Final Thoughts on Bayyinah’s Dream in Light of Spiritual Abuse Accusations

It’s been a while since I last posted on this site. Since I am not taking it down right now, I wanted to simply reflect on my experiences at the Dream program in light of the spiritual abuse allegations against Bayyinah’s CEO and founder, and also my instructor for the majority of the program, Nouman Ali Khan.

Learning Classical Arabic through the Dream program was highly beneficial and nearly all of the experiences that came alongside the program (living away from home for the first time, meeting and connecting with women from many backgrounds, exploring Texas, etc.) are so precious to me. Although I have only regressed, and not progressed, in my Classical Arabic knowledge, the friendships I made with the sisters in my program have kept me rooted to reality for nearly 10 years now–they are my cheerleaders, shoulders-to-cry-on, and wells of wisdom. For this I will be forever grateful.

However, I do not affiliate myself with the program or the institute any longer. I don’t mention with whom I studied Arabic if I meet someone new. I frankly don’t feel comfortable with the allegations of spiritual abuse which came out against Nouman Ali Khan, and another instructor he highly valued, Imam Zia (who taught us tafseer.) I don’t really care about the details of what the accusations are and what happened, but because I know so many people who are so intimately intertwined with the organization and NAK’s family (in addition to all of the scholars and community figures who also warned communities about him), I do with full certainty believe that NAK took advantage of his position as a leader in the Muslim community in unethical ways. Since the news broke a few years ago, I no longer listen to any of his lectures, and I still have trouble listening to lectures of tafseer he has given or reading notes I have taken when the subject is specifically reflections on the Qur’an itself. As someone said to me, “how can you trust what someone has to say about the Words of God if they’ve shown you they have a sick heart?”

So that’s about it. I also recommend that others refrain from interacting with the content that he, or any others he is affiliated with who haven’t spoken out against him, are putting out or have produced since 2012 onwards.