I want to be an Imam – Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre

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Salam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Salam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
I remind myself that this is also a, or even first I remind it to myself, which is first of all, anyone who wants to be an Imam, and by Imam I mean Imam for one salah, for tarawi, Imam of the masjid, somebody wants to become a khatib, wants to give khutbah, and so forth.
So I’m including all of that in this word, Imam.
So anyone who wants to be an Imam must beware of what Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam wants.
And said, if anyone wants to be an Imam, don’t give him Imam.
If someone wants to be an Imam, do not make him the Imam.
Now this advice itself is so completely contrary to our current understanding of leadership.
Because our current understanding of leadership is that a person should want to be a leader,
a person should then start making efforts.
First to become a leader, a person should, you know, canvas for votes, a person should make speeches, he must, he or she must become popular with people,
and they must try and somehow force people nicely or otherwise to vote for them and so on.
Now again, please understand this, I’m not talking here about developing leadership qualities.
This is very important.
This is absolutely critically important.
Everyone must do that.
Learn how to, you know, develop leadership qualities.
But wanting to actually become a leader, that’s a different thing altogether.
You might say, if I develop leadership qualities, then you are saying, don’t become a leader or don’t want, don’t have this desire to become a leader.
Then what is the point of having leadership qualities?
You know, you might have this question.
My submission is that.
Developing leadership qualities and wanting to lead people are, I won’t say they are contradictory things, but they are definitely not the same thing.
They are definitely not something which is, you know, necessarily a progression.
Leadership qualities means the simplest and the most important leadership quality is to take responsibility for your own life.
So who is a leader?
A leader is not somebody who has 5,000 followers or 50,000 followers.
A leader is not a head of state.
A leader is not a CEO of a company.
A leader, in all of these positions, for example, CEOs of companies, heads of state, you have people with very poor leadership qualities.
They get there one way or the other.
One of the most common and easiest ways in which people become CEOs of companies is because their father was the CEO of the company.
Their father is the owner of the company.
In family businesses or in businesses where there’s a, you know, somebody has a major shareholding, they’re usually sons, but sometimes daughters.
They automatically become members of the board.
They automatically become, you know, CEOs of the company.
And with disastrous results, with absolutely disastrous results because they are lousy leaders.
They do not have the leadership quality in them.
They’ve never developed those qualities.
They are highly entitled.
They are people who you just expect people to obey them just because they have the same surname as the owner and so forth.
So that position has nothing to do with leadership qualities.
I have known ordinary workers who are the most tremendous leaders in terms of their leadership qualities that I’ve ever encountered in my life.
My plantation career in Guyana in South America and in the mining industry, which I worked in.
I’ve seen people, people who have, in many cases, they have literally zero formal education.
I mean, forget about getting MBAs or whatnot.
MBA is the biggest con job in the world.
They have no formal education.
I mean, some of them never even went to school.
But amazing leadership qualities, meaning people who have confidence, people who take responsibility for themselves and for those around them, people who are willing to invest in themselves.
Invest themselves into the lives of other people, help them, people who are very kind and considerate and compassionate.
All of these are signs of leadership.
All of these are eminently important.
They are very important.
They must be developed.
I’m not talking about that.
I’m talking about this desire to be the boss, the desire to be the one that everybody, you know, follows.
Right. So this is the desire for followership.
That’s what I mean by this imam.
So I say that if somebody has this desire that people should follow me, that I should have authority over people, that I should be able to order people around and so on.
If that is the kind of person it is, then they are the kind of people who will say, I want to become imam.
I want to become the CEO.
And Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, for that reason alone, don’t give him imamate.
Do not make him an imam because he wants to be.
So we are not even going beyond this to say, is he qualified, not qualified?
How much Quran does he know?
No, just because he asked for it, don’t give it.
So I say to these people, if you want to be an imam, this is a great danger sign.
They make istighfar, make tawbah, repent to Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala, seek Allah’s forgiveness and then give a hefty amount in sadaqah, a big amount in sadaqah so that you never get distraught again and beg Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to forgive you.
So this is my advice based on.
Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam’s warning and command.
