a board and a director

Lubabah wrote:
“monem, jazaahu Allahu khair, took something that we had all been thinking about and contemplating and put it into action by getting us all involved and starting us off w/mtgs and such which was good.. but at the same time he was running it like a corporation, which is good and ideal, but at the same time that's not the way islamic work has ever been in the states, esp. not in the beginning of it, and that’s the phase that we were at..”

* What is “good and ideal” is what we should strive to do. The fact that it is not the way it had been done in the past is no excuse to not do it. At the roots of ISNA is student activism of the 60s, they were very experimental, they were progressive, some were radicals in the countries they came from. Why not allow that same spirit to reform MYNA? Why not do something for youth that might work better than what exists now? Why not experiment, America has evolved since the 60s, maybe Islamic work also needs to evolve? Why not? We shouldn’t fear change.

Anyways it wasn’t about running it like a corporation. It was about being professional and efficient in doing what must be done so that resources weren’t wasted. Even Non-profits have a board and director, ISNA has a board(majlis) and director(sect.general). A board has a chairperson, we made Monem the chair of the board. I don’t understand her problem with it.
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she wrote:
“another problem I saw and had, was that at times I was the one informing hana of mtgs and of the fact that an office staff was hired, etc, and she as acting president of myna, so nothing should have been done w/o her consent..”

* She did not have the time needed to do the work. Its wrong to think that nothing should have been done without her consent. Since the very beginning of MYNA, even in the days of the ISNA youth committee, the idea was that the advisory board would be appointed to guide the youth to what is best, not the other way around.
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She wrote:
“First off, I’m not sure who is on the board of advisors right now, but I would suggest that we add variety to it.. ppl with different backgrounds, some who weren’t involved in MYNA, maybe MAS or YM, maybe they weren’t involved w/youth work when they were young, but now they ‘re doing a lot of work w/the youth.”

* The board we had created had plenty of variety. Finding people is not an easy process. Anyways, more important than variety was finding people who had the experience, expertise, and time to commit to the effort of reviving a national organization for youth. Some were asked and said No, others were asked to resign, a few dropped out after a few meetings, but after a few months a solid group emerged (by May 2003). It was as diverse as it could be. With the hired staff who we included in all the discussions, there were - 3 women, 2 arabs, 1 turk, 1 pakistani/bengali, 1 hydrabadi indian, 2 siddiquis, and we would have had an African American if Naeem had not resigned to go work for Islamic Relief; 2 were never involved in MYNA as youth, 2 MYNA ex-presidents, 2 former MYNA workers who never took part in the national organization, 4 were leaders of local MYNA chapters as youth; ideologically, we were all over the place. Now, we did not have an Ismaili, a Qadiani, or a Nation of Islam follower. But then, some would probably complain about us being too diverse.

Here’s who they were:

Staff:
1-Inayet Sahin, past MYNA president at its “high point” in the early 90s , extensive youth and student organizing experience, studying “traditional Islam”
2-Iman Salam, past local MYNA organizer, west coast perspective
grew up at a masjid where Hamza Yusuf was the Imam.

Board:
3-Adil Asaduddin, never involved in MYNA, local MSA experience, brought an outsider perspective

4-Ayesha Kazmi, past MYNA officer, social worker, brought East Zone experience from the “high point” of MYNA in the early 90s, and experience in counselor training.

5-Hassan Siddiqi, past MYNA officer, internet experience, son of former ISNA president, brings experience of organizing youth activities at one of the largest mosques of LA – was assigned to coordinate the creation of the new internet infrastructure.

6-Assim Mohammad, past MYNA officer and advisor, student activism experience from the revival of MSA in the mid 90s, involved in development of Peace-Net in the late 90s, and a former member of MAS, he brought professional etiquette with a been there/done that wisdom. He understands movement oriented activism and is a much needed critic of it.
He wants Muslims to become much more professional in the services they provide.

7-Asad Siddiqui, me, past local MYNA organizer and advisor to local and regional level MYNA officers in Texas and Florida, brought grassroots youth and student activism perspective. I was never a member of any global movement or sufi tarika, I have a very traditional family background. But I’m also wanderer and wannabe anarchist. I don’t like hierarchy, patriarchy, oligarchy, monarchy, or any other type of archy.

8-Lubabah, as the MSA representative, eventually could not commit because of other things that required her time. We did not go out of the way to bring another MSA rep into the board.

9-Hana Unus, as the MYNA president, she would also be unable to commit due to other things that required her time. We had decided that if she resigned, we would not go out of our way to find someone to become a new MYNA president. It would be a better use of our limited time, and better for the youth if we filled the position after the reform. I’ll explain later.

10-Naeem Muhammad, as a recent East Zone advisor, he would eventually resign because his job at Islamic Relief would require much of his time. But he was a key member in the beginning, before we became formalized into a board.

11-Riyad Shamma, as the MYNA national advisor, knowledge of MYNA history, he was there when it all began, he was there when it died out. He brought his knowledge of ISNA/MYNA relations. He understands movement oriented activism like MAS/YM/Ikhwan,etc and is not critical of it. He also is very resistant to change. He was a check to ME and Assim

12-Monem Salam, as the ISNA representative, never a MYNA officer, never an MSA officer, an experienced grassroots activist, he was the one person on the ISNA executive committee who got us off our butts, he brought an outsider perspective of growing up having not been involved in any mosque during his youth, he also had the leadership skills to keep the process going. In the mid 90s, he led a group of us in Texas as we struggled to analyze the problems of the muslim community.

There were many disagreements in the beginning. But as we began to understand each other, the discussions got better. Lots of compromises were made by everyone involved. The major decisions were based on consensus and it was very important for people to keep up. So after a certain point we stopped adding people to the board. Too many people can limit progress.

We involved people from previous MYNA reform efforts:
Aiman Mir, past president
Jawad AbdulRahman, past organizer, youth leader, advisor

I would bounce ideas off of:
Naeem Muhammad and Zubaid Kazmi, involved in East Zone reform
Asad Ba Yunus and Mustafa Saied, involved in MSA reform
Feiza Naqvi and Yasir Billoo, involved in regional MYNA and MSA work

So...
The idea that the board should have variety is good. But she says it as though we didn’t already have it. We DID! And here’s what bothers me: If she was not sure about what we were doing, I wish she’d first asked those of us who were still involved. (I know Monem or myself would have gone out of our way to fill anyone in if they had asked). Not only about who’s on the board, but about other things as well. The board agreed with almost all of her concerns.
We could have used her support much earlier. Her talks with Hana, and probably her father (I could be wrong) may have given him doubts about supporting us. I can understand how this could happen. But it’s unfortunate. I was very disheartened when we didn’t get his support.

EVERYONE else I talked to about our ideas supported us. It’s puzzling why some in ISNA leadership did not.

In the end, you won’t satisfy everyone. I really don’t know what more we could have done. Oh yes, actually there is one thing: “no youth involved”

End of part 4