CHAPTER 9
Leadership Threatened
The First Takeover
In 1977, as the membership increased, the community experienced what they perceived to be an attempted leadership takeover by Muslims outside the ethnic group of founding families. A close study of the Amendments to the Constitution and By-Laws reveals how the leadership responded to the changing community constituency and the threat of takeover.
For example, in the original Constitution of the Islamic Center (1962), Article V stated that a person could become a Board member after he had been a member for three months. In 1966, in response to the growing heterogeneity of the community, Article V was amended to read that a person must be a member for four consecutive years before he could be eligible for election to the Board.
In 1975, one of the Board members, a Muslim of the Shi i tradition, Dr. Fereidoun Azizi, suggested that the eligibility requirements were too stringent and discouraged members from running for the Board. But the Board did not change the By-Laws at that time.
In January of 1977, Dr. A. became president of the mosque. At his urging, the founders agreed to review the Constitution in committee. By Amendment, they reduced the term of membership eligibility for election to the Board from four to two consecutive years. Dissatisfied with this compromise, Dr. A. resigned in April of 1977.
Dr. A., an Iranian physician, had been a member since 1971. He was highly educated in the Shi a Schools of Law and had served on the Religious Committee. He lectured the group on how the Shi a prays- holding hands at the side during standing position and placing the head on an object on the floor during the kneeling down on the floor position (sujud).
The lectures were well-received. However, when he became president and wanted to fill vacancies on the Board with other Shi i new to the community, the founders, both Sunni and
Shi i, became aware that he was trying to change the way things were done at the mosque, from the Sunni tradition to the Shi i tradition.
The leadership was caught between two conflicting traditions of authority. First, in the Islamic tradition, authority is given to the most knowledgeable member and not questioned. Second, in the tradition of Quincy community, authority was always in the hands of the founding members. Underlying this authority was the principle of social cohesion based on the fact that its founding members were all "Arab Muslims," with no interest in Shi i domination.
When Dr. A. left the Center, the Shi i community purchased a house in Cambridge for a mosque. It has been estimated that the group lasted about three years before they split up. The property was sold and the money distributed among all the mosques in the Greater Boston area. Quincy received a share of $12,000 in October of 1983, with the stipulation that it be used for a library, which it was.
The Second Takeover
A second takeover attempt came rapidly on the heels of the first. It concerned the man who was Religious Director from 1976-1978, M. Sid. M. SID. was the younger brother of Dr. M. After Dr. M. left the mosque in 1976 to work for the Muslim World League based New York, M. Sid., a student at Harvard Law School, stepped into the position as Imam Omar's assistant, and later, as the first official Religious Director of the mosque. With the help of Dr. M., the Center received a subsidy from the Muslim World League to pay M. SID for his services.
The energetic Director accomplished much in the community, doing work that the elderly Imam was unable to do. However, it is the general consensus of those interviewed in this study that M. SID's style of running things at the Center were incompatible with the community. They were reflective of a certain authoritative style of leadership deserving of the most knowledgeable member. When the founders were not prepared to give the expected tacit authority, a power struggle ensued.
When a controversial issue arose, M. SID’S' extensive knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and law would be deferred to. With the authority invested in him as Religious Director, he would have imposed certain expectations on the community as a resolution. But the American leadership understood that by empowering M. SID, they were risking the division of their community over a whole host of controversial issues (some of them timeless in Islam). All the respondents in this study refer to this period as the first time their community was ever divided.
The divisive issues themselves were not debated. The debate was over the degree of authority the Religious Director should have. The scope of his duties and responsibilities needed to be articulated. Because Mr. Omar was still the official imam, limits were imposed on M. SID as to what he was going to be called and expected to do.
Another issue was whether or not M. SID should be working throughout the New England area or confining his responsibilities to the Center. No one seemed to agree on the geographical scope of his duties or the conditions under which the Muslim World League had agreed to pay him.
Early in 1978, after much dissension, the leadership acted to remove M. SID from his position. It was put before the General Membership for a vote. The community consensus (ijma) would be honored. However, M. SID arranged for many of his supporters to attend the meeting. People came in busloads to the Center, many for the first time. They paid dues and voted. In spite of these efforts, the majority carried the vote to dismiss him. The leadership immediately amended the By-Laws of 1962 (Article X), requiring that dues be paid well in advance of the November election.
In 1979, M. Sid organized a small group of members to establish a mosque of their own. They rented a public school in Cambridge and called themselves, the Islamic Center of Boston. M. SID left the area soon afterwards and became legal advisor to the Ambassador for Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C. In 1987, the Islamic Center of Boston purchased a house and acreage in Wayland, MA, west of the Quincy Center. The community is currently made up of 80 families of diverse ethnic and professional backgrounds. They are planning an expansion of 8-10 classrooms and a community center on the property to be completed by December, 1991.
Having seen how a knowledgeable leadership impacted their community, the indigenous leadership became increasingly aware of the difficulty of coping with life in a non-Muslim society. Previously, they had led the Muslim community with only a handful of guidelines. But as the community became larger and more diverse, their guidelines became insufficient. The American leadership could not answer the many questions that arose in the course of administration.
For example, the Board wrestled over the problem of what to do about interest accrued from the mosque savings account. It is forbidden in Islam to charge or receive interest (the term, riba is understood to be usury in Islam). Many questions were raised over this one issue: Should they keep a savings account? What should be done with the interest money? Is it legal to give it away as charity to families overseas? Can it be used to buy books? Can it be given to the mosque as a donation?
The founders determined to find a trained, Sunni imam. Since a knowledgeable scholar was likely to come from a Muslim country, they questioned how a foreigner would respond to a secular society? Would he impose a cultural interpretation of Islam on the community? And how would he go about the intricate process of establishing and maintaining community cohesion?
In 1982, the Muslim World League sponsored ten "orthodox" imams, sent to this country from Lebanon and trained at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. As Director of the Muslim World League in New York, Dawud Assad recommended Talal Eid to his long-time supporters and friends at the Quincy Center.
Some mosques in America are against having an imam who is subsidized by an outside organization like the Muslim World League. Studies have shown that the fears anticipated by the Quincy group are not uncommon. One report states:
"Leaders of three of the mosques in this study refused the offer of a full-time paid imam, partly because they perceived there would be strings attached. The League, or the country that provides the funding, is responsible for the selection of the imam. Typically he is someone educated in a Muslim country whose first introduction to the United States is as the imam of a local mosque. Several mosque leaders expressed concern that such a `foreign' imam either would not fit in with the members, imposing a different interpretation of Islam than they wished, or would simply wrest control of the mosque from the leaders who currently enjoyed such influence."