Now, this is because of the danger of the danger to the niyyat of the person, the danger to the intention of the person, because Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala holds imams accountable and punishes them while he forgives followers.
Muqtadiz.
If you have simple example, if you’re praying behind the imam in salah, then whatever mistake you might make.
Is forgiven automatically.
But if the imam makes a mistake in the salah, he has to do salah sajda sahoo or he has to do whatever he needs to do.
Right.
So this is shows an indication that the difference between the imam and the muqtadiz, the person who is following.
So why would you want to be accountable to Allah?
Why would you want to say, I want to be punished?
I want to be to do.
I want Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala to catch me on things.
You know, this makes no sense.
So, but people say this, I mean, they’re not saying this because they have thought.
So, but people say this, I mean, they’re not saying this because they have thought.
Thought it through.
They actually say this because they’ve not thought it through.
So I’m trying to explain saying, please think it through.
Don’t, don’t make, don’t have these kinds of desires.
Again, by all means develop leadership qualities.
That’s very, very, very important.
But wanting to become a leader as in a designated leader, whether it’s the imam, as far as Islam is concerned, in the masjid or something, or in business or wherever I want to be the class monitor.
No, do not do that.
Serve people, help people.
Be kind, considerate to people and so on.
Now, to come back to the imamat of salah or imam in the masjid.
So what should you do instead?
Number one, focus.
So five things.
Number one, focus on your salah.
Because that’s the first thing for which you would be held accountable.
So that’s a very important thing.
Let us focus on salah itself.
What is my salah like?
Is my prayer something which is going to be accepted?
Or is it something which is, might be,
rejected?
So focus on salah.
Number two, focus on earning and eating halal.
Because without that, your worship and dua is not accepted.
So focus on the salah, koshu and khudu, quality of salah.
Second one, focus on earning and eating halal.
Because without that, your worship and dua is not accepted.
Number three, focus on your akhlaq and mu’milat, your manners and your dealing with people.
Because you will be held accountable for those.
Nabi said, anyone who’s right, you have transgressed.
And if you’re transgressed upon, Allah will not forgive you until that person forgives you first.
So don’t, first of all, don’t even get into that.
If it happened, make sure you make amends, you apologize, you make sure you give whatever you need to give.
Because we don’t want to be put in a situation where we are in trouble.
So focus on akhlaq and mu’milat.
Number four, focus on the tarbiyah of your children, because you will be questioned about it.
And they are potentially sadhaq.
So those who have children must focus on that.
You, your family.
If you don’t have children, then that’s a different thing.
Alhamdulillah, Allah has blessed you by not giving you children.
So He did not give you that test.
Those of you who feel that children are a blessing, not necessarily so.
May Allah make them a blessing for you.
Children are a test.
Allah said, your wealth and your children are a test.
Right?
Allah did not say this is a test.
This is a blessing for you.
It’s not necessarily both wealth and children.
Alhamdulillah, if they are used wealth, if it is earned halal and spent halal, and children, if they are made, if they are groomed and they get the tarbiyah to become salihin, then they are definitely a blessing.
But without that, no.
They are a test and they can be a problem.
So Alhamdulillah, focus on that.
Make sure that you make them, your family, into blessing.
Number five, focus on learning more.
And I’m talking about Islam with only one intention, to practice it for the sake of Allah .
Right?
So the purpose of learning is to practice.
Now, then another 10 things that I have listed here, which I advise and I advise myself first.
Number one, pray tahajjud every single day and read one juz, one siparah of the Quran every day, and then go to the masjid for salatul fajr.
Number one.
Number two, pray as many salatul fajr as possible.
As in the masjid as you can, but definitely Isha.
Because you pray Isha by Juma and fajr by Juma, Allah gives you the reward of having parade all night.
Number three, learn tahajjud and learn to read the Quran correctly, according to the usool of tahajjud.
This is a major mistake many people make.
They read the Quran wrong.
So, which is a terrible, very jarring, very horrible thing.
Especially if you are speaking, public speaking, if you are giving a khutbah or something, you decide Quran incorrectly.
It’s very, very difficult.
Difficult to, you know, for people who know to bear that.
Number four, learn Arabic to the level of a native speaker.
Um, if you do it full time, it takes you around two years.
