A Cause of Child Sexual Abuse – AskImam Social Dept.

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Assalaamu `alaykum waRahmatullahi Wabarakatuh

Jazakillah for writing to us regarding your concerns regarding “sleep overs.”

This kuffar concept has insidiously crept into the lives of Muslims all over the world. Parents are under the impression that it is just as “cool” to be like their children to give in to this practice. Instead of guiding their children and being role models for them, parents blindly accept these practices and take their children into a life of hell sometimes. They fail to realize or appreciate that sleep overs have no precept in Islam. Children need to be with their parents, sharing, learning and practicing the Sunnah of our beloved Nabi( sallallaahu alayhi wassallam) and the illustrious Sahaba. Children have a right to be protected from all forms of harm. This duty primarily falls on the shoulders of the father. If a father fails in ties responsibility, he will be held accountable on the day of Qiyamah.

Our children spend a greater part of their day imbibing the kuffar culture in school or they primarily obtain secular knowledge and education only. It is the child’s right over the parents that he / she also receives knowledge of deen which will give the child a firm footing for the future in this world and the aagirah. As you rightly point out, child sexual abuse and molestation is rife in all communities. Exposure to television and the vile programmes that are screened, porn and exposure to other practices are taking their toll on our Muslim communities.Human beings have lost all forms of decency and even boys of 9 and 10 years end up violating girls and boys who are vulnerable and / or younger than them. The abused children are destroyed for life. The parents often do not even get to know about it because as you point out, the children remain silent. AS they grow up, they struggle with interpersonal relationships, sometimes refuse to marry and the parents cannot understand why this is so. Basically, the children suffer for the rest of their lives. Children don’t remain silent due to shame only. Their whole world is turned up side down because of this experience. It is soul destroying.

Unfortunately, these abused children end up abusing other children and the cycle continues ad infinitum. You mention that after girls have reached puberty they should not sleep out. Sister, are you aware that boys and teenagers start abusing or molesting little girls when they are two or three years old because the perpetrators are under the impression that the girls will never speak up and or that they will not remember anything?

My stand on this is very strong and clear. Children accompany their parents on visits to family and friends and they must return to their homes with their parents. Unfortunately, many Muslim children are being molested or abused by male cousins, uncles, grandfathers and even the family drivers. We receive some very painful mail from adults and teenagers who have suffered at the hands of people who are closely related to them or who are in trusted positions and known to the family. Guardians, such as fathers and brothers do not always respect the honor of the daughters and sisters either. The Sunnah are clear that only a husband and wife should share the blankets or sheets in a bed and sleep together. No other two people should share a sheet or blanket in bed. Likewise it is better to separate brothers and sisters from an early age due to the exposure to sex that they are subjected to in the media and other influences. It is also better to instill a sense of Hayah in the children so that they do not undress in front of each other ( this should be as soon as they start understanding the differences between boys and girls). I am not scare mongering. This is the reality of our children’s lives in this crazy world.

Finally, there is nothing and no one who can replace the loving, caring and important input that they can get from loving parents. If parents take their responsibilities seriously, they will guide their children with wisdom. Insha’allah, the children will accept their parent’s decisions with respect and they will not demand to copy the kuffar. Parents cannot expect this to happen suddenly. There is no point in letting the children do what they want to do till they are about 8 or 9 years old and only thereafter start imposing restrictions on them. Parents have to start imbibing the values and morality of Islam from the time the child is young. Children should feel good about obeying Allah Ta’ala out of love and joy. They should have learnt that to please their parents is to please Allah Ta’ala and that they will obey their parents and not just because they are forced to do so.

And Allah knows best

Wassalam

Social Dept.

Checked and Approved by:

Mufti Ebrahim Desai
Darul Iftaa, Madrassah In’aamiyyah

Source: http://askimam.org/fatwa/fatwa.php?askid=ee67bcc781a07a21d1b3bc28152a41f1

Abuse in Islam – Mufti Ebrahim Desai

Abuse of anything, (inanimate or animate, human being or animal) at any level is haraam (strictly prohibited). If a person is convicted for such a crime, he/she will be charged and dealt with appropriately.

