families reside in Nottingham.

2- You have experience in training students in England. Explain the conditions of their studies and what are the challenges of such studies in Europe and America?

The nature of our dīn (religion) and our understanding of dīn (religion) taught to us by our Imams is to be all inclusive and this is my approach. The Imams are the embodiment of love of God on earth and we have to follow this methodology to assist the living Imam (aj). My approach with my students is this to teach them to be a source of love, care, kindness to all even to those who may not agree with them.

One final and very important practical aspect which I would like to highlight is that “Spiritual/Seminarian education in the west is not easy because the whole set-up of western life-style, culture and western-living is very different. A youth at the age of 18 onwards already start working and wants to make living and wants to form a family or sometimes already faced with responsibilities to support parents or himself. Hence this becomes very difficult for him or her to dedicate 5 to 10 years of life studying religious education full-time and you know hawza / religious education requires full-time you cannot become a Sheikh/Imam/Priest by part time studies. One can do part time Islamic Studies for personal interest & improving Islamic Knowledge but not to become a Scholar.

Furthermore, in other educational fields the youngsters get student loans and student support which they eventually find a Job and repay the loan but within the field of religion it’s not like this, hence making them very difficult to work, maintain living expenses and study at the same time. Nevertheless at the Islamic College, the Student Finance England (SFE) is providing support but it’s still not enough vis’a’vis other field or classifications of studies. Just to add another issue with this field ie religious education is that there is not a set system, organisation or criteria as such unlike what you see in Vatican, such as the order, organisation and how things are centralised and the services provided by the clergy, cardinals, priest deliver are well taken care off in terms of the upkeep of the priest and the fathers who serve the Church and community.

3- You also have years of experience in the USA.

How would you assess the Muslim community in America?

The Muslim Community in US is very different to what we have in UK or Europe. Majority of the Muslims in US are well educated and even those who migrated there was on the basis of professionalism. America wanted professionals and hence allowed visas based on educational qualification.
The other very interesting factor about America is that the Americans are the most religious society in the west we have about 200 different denominations of Protestant church in the US and the amount of charity given by the Americans in 2023 was 5.5 billion dollars, which is the highest amount in comparison to any country. If we look at the participation of Industries, Universities and many organisation working on an intellectual level for peace.

I remember Ayatullah Jawad Amoli mentioning this in his speech when he return from the United States – a country that is surrounded by two great Oceans; the Atlantic and the Pacific makes the people of this nation to think deep.
Furthermore, the land itself has a powerful impact, the land of the indigenous, the land of the free, which promotes freedom & liberty can be sensed in the air and this is recorded in the Nation’s Constitution and constitutionally promoted by the founding fathers and people today also rely upon this and make use of it to promote freedom and justice. Spirituality is always against or cannot ride on the same boat as with racism, inequality, injustice, materialism, fashism etc

4- Keeping animals like dogs in Muslim households is a new challenge for some young people. What do you think is the way out of this challenge?

There is difference of opinion not only amount Shi’i Jurist but also among Ahl Sunnah Scholars on having pet as a dog. So one must refer to there respectful fuqaha on this but I like dogs especially huskies !

5- To what extent can the experience of a significant number of converts to Islam in Sunni centers be utilized to increase their presence in Shia centers?

I am not sure and I honestly don’t exactly know what is a Sunni methodology or approach to this phenomenon. What I can see it seems a bit “raw” personally speaking. For example I see them every now and then at the corners of the street using load speakers and inviting people and giving Qurans and stuff under the name of “dawa” but I don’t know is this the right approach or not. Furthermore, I also wonder how the Masajids treat the converts? Weather they are welcome and does not feel being looked down or face racism. However the Shi’ias and Shi’i centres are tying new endeavours such as inter and intra faith events esp. in Ramadhan. However, I do have some criticism towards our approach for the inter-faith which we can discuss some other time.

We do see Shi’i centres holding seminars on human value, topics such as role of ethics in institutions, environmental issues, mental health and more.

In addition, some shi’i centres and selected organization are also trying social endeavours such as distribution of food parcel or collection of donation for the destitute and for the oppressed with mutual co-operation between centres of both sect and other non-Muslim charities. But of course, there is a-lot room for development.