British Muslims are gearing up for a new initiative that has been launched to counteract Islamophobic misconceptions about Islam which have led to the continued alienation of Muslims from the wider community.
“We are not a political organization, but rather we are a charity organization that aims to establish a mass movement in da’wah through training and mobilizing a network of Islamic missionaries which will aim to clear the misconceptions about Islam,” explains Abdur Raheem Green, one of the founders of iERA. The iERA — the Islamic Education and Research Academy — was set up by two well-known reverts to Islam, Abdur Raheem Green and Yusuf Chambers. It will be managed by a team of professionals with experience in the corporate field and the UK Da’wah scene.
Chambers explains: “The state of affairs after the infamous ‘war on terror’ has left the social landscape reeling especially for Muslims. The onslaught that took place against Muslims through the media and the governments leads to a further increase in Islamophobia and discrimination. Today, even the new US administration has realized the mistakes made by the previous Bush administration and is ‘changing course’ in their strategy in relations to the Muslim world.”
According to iERA, as new methods to change course are being examined, Muslims themselves are also finding ways to change course. They have found that hundreds of Muslims are leaving Islam, perhaps due to rising Islamophobia, and more importantly many reverts are converting back to being agnostic as there has not been done enough by the Muslims to counteract the barrage of anti-Islam feeling.
Chambers says: “We are intending to kick off the iERA tour by bringing in well-known respected scholars like Yusuf Estes, Hussain Ye, Dr. Bilal Philips and Tawfique Chawdhury to give a series of lectures on the meaning of Islam. Some of these speakers like Yusuf Estes is especially equipped to give advice as he was a Christian evangelist from the American Bible belt. As soon as we announced the tour we have already had attacks and criticisms from websites which appear to be Muslim-haters and think any event on Islam is aimed at attacking Israel. What Israel has to do with how we Muslims sort our lives out makes no sense to me.”
Chambers further says: “We stress that we are not a political organization; we are trying to counteract the negativity regarding Muslims. Our aim is to do missionary work based on charity which will benefit Muslims and create a support system for each other.”
They decided to set up iERA after they found how poorly organized Muslim da’wah work was, especially when compared to that of Christian missionaries. Christian evangelical groups have been very active and have been focusing on Muslim countries with an aim to conversion. Many are very well-funded and use business activities and aid packages in their methods to encourage conversion.
Chambers explains: “We are accused of propagating Islam, yet often the most we have is simple da’wah tables that are set up in high streets distributing Islamic literature, a lot of it is poorly written; we are competing with Christian organizations which are heavily funded, many backed by their governments, operating with armies of trained evangelists whose main aims are to spread Christianity and convert Muslims.” He cites an example of the “Military Mission” which was set up by Bill Bright in 1964 and whose aim is to build “Christian Military Leaders” and to “equip and support indigenous military leaders as they build Christian ministries in their own nations.” They project their enemy as “evil Islam” and “Islamic groups which want to destroy Israel and America.”
Another group is the “Muslim Bible Day Project” which is a cooperative project involving most of the churches in America; they gather and hold “Muslim Bible day” regularly to raise funds for the printing and secret distribution of the copies of Bibles to the Muslim world.
iERA’s initial research has uncovered intense activity based on hatred from these so-called Christian groups, for example, the famous preacher Rev. Franklin Graham who sent a mission to Iraq called “Islam an evil and wicked religion”.
Chambers says: “Our aim is not to fight these groups but to counteract all the misinformation these groups are actively propagating about Muslims. We will be sending out the right information about Islam through well-trained Muslim missionaries as well as raise enough funds that will benefit the growth of our community.”
He further explains: “One of our projects is called the ‘New Muslim Project’ and its aim will be to help new Muslims or reverts who often need a support system as they make changes in their lives. iERA will aim to employ and train people to give da’wah, people who would be the most gifted and able. We will also carry out cutting edge research needed to face the challenges to Islam in the modern age. We will develop specially tailored da’wah resources including tools and materials across the global media to make our task easier.”
The tour will kick off on June 23 and will last 8 days. On June 26, the iERA will hold its main launch event on board the “Dixie Queen Steam Paddle” on River Thames. This will showcase a special documentary prepared for the tour on the challenges facing the da’wah work, and how the iERA aims to move forward, along with inspirational talks from important personalities from the Islamic and non-Islamic world to raise funds for the project.