As Salaam Alaykum Sister Portia,

My name is Gillian Izhar,

I work with Sr. Soraya in Southern California.  For the last few days my email has been overflowing with venom.  I was wondering how to respond to some of them, I think you did a very good job with msahib.  Much better than I could have done.  Unfortunately I think it is a waste of time and effort trying to talk to some of these people.  Their minds are slammed shut like steel traps.  They remind me of that passage in the Quran, I can't remember the exact quote but it says something like It doesn't matter if you warn then or don't warn them they are like the blind, deaf, and dumb, there is a seal on their hearts and minds put there by Allah.  May Allah bless you with much peace and love and happiness, I know a lot of people who have been turned off from local mosques and these so called Muslim organizations because there is too much nastiness, complaining, and gossiping. 

People have told me they stopped going to the mosque because there is no kindness, no love, no peace and no sense of community in their local mosque.  I know a lady, she's going through a divorce, she's getting more help from the PTA and a Christian church than from the Mosque where she taught Sunday School for about 3 years. I don't have any statistics for you, these are just anecdotal comments that people have made to me. Most of these people do not want to cause fitna so they don't try to change the mosque, they just drop out, and no one cares, no one asks why they stop coming. The mosques and other organizations brag about how many people they have but there are no records on how many people they loose. 

Insha Allah we will meet at a conference somewhere,  

was Salaam, Sr. Gillian