The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

On 26 March 2021 I heard a talk by Shaykh Nuh Keller where my impression was he gave support to the idea that the beating of children was a reasonable thing because physical discipline helps with tarbiyya, meaning growth or loftiness. The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

The more I heard the Shaykh speak the more upset I became. Some backstory may be necessary here. The community in Kharabsheh in Amman has seen many followers of Shaykh Nuh settle locally, with a number of associated businesses springing up. Some of the parents had children based at the community’s school, Futuwwa.

The community in Kharabsheh has also seen multiple waves of people leaving, often in difficult circumstances. A report was shared with followers in mid March 2021, which highlighted multiple failings in the community at Kharabsheh – the most shocking of which was that children were being physically beaten and humiliated at the school. One of the leaders stood against this when investigations revealed the extent of the abuse.

The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

Not only have numerous people left the community over the years, but some have left Islam. The report primarily highlighted financial mismanagement and cult-like controlling behaviour from Shaykh Nuh, his wife (known as Umm Sahl) and others in leadership at Kharabsheh.

The talk I heard on 26 March was meant to be a response to the accusations, an official response of sorts. It was a PR disaster by any generous analysis. Instead of acknowledging the main points of physical abuse, botched internal investigations, and general malpractice I heard:

• A re-emphasis on the normality of beating children, citing traditional Asian/Arab culture. The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.
• No mention of the financial lack of transparency or controlling cult-like behaviour that has ruined lives.
• Use of psychological frameworks to paint accusers as being part of something akin to contagious mass-hysteria, inspired by the devil himself.

To the outsider, it might seem like a storm in a teacup; after all, imams do dodgy things all the time, but for those who have known the Shaykh and community intimately, there was a sense of deep sorrow, anger, and betrayal.

My own relationship with Shaykh Nuh is worth noting here. I visited him in Jordan in 2004 as part of my travelling through the Middle East, and joined the community around that time. The Shaykh has helped many people spiritually to focus on worshipping Allah alone. His community gatherings locally have been positive and welcoming, and I never witnessed any harshness to children. From what I saw, children usually read a book or something during the sessions, especially during the Shaykh’s talk.

But the issue is actually for me, quite personal. For me, hitting children isn’t an abstract educational tool that is benign and historical. It is something that has real world consequences.

I was beaten severely in madrassa as a child when I was doing my Qur’an memorisation (hifz) in Leicester. My father was an imam, who came from a long line of imams on his mothers side, and my mother was the daughter of an alim (religious scholar), coming from a long line of imams as well. When we moved to Leicester in the early eighties, I was about eight or nine when I started Qur’an memorisation, and I was told it was a huge honour. But, from the very first week, the beatings accompanied the learning.

The madrassa morning classes started at 6.30am, but I would arrive at the mosque at 7am. We’d memorise and pray until 8am. I’d rush home, have breakfast, change out of my shalwar kameez, and go to school for the day. Then, after school, I’d have a quick snack, and evening madrassa would begin from 5pm until 7.30pm. My school life was happy and my friends are the main reason I remained functional – the happy filling in my pain sandwich.

The beatings took the form of a bamboo stick (reinforced with sticky tape) being struck on the palm of my hand. When I’d go into prostration in prayer I’d get struck on the soles of my feet – bastinado. The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

There were other forms of punishment. Standing up for long periods, doing the ‘murghee,’ whatever the mosque teacher felt was needed. The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

This method of teaching was directly from the subcontinent. I was always on the small side, and wasn’t strong. Each strike and stress position brought extreme pain. I began to strongly resent the mosque, Islam, and even my parents, who reinforced all of this. The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

And it wasn’t just for Qur’an memorisation. I remember one guest teacher showing us the correct method for prayer. We were lined up in a row as if for prayer and told to go into prostration, then asked “Where should you be looking, down your nose or on the ground?” We were beaten if we got the answer wrong. I was barely ten or eleven years old.

There were also notorious incidents like the morning when one child was kicked around the madrassa like a football so severely that the teacher got exhausted. As far as I know, the same teacher is a respected alim still teaching today.

I am no sellout for my community but I am grateful for the TV documentaries that put hidden cameras in madrasas to expose child abuse and am grateful to the few parents who followed through with court cases.

Ostensibly the practice has stopped in general in the UK. As well as the external scrutiny, immigration rules have meant there are fewer imported imams but I don’t want to paint this as a purely subcontinental issue: like the tikka masala, the teachers I had took a framework that existed elsewhere and added their own ingredients to make a unique form of punishment. The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

I tried to abandon Qur’an memorisation to escape the beatings but was not given a choice. Painfully, I completed it aged 14. I never went back to madrassa again.

