King

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم 🖊️ Why are Muslims surprised? The internet has produced an entire class of algorithmic performers who can discuss aqidah in the morning, Syria at lunchtime, Bosnia in the afternoon and Islamic governance by evening, despite having seriously studied none of them. A microphone and an audience have become counterfeit credentials, and Muslims keep validating them. The greater scandal is our gullibility. We inherited a religion in which knowledge was transmitted through scholarship, verification, teachers and disciplined study, yet sections of this Ummah now determine credibility by views, followers and livestream numbers. Someone becomes famous and suddenly his opinion is sought on matters scholars spent decades studying. Parents therefore have every reason to be concerned about where their children are taking religion from. When someone cannot competently recite the Quran and has never systematically studied the Islamic sciences, he has no business becoming a reference point for aqidah simply because young Muslims find him entertaining. Becoming Muslim deserves respect and brotherhood; it does not magically confer scholarship. Look at what parts of the online dawah scene have normalised: financial controversies, scandals, public feuds, personality cults and converts being rapidly transformed into content creators instead of quietly being taught their religion. Sometimes it appears that acquiring the convert’s audience has become more urgent than ensuring the convert acquires knowledge. Sneako is merely one illustration of a much larger failure. Why must every famous convert immediately be interrogated about theology, geopolitics and the condition of the Ummah? Why are people who should still be learning being pushed into becoming teachers and commentators? Allow people to develop before constructing platforms around their opinions. The treatment of Muslim blood is even uglier. People who have never smelled a battlefield speak casually about populations who watched their homes disappear and buried relatives with their own hands. Syria becomes content. Bosnia becomes an argument. Palestine becomes engagement. Sudan becomes another debate. The victims themselves sometimes receive less attention than personalities arguing about what supposedly happened to them. When people who actually lived through these events offer correction or sincere advice privately, only to watch the opposite position performed publicly, Muslims should possess enough discernment to recognise what they are watching. Truth does not become less true because it performs badly with an audience. Then you hear Bosnia dismissed as though it were not a real country, while Muslims who speak about Muslim unity, security and strength are caricatured as “head choppers”. Personalities disappear following their own controversies, later resurface, and somehow find themselves welcomed onto platforms belonging to people who spend the rest of their time lecturing Muslims about morality and accountability. The hypocrisy writes itself. But Muslims cannot blame the algorithm for everything. The algorithm supplies what audiences reward. Every time Muslims elevate an unqualified personality because he is entertaining, circulate inflammatory clips without verification, defend celebrities as though criticism of them were criticism of Islam, or mistake visibility for authority, they help manufacture the circus they later complain about. Muslim youth especially need to wake up to something far more serious than internet drama: you are deciding who helps shape your understanding of Allah جل جلاله, His religion and the world around you. Someone making you laugh, sounding confident or humiliating an opponent on a livestream tells you absolutely nothing about whether he is qualified to teach you.