It is unfortunate that you have become a victim of abuse for which we deeply regret and sincerely sympathize with you. Your questioning of Allah was probably due to thinking that was the decree of Allah and that being your fate. That is not so. Allah never decrees abuse.

Allah’s knowledge is perfect and absolute. He knows ahead of time what is to happen, not that He made it happen. The abuser will be punished by Allah, your approach and change of attitude is therefore appropriate. Looking back may not assist you in any way especially when it is not of your own doing. It will only bring grief and agony.

You should be optimistic and look for bright prospects in life within the framework of Shariah. Rasulullah (SAW) said, Lighten your heart often (Abu-Dawood). That may be achieved by engaging in something that is permissible but interesting to you, especially heart and mind consuming. Train yourself never to turn back. Look forward and advance.

and Allah Ta’ala Knows Best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai

FATWA DEPT.

Source: http://askimam.org/fatwa/fatwa.php?askid=360986ca9759916d0d3f2d1ce3383b51

Injustice in the name of God

In the past few years, potentially enormous liability issues, including the threat to cleryg member’s careers and possible degeneration of the status of clergy professinals, have engendered the emergence of an overall defensive posture by religious institutions. Although there are movements within religious institutions instigated by the work of some progressive religious professionals, and perhaps because of changing laws favoring victims, it appears that ongoing counter efforts still exist within religious organizations to minimize, deny, suppress, or otherwise ignore the violation and violance women suffer from religious authorties. Viewpoints involving justice and understanding regard the problem as fundamentally unaddressed. Marie Fortune of the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence in Seattle is a stong advocate for abused owmen and has pioneered enormous efforts to identify, define and promote an understanding of the problem of clergy sexual abuse in the United States and around the world.

Fortune attests that the “religious institutions prefers to ‘shoot the messenger,’ that is, to denigrate whoever has the courage to tell the secret.” The “conspiracy of silence, ” according to accounts in related literature, is endemic to religious institutions. On those comparatively few occasions when religious institutions have attempted to address clergy violence, unfortunately, theological considerations have been excluded and replaced by legal considerations as guiding principles for responding to women who report their abuse. This major shift form the religious institution’s traditional religious stance of seeking justice and standing with the poor and oppressed for justice and liberation may be an indicator of the fundamentally deeper decline in the viability of the traditional religious institutions as a conveyor of moral values for society at large. If true, such a decline will further exacerbate the effects of clergy abuse.

Source: The Sexual Abuse of Women by Members of Clergy by Kathryn A. Flynn (with slight editing)