The trauma of what I went through has stayed with me for life. Every time I made a mistake, I froze up in anticipation of being hit, of getting in trouble, of being humiliated. The adrenaline responses of flight, fright or freeze became ingrained at a formative age, affecting my personal and professional life.

On paper, I was a success. I was a hafiz of Qur’an. A straight A student. I studied maths at Oxford University. But only I know how I struggled academically and spiritually as a result of my childhood trauma. I lost all interest in religion at university and after. My university friends, generous and kind to a fault, supported me as far as possible, but I wasn’t settled and I wasn’t happy. At this stage, I didn’t even know what was wrong.

It was early 2001 when I felt a pull towards Islam again. I walked into the offices of Q-News to volunteer in the evenings. I was contracting in a finance job by day, and helping out at Q-News in the evening. At the suggestion of the editor, I spent a month in Hadramawt, Yemen. It was a truly transformative experience. I saw Islamic teaching being given in a gentle, loving fashion. Sufi islam seemed attractive.

On my return I attended study circles and talks. I took classes with other scholars including Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, who also officiated my wedding; the Q-News editor became my wife. I got a job offer with Islamic Relief in Birmingham where I met another great bunch of Muslims. The early to mid-2000s were a happy time. My wife and I travelled for work, and in between work. In mid-2004 we went to Turkey, Syria and then Jordan, where we met up with Shaykh Nuh, and I officially joined his community, despite a few niggling reservations about the setup there.

I infrequently attended the spiritual gatherings in Birmingham. I attended the larger suhba gatherings. I sang qasidas really badly. I was an inadequate student of the Sufi path, but happy. I couldn’t get into hadras, not for any fiqh hangup but because my knees hurt. My blogging and writing career had started taking off, and there was a baby at home as well.

Around that time some of the Muslim blogger community I knew well started highlighting issues with the community in Kharabsheh. Something didn’t quite sit right with me. I didn’t have an explicit reason, but I stopped going to the gatherings and suhbas. I would occasionally drop in and be welcomed, but I recognised the authoritarian and regressive signs from my childhood, and was triggered by them. This was around ten years ago.

In recent years I have been working through my childhood trauma. I chose to leave a senior job a few years ago, realising those crippling childhood issues had come to the fore and were holding me back. I got private therapy, which helped. My wife and siblings were supportive as ever. I have much to be grateful for, and a long way still to go.

But the anger is still there. So, when the comment from Shaykh Nuh that traditional schooling with beatings leads to the “best schooling in Jordan,” my immediate reaction was less polite than “horse manure.” I did say I was an inadequate student of the Sufi path.

Suffice to say, the reaction from Shaykh Nuh has since been more one of ‘command and control’ rather than ‘support and solace.’ I asked a close friend who is still a follower what he thought about Shaykh Nuh’s statement and he rationally, casually, told me what method of beating children is acceptable to him (“no broken bones or bruising” if you want to know). The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

Some final comments to all those still following Shaykh Nuh as their spiritual guide.

Firstly I would like to advise that this methodology of ‘getting closer to Allah by breaking the nafs’ -has been tried before – in the Deobandi communities I grew up in, in the Catholic Church, in the Scientologists, even in the horror stories I had heard from former followers of other Sufi groups like the Murabitoun.

Secondly, why not discuss with your spouse and children what threshold of child-beating you are all happy with. Is the “no-bruising no-broken bones” approach okay? Is there going to be a family beating stick? Will you pass it down generationally (both the stick and the trauma)? At what age will you start? These grey areas will need to be defined – it’s not as simple as Shaykh Nuh makes out.

Be imaginative. One madrassa teacher put a ball point pen interlaced between the knuckles of my fingers and squeezed my hand so the pen dug into my knuckles. That one bruised so maybe a step too far?

Be scientific. Is anger a factor in your beatings? Have a control sample beating when you are calm so you can comparatively measure the intensity of beatings administered when you are filled with rage. Oh, and to the doctors, dentists, teachers, and other professionals out there, keep your child-beating a secret from your professional bodies I reckon. Ask advice from the leadership at Kharabsheh, and get scriptural backup if this will help you sleep easy at night. The beatings will continue until tarbiyya improves.

And finally, I have a question for Shaykh Nuh. It’s more a rhetorical one really. Regarding the benefit you have bought to people across the world over the years: is it worth it if just one person leaves the deen at your hand?