You know something? Say what you like, but I think we’ve got a long way to go before we can control what is going on in our beautiful community. There is so much to do and who’s going to do it? You? Me? I mean come on look at us. We’re all sleepwalkers and we seem to be sleeping through the craziest things! Look at these recent headlines: ‘Man who ‘posed as doctor secretly filmed himself having sex with Muslim women before blackmailing them with footage’. Another evil, lying deceiver has been caught destroying the lives of the vulnerable, the gullible, and the ignorant and dare I say, the stupid!

So what are we going to do about it? The last time I had a rant about this, I upset one of my sisters, which of course I wasn’t happy about but I quickly came to terms with the fact that not everyone will agree with me regardless of whether I care about their wellbeing or not. The point is I still have a duty to be a voice of encouragement. I have to encourage my brothers and sisters to work together to help our ummah to become great again because we are far from it, as well you all know. I know sometimes we find it hard to get motivated enough to try to be a part of the solution because it’s so daunting and most of the time you probably feel that your words are falling on deaf ears, but think about the people you’ll be able to save from scumbags who are out there purely to have their evil way.

Let’s take a closer look at this most recent case: The independent reported that the 38 year old from Cardiff, ‘is accused of targeting the women, secretly filming them and then threatening to bring shame upon them and their families by publishing the videos unless they gave him money and gifts. Cardiff Crown Court heard that he is accused of voyeurism, blackmail, theft and fraud – including pretending to be a doctor – in order to commit a string of offences over a three-year period.’ The article goes on to say that he found the sisters on a ‘Muslim dating site (not the same one I recently reported about).
One of the complainants, who was single, said they exchanged messages and telephone calls before arranging to meet a few weeks later. ‘She thought he was a successful doctor, but he was in fact a taxi driver.’

I’ve already posed the question of whether sisters should take at least a small portion of the blame, but this time it’s not about blame because once that word enters into the conversation, it as though all doors of understanding close. Of course I blame the man who wilfully went on to those marriage websites looking for gullible victims. He clearly went on there to exploit and destroy. His mind was hell-bent on living off women through blackmail. Look how one sin leads fluidly to another. One of the things that disturb me most is the fact that these crimes have a bigger impact on us than we actually realise. I featured this on one of my shows a while back where sisters reported that they were left with STDs after falling into the trap left by marriage predators. Most of those sisters were completely free of blame because they went through the marriage process. It just so happened that the brothers who had married them were known offenders and had left a trail of broken women in their wake.

Earlier I mentioned that we are sleepwalking and I don’t think any of you will disagree. We know these things are happening but whenever a new case emerges, there’s a momentary uproar and then we go on as though nothing happened, until it happens again. I’d like to thank Waheed Rahman on facebook for bringing this case to my attention. May Allah reward you for stirring me from my slumber. There’s no doubt that we have a disease in our community and this disease is spreading exponentially. However our beloved prophet may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him said that for every disease is a cure and in this case I believe an intrinsic part of the cure comes in the form of awareness. These issues need to be discussed and spread until everyone is aware of the dangers that lurk in the shadows. May Allah protect this beloved ummah from being destroyed from within by those who use it as bait for their unsuspecting victims ameen.