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Dr. Ingrid Mattson
London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies

The Qur’an states that the Creator placed the Children of Adam (the Qur’anic term for humanity) as trustees over the earth. Humanity was given capacities – physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual – to exercise this authority, within limits. This divine decision seems to have left the angels incredulous: “Will you place on the earth one who will spread corruption and sheds blood…?” (Q 2:30). God responds, “I know what you do not know.” This divine response indicates there are benefits to human empowerment, while never denying that harms will also proceed from this act. Right from the beginning, then, from the beginning of creation, the Qur’an gives us a realistic view of our life on this earth: it is not a utopia and we should be prepared to deal with those who will use their created capacities in a harmful way.

The Qur’an narrates stories of those who abuse others placed in their trust, even the closest of family members. In Surah Yusuf, the twelfth chapter of the Qur’an, the sons of the Prophet Jacob conspire to murder their younger brother, fabricate evidence of his death, cry fake tears to their father, and continue to lie to everyone around them until their conspiracy is publicly revealed by Joseph, the one who survived all their plots against him.

The Qur’an and the Sunnah (traditions of the Prophet) also narrate stories of spiritual and ethical transformation, whereby individuals and whole communities abandon their harmful ways, submit to God’s command, and commit to a righteous way of life. There are many people – and I am one of those people –  who witness that they have been uplifted by this religion and that their lives have been transformed for the better because of faith. Sometimes these experiences are so over-powering and precious that we might resent anyone who tells us that their experience with the faith community or religious teachings have not been positive. We might feel they are diminishing our experiences and poisoning our worldview by talking about spiritual abuse; we protect our feelings by denying that it can be true, or by blaming victims for the abuse they have suffered, or we try to distance ourselves from the abuse by saying it has nothing to do with the religion.

But when abuse is justified with religious discourse, perpetrated in a religious space or is committed by someone whom we have elevated in our religious communities, then how can we say it is not our concern? The Muslim community is implicated even if we, knowing that such things can and do happen everywhere in society, do not undertake serious steps towards prevention.

This is not to say that Islam, nor any other religion, is uniquely or particularly enabling of abuse and violations of trust. Anyone following the news in the last few years can see that is not the case. Sexual abuse, physical abuse, bullying and more have been seen across the cultural sector (radio, film, music, theatre), sports (youth hockey, gymnastics, soccer), education (from elementary school through university), the police and military (in Canada, UN Peacekeepers, and elsewhere), and in the charitable sector and in business. Add to this misappropriation and embezzlement, and we can see why the angels objected to giving human beings so much power.

Abuse happens because we are human, and humans have agency which we can use for good or for ill. The fundamental reality that all humans share is that any power we have is limited and is dependent on forces outside of our control. In other words, we are only temporarily and contingently empowered. For some, engaging in self-harm is a way to relieve the anxiety and terror of knowing that we cannot truly control the trajectory of our lives. For others, exercising power over another in a willful manner is intoxicating, and generates the anesthetic needed to mask existential pain. And while predators are a minority of human beings, typically they have multiple victims over many years.

But most abuse is not committed by such predators. Rather, ordinary people who, like the rest of us, are susceptible to getting carried away by power, can move from small transgressions to major violations if they are in a poorly supervised environment and are rarely held accountable for their actions. Power differences, identity politics, misplaced loyalties, lack of awareness and education, and above all, a desire to protect the organization which, in most cases, does much good, are all part of the structures which enable abuse and prevent just responses when it happens. But while the dynamics are similar across communities, each context has its own specificities and cultural particularities. This is why, despite the fact that abuse is present across society, no leader should deny the need to take robust steps to prevention in their own organization and culture.

In Islamic theological ethics, each believer who has reached the age of majority has a moral responsibility (taklif) to work for the proliferation of benefits and to prevent harms to the extent that we are able. We have the responsibility to protect our own individual and collective bodies, our commonwealth, our hearts, minds and spiritual selves from abuse and harm. As a community we have a collective obligation (fard kifayah) to put in place systems of knowledge, oversight and care to prevent harm when possible, to stop it when it is happening and to provide paths for healing and support for those who have been harmed.

These are the values and principles which underlie the work of the Hurma Project, a research project that I and my research partner Mihad Fahmy (who is a lawyer, a workplace investigator, and an occasional lecturer at Huron) have been working on since 2018. After years of trying to respond to individual cases of abuse as they arose, it became clear to us that the issues underlying spiritual abuse were so complex and abuse of power so misunderstood, that we could make no meaningful contribution without undertaking a major, long-term project of research, education and advocacy. In doing so we have benefitted greatly from the research and experience of other faith communities and organizations such as the remarkable FaithTrust Institute founded in 1977 by the Rev. Dr. Marie Fortune.

An important decision we made when founding the Hurma Project is that we did not want to put abuse at the center of our work; instead, the moral center of our work is the sacred inviolability of the person – a value signified by the Arabic-Islamic term hurma. We affirm that human beings are endowed by God with this sacred inviolability and that nothing in the name of religion or anything else can be used to justify its violation. This is the profound meaning of a teaching of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ which forms the foundation of our work – that the hurma of human beings is like sacred inviolability of the sacred times and the sacred places. The right thing to do is crystal clear when we center what is most sacred in our decision-making.