The Aftermath of Boyhood Sexual Betrayal

• There is a higher general prevalence of sexual abuse of girls than boys. Among sexually abused children, a greater proportion of boys than girls suffer extrafamilial abuse. However, intrafamilial abuse, especially incest within the immediate family, is a powerful predictor of greater disturbance in later life of boys.
• Among sexually abused children, a smaller proportion of boys than girls report the abuse, partly because fewer boys and men consciously identify their experience as abusive. Cognitively, they may feel less traumatized, despite having a wide range of symptoms related to abuse. This raises the question of whether they are less disturbed by their abuse than girls, on the one hand, or are better able to deny trauma, on the other.
• Boys (like girls) often hold themselves responsible for their abuse, feeling they should have prevented it, or that they deserved it because they are ‘bad’ or ‘dirty’. This is less frightening than experiencing that the world is unpredictable or that their families do not take care of them.
• Like sexually abused women, many sexually abused men exhibit guilt, anxiety, depression, shame, and low self-esteem. Frequently, they are actively self-destructive and self-mutilating. They make more suicidal attempts than non abused men, and may exhibit covert suicidal behavior by needlessly putting themselves in high-risk situations. They are at greater risk for developing major depression, bulimia, antisocial personality disorder, behavior problems, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder.
• Boys who are sexually abused are more likely than sexually abused girls to act aggressively as they progress in their lives. As a group, they are more likely than nonabused boys to engage in criminal behavior, although there is a great individual variability about this. It is not uncommon for sexually abused adolescent  boys to become hustlers, just as sexually abused girls become prostitutes more often than nonabused girls do.
• Sexually abused men are more likely than sexually abused women to fantasize a bout or desire sexual activit with children, although most do not themselves become sexual abusers.
• Sexually abused men are prone to have dysfunctional psychological and physiological reactions to stress, as well as poor body imagery. Hypertension, chest pains, sleep disturbance, nightmares, shortness of breath, dizziness, and anorexia or bulimia are common somatic systems. Men who suffered anal trauma are especially susceptible to constipation and encopresis (loss of bowel movement). Even as boys, they are more likely than their nonabused peers to develop drug and/or alcohol addictions.
• Sexual abuse often precipitates crises about sexual orientation and gender identity in boys and men. These are related to shameful feelings of being less manly because of victimization. Also, beliefs that sexual victimization influences later sexual orientation and/or is a sign of one’s ‘true’ orientation may lead to anxiety or homophobia. Some sexually abused men consider themselves heterosexual but engage in sexual behavior at times with other men, with varying degrees of pleasure and satisfaction. Others believe their homosexual orientation was caused by an abuse history, whether the abuser was a male or female. Still others retreat from all sexual contact. Of this last group, some are clear about their orientation but are phobic about sexual intimacy. Others have little concept of sexual orientation at all, and, more to the point, have never developed psychosexually to a point where sexual relatedness and orientation are even issues for them.

(to be continued..)

Source: Betrayed as Boys by Richard B. Gartner

From person to person

Extreme helplessness increases the traumatic impact of an event. But there is wide variation in different individuals’ reactions to similar events. A circumstance that is traumatic to one person maybe managed more easily by another. What is crucial is not an external judgment about how severely disturbing an experience is, but rather the way the individual subjectively registers it. Some boys maybe exposed to enormous over- or understimulation without the traumatic response that might be expected, while others are painfully reactive to circumstances that might seem less catastrophic to an ‘objective’ outsider. As Crowder notes, ‘A client’s perception of the intrusiveness of any specific sexual activity is subjective…It is the client’s experience that needs to be addressed in therapy rather than whether the behavior is objectively considered intrusive.’

Behavior that is abusive and betraying may therefore in some cases not be traumatic to the victim. In these rare situations, a boy who has been sexually abused may not feel traumatized, particularly if he is past puberty, if the abuser is the same gender as the boy’s sexual object choice, and if the abuse was not violent or otherwise obviously coercive. However, the nontraumatic impact on the victim does not make the behavior itself less abusive.

Source: Betrayed as Boys by Richard B. Gartner

The Goal

My writing is deeply influenced by my belief that, for most sexually abused men in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, symptom removal is not nearly sufficient as a goal. Instead, these men want and need to develop a more nearly consolidated sense of self, a greater attunement to their emotional lives, and an increased ability to develop and maintain a tie with an intimate other. And, I believe, this is most likely to happen in a therapeutic experience that carefully examines the relational aspects of all actions and internal psychological events.

Source: Betrayed as Boys by Richard B. Gartner

Fearing a Particular Person

When fearing a person or when one is terrified of a person, one should recite:

اَللَّهُمَّ اكْفِنَاهُ بِمَا شِئْتَ

Trans: O Allah, grant us safety against him as, and how you please.

The author states that this hadith is authentic and Abu Nu’aim has mentioned it in his book al-Mustakhraj ala Sahih Muslim.

Source: al-Hisnul Haseen by Allamah Muhammad al-Jazri Rahimullah