If not, it takes you longer.
It’s a difficult language.
No doubt about that.
But without learning Arabic, we can never get to the, the, the, the, uh, fundamental documents, which is the Quran and the, and the, and the Hadith of Rasulullah.
We cannot really understand them as we should understand them.
Number five.
Memorize the Quran.
Make this niyyah to become a Hafiz of the Quran.
And even if you cannot become a Hafiz, Alhamdulillah, you make the niyyah, Allah will give you the reward for that.
And plus try and memorize as many Suwar as you can.
Um, number six, find a Sheikh and submit to him for Tazkiyatul Nafs and Tarbiyatul Akhlaq.
Right?
This is very important to have a Sheikh who will guide you so that you, you, you improve yourself.
And maybe this is even the first step.
The first thing we should do is submit to a Sheikh.
Go and enroll with a Sheikh for Tazkiyatul Nafs and Tarbiyatul Akhlaq.
Now this is not as easy as I’m saying it because to get the right Sheikh itself is a, uh, is a big test, but inshallah, make the niyyah, ask Allah SWT, make dua, Allah will open doors for you and take you to where he wants you to go.
Uh, very important.
When you go to the Sheikh, make sure that it’s somebody who does not take you down the wrong path and the wrong path, the most common wrong path is where they, uh, where some of these Shuyukh, they will, or some people will go.
So, say they are Sheikhs, may Allah protect us.
Uh, they then prescribe things for you which are, uh, bida’at or which are bordering on Shirk and stuff like that.
Don’t, don’t fall into that.
If you find that’s happening, go away.
The number one requirement for a Sheikh is that this, this Sheikh must be on Tawheed and this Sheikh must be, he and his practices must be free from all bida’at and must not be anywhere, there should not be any, uh, semblance or shadow of Shirk in what they say or do.
So, uh, make dua.
Make dua.
Make dua.
Make dua.
So, do this.
But, taskiyat al-nafs, purification of the soul, of the heart, uh, and then tarbiyat al-akhlaq, your manners are very, very, very important.
Number seven.
Enroll in a well-known Darul Ulum.
So now we are talking about, uh, becoming an Imam.
So, get systematic knowledge and that’s, you can only get that in a systematic way, which is get into an Islamic Studies course in a Darul Ulum.
Become a graduate from Deen.
Get a Master’s in Islamic Studies.
And after that, so this will take you about seven, eight years.
And then after that, if possible, get a PhD, uh, in the discipline that you did your Master’s, that will take you another four years.
So we’re talking about 12 years of study, which is nothing new, nothing, uh, remarkable because this is what you do in any, uh, discipline.
Um, and then really, uh, if you, after that, if you still want to be an Imam, if the desire is there, I want to be an Imam.
And go back to your Sheikh and tell him that you have failed and that he should start your Taskiyah again.
Now, throughout this journey, remember, you practice everything you learn because Islamic knowledge that you don’t practice will become proof against you when you meet Allah .
Right?
After this, when you have no desire to be an Imam, but people see you as one and come to you for advice and to learn from you and to force you to lead them, then you may do that with the following conditions.
And I’ve got six conditions.
Number one.
You take no compensation for it in any form.
Number two.
You take no compensation for it in any form.
So no salaries, no nothing.
Don’t even take prisons.
Number two.
That this is not a source of income for you.
Do not make that Imamate into your business.
Number three.
That you beg Allah to forgive you every single day in Sujood bin Tahajjud.
Number four.
That you live in a constant fear that you may do something wrong for which Allah will punish you.
Number five.
When you are an Imam, feel that you are in a prison and you want to escape.
If you feel happy about being an Imam, make istiqwaar and give a heavy sadaqah in compensation.
If you feel happy again, resign.
Number six.
Train someone else and leave this responsibility as soon as you can.
Now this is very, very important to do because without this, may Allah have mercy, Imamate
can become the biggest, literally the biggest sort of curse that you wish on yourself.
And obviously I do not wish you to wish this on yourself.
We ask Allah to help us to do that which pleases Him.
And to save us from that which does not please Him.
Wasallamu Ala Nabil Karim Wa Alihi Wasallamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.

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