No. Absolutely not. It is outside the scope of HISBA and the public interest (according to Islam) what MPFs do in their private lives. Such a complaint will be rejected.

No. HISBA is concerned solely with the public behaviour of MPFOs and what they intend to publicise.

HISBA will not concern itself with the private misconduct of an MPF, unless the MPF themselves publicise it. If a third party does so, this will not be a concern of HISBA. However, HISBA may launch an accountability investigation on the individual who exposed someone else’s private life to the public. HISBA may also advise the public not to spread such an exposé, whether it is true or false.

HISBA will advise anyone who has been slandered about their private life, that HISBA cannot investigate an individual’s private affairs. However, HISBA may contact the slanderer and hold the individual behind the slanderous exposé to account for publicising private information regardless of whether it is true or false.

If the victim of slander requests it, we may ask the slanderer to verify their claims with evidence. If the slanderer is not an eye witness and does not have any evidence, this fact may be reported by HISBA to the public but only at the victim’s request.

Fairness is of prime concern to HISBA, where its authority will primarily derive from its credibility. To ensure complete fairness in its operations, HISBA will enact the following measures:
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• HISBA will process all queries, requests or complaints it receives, regardless of which Muslim sends it, or which MPFO or Islamic organisation is the subject of inquiry or complaint.
• Reports sent to scholars of Shariah councils will have dates of events redacted and names replaced with randomly generated names, in order that the scholars not know who the MPFO being investigated is, so they can issue a judgement without bias.
• If the details of the case are (in)famous such that the identity of the MPFO being investigated is likely to be known, all scholars who potentially hold a conflict of interest (i.e. they are friends with the opponents of the subject MPFO, or they are friends of the subject MPFO themselves) will be recused from ruling on the case.
• If a HISBA investigator is themselves the subject of a complaint, they cannot handle the matter and must pass over the handling of the inquiry to a HISBA auditor.
• The scholars will be comprised of a number of Shariah councils internationally from a variety of schools of thought in order for the judgements to be based only upon a consensus of adāb, akhlāq and the minimal agreed upon creedal limits of Islam.
• HISBA will show full transparency to the public and fully publish its methodology along with the reports of its investigations so that the public see a consistent and meticulous due process in HISBA inquiries.

The HISBA Online project will live and die based on its credibility.
Furthermore, prideful MPFOs (and/or their devoted followers) will naturally resist the conclusions of investigations that expose the misconduct of that MPFO.
In order to surmount this, HISBA will ensure:
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• It produces a full report on its investigation, and make it available to the public if a MPFO refuses self-rectification and is found in breach of Islamic standards and baseline creed by multiple shariah councils based internationally.
• Its reports contain only clinical descriptions of the events (e.g.in the style of a police report or a court case’s transcript).
• All facts will be reported in context (i.e. no selective quotes, and full receipts of evidence presented in report).
• Only dispassionate words used (i.e. not using judgemental, emotive language or characterisations of an MPFO’s conduct or speech e.g. “he angrily said”, “he mocked him” etc.).
• All claims will be based upon documented evidence (hearsay will be disregarded unless coming through tawatur [mass independent attestations]).
• All evidence will be fully documented in the report and accessible (via links) for the public.
• After evidence gathering and drafting of a report, HISBA will show the report to the subject MPFO being investigation so that they can verify the conclusions and ensure completeness and inclusion of all relevant evidence, before taking any further action. HISBA will request the subject MPFO to suggest any corrections (with evidence), present any relevant extra evidence and provide any mitigating arguments (justifications)they may wish to add. The report will then be summarised and again shown to the MPFO being investigated to approve it saccuracy before being submitted to the Shariah councils.

HISBA is not interested in ‘naming and shaming’ anyone unnecessarily, rather it is interested in upholding Islamic standards and de-normalising misconduct. When an inquiry is launched, HISBA gives the subject MPFO three chances, at three different stages in the inquiry, to self-rectify and unilaterally apologise to the public for their own behaviour. If they do so, no ‘naming and shaming’ will be required, and their case study will be annonymised with their name redacted.

In cases of multiple and equally valid interpretations of someone’s words, Husn ul dhaan interpretations will be preferred. HISBA will always assume the best interpretation of a Muslim’s words or deeds. Additionally, HISBA will always ask an subject MPFO to clarify the meaning behind their words and deeds. However, HISBA will note if the wording was unwise, vague and reckless (i.e. prone to misinterpretation given context).

This is simply to encourage MPFs to own up to their mistakes, rather than being ‘named and shamed’ for them.

The public would value MPFs more if they own up to their mistakes. Anonymity is offered simply to allow the MPFs to ‘save face’ and apologise for their actions without it being seen that they did because they were under investigation.

Yes, as it is in the public interest for the public to know the case-studies of misconduct (or conduct that is justifiable) in order to be educated about correct conduct in practice.

HISBA will take measures to ensure that the vast majority of people will not know who is behind anonymised case studies. HISBA will release the case-studies at random intervals, long after the events described in the case studies. Additionally, the dates and times described in the case studies will be redacted too.

HISBA Will not adopt any issue of ikhtilaf (differences of opinion) between fiqh schools of thought or on any matter under dispute between historical creedal schools, nor will HISBA adjudicate or investigate any matters pertaining to these.

HISBA will only base itself upon the historically agreed upon (ijma) standards of adāb, akhlāq and the creed of Islam within the ahl-ul-Sunnah paradigm. These are the standards such that it would be clear to all that the denial of them renders a Muslim outside the fold of ahl-ul-Sunnah, if not Islam itself. An example of this, would be, someone arguing that Islam approves of Zina (fornication) as ‘halal’ in the ‘modern times’.

Judging a fellow Muslim to be ‘ahl-ul-bida’ (people of deviation) may be due to a historical creedal position adopted by a MPFO. HISBA will not investigate or adjudicate whether such appellations are justified or not. This is because the definition of what is creedal deviancy depends on the historical creedal school. An accuser may be making such an accusation in good faith or sincere belief due to their historical school of thought.
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However, clear frivolous and gratuitous use of the term ‘deviant’ to simply disparage another person – without reason - may come under the purview of a HISBA investigation.

If the shariah councils are divided, then the default is no condemnation (with a public note that the scholars were divided.
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If only one shariah council dissents, but the rest agree, the majority opinion will be taken forward only if the shariah council dissenting resides is made aware of the position of the other councils, but doesn’t give an explanation for its dissent. This is because a lone shariah council within the same country may be basing its opinion on one scholar dissenting who might be aware of the matter and have personal connections with the individuals involved, and may represent a bias, whereas more than one is more likely to represent a genuine difference of opinion.