By Cyril Anderson

In Britain recently, the idea was raised of government funded programs in universities to produce government approved “homegrown” Imams.  The idea being to make sure that the scholars teaching in the mosques of the country were properly grounded in the nation in which they are living rather than transplanted in from abroad.

 Now while it is admitted that there are some difficulties with foreign born scholars in terms of their ability to communicate in the languages of the countries they have moved to and in their ability to relate to the culture and people here, the British proposal unfortunately would ultimately be counterproductive.

 The major problem would be a perceived lack of credibility on the part of these scholars.  There are recognized schools in the Muslim world where scholars usually need to go to get educated to be seen as having sound credentials.  As a result, these Western-educated Imams will be seen at best as lacking solid credentials by most, and at worst, will be seen as paid lackeys of the Western governments. 

 Those scholars in the West educated in Western universities in Islam who tend to be successful and credible within the Muslim community are either extremely charismatic individuals who grew up strongly grounded in the religion in their communities, or are people who took their Western education and supplemented it with additional deeper overseas study.  The second path is probably the ideal.  The fact is that the very best schools for teaching the religion at the depth needed for a religious scholar and teacher are located overseas.  Another solution is therefore required aside from the one of developing future religious scholars in Western university programs.

 One idea would be to have a certain number of university credits related to knowledge useful to “naturalizing” the Imam be required by the state to teach and be recognized by the state as an imam.  Or, for scholars educated overseas, similar requirements could be made obligatory within a certain period of time upon arriving in Canada in order to qualify for landed status or to stay in the country beyond a certain probationary period.

 Examples of such requirements could include: requirements of proficiency in the language(s) of the country moved to, knowledge about the history of the country, knowledge of the system of government of the country, knowledge of the history and philosophy and major streams of thought of Western civilization.  There could be a set period of time upon arriving to meet such requirements.

 This approach would probably be much more useful than that proposed recently in Britain.  There is a great need in the community for Imams who can speak effectively and otherwise learn and communicate in the languages of the countries they have migrated to.  There is also a need for Imams who have sound awareness of the history and thought and political structures of the places in which they are living.

 The British proposal claims to aim to address these issues.  Unfortunately, however, the lack of attention by the authors of the plans to the basic realities of the education needed to qualify a scholar as competent and credible within the community would doom the proposal to failure.  Much better to work more effectively with the system already existing to reach the same goals.