u/highlander_9

Didar of MHI was genuinely magical. Seeing the Imam is a blessing, full stop, and nothing in this post takes away from that. But everything around it, before and after, keeps confirming what a lot of us were already saying.

Jamat was supposed to receive juro, niyaz, and tasbih from MHI. Here’s where things actually stand:

• The apples that were given out were pretty rough. Small, old, cheap looking, a lot of them bruised. For something meant to be a blessing from the Imam, the quality should have been the last thing anyone had to compromise on.

• Tasbihs were given out, but there was no real process to get one. No wristband system, no organized distribution, nothing. 15K were ordered and they went almost instantly, leaving a huge number of murids without one (myself included). I’ve heard 3K more have since been ordered, but why wasn’t this planned properly from the start? A simple wristband swap would have made sure distribution was fair instead of a free-for-all (I heard that’s what happened with the Eastern Canada visit).

• Niyaz and the dried fruit juro still haven’t shown up. Juro packing was supposed to happen in the days after Didar. It’s now been over two weeks and Jamat is left wondering what’s going on. Where are the niyaz bottles that were supposed to be filled? Where’s the dried fruit?

More poor planning, more bad decision making, and once again it’s the Jamat left with a bad taste in their mouths, literally and figuratively.

The Didar was everything it should have been. Everything surrounding it hasn’t been, and at some point that gap needs to actually get addressed instead of repeated.

Has anyone else noticed this at other Didars?

At the Vancouver Didar, MHI’s microphone volume was very low, to the point where it was difficult to hear what he was saying. Quite a few people around us mentioned the same thing. I also heard it was similar in Calgary.

Ironically, the reciters on the side microphones were much louder, so we ended up watching the screens and trying to read MHI’s lips for most of the Farman.

Has this been the case at other Didars as well, or was this unusual?

It definitely took away from what was otherwise a very special experience.

Earlier this year Mowlana Hazar Imam visited Toronto and Montreal: multiple didars, an Ottawa/PM meeting, the Generations Toronto inauguration, the Laval JK ground breaking, institutional events, and more. A full, well-run, well-funded program. They even retrofitted a whole warehouse in Montreal to accommodate a Didar, and handed millions of dollars to non-Ismaili contractors to do it all.

Now the Western Canada visit is coming up in a matter of days and it feels like a complete afterthought. One commemorative event (in one city). Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver are just getting didars, nothing else (to be clear the didar is an incredible thing so please don’t @ me for saying that I am minimizing it because I am not!!!). No youth mulaqats, no multifaith sessions, both of which happened out east and really shit explanations from leaders as to why, and they kept us in the dark deliberately for weeks on end because they’re afraid of the Jamat getting upset. The West has a smaller jamat, sure, but that’s not really an explanation for why the program is this thin. Plus, it’s also worth noting that BC has the largest percentage of multifaith families in the entire country. And we also support financially a lot of what happens across the country for the Jamat. 

But here’s the part that doesn’t add up…

From what I’ve heard, $44M was raised, well above the $30M target, to cover both regions. Almost all of it appears to have gone to the East. And now the West is being asked to raise more money on top of that? (I know this because I’ve donated to the fund and have been asked to donate again)

So the two Canadian visits combined are on track to cost over $50M. 

That’s a genuinely staggering number, and I don’t understand where the thinking was here. If $44M was raised for both visits and it’s still not enough to cover the West, where did it actually go? That’s not a rounding error, that’s tens of millions of dollars with no public accounting. This isn’t fiscal responsibility, it’s wastage, and now Western Jamat is being asked to open our wallets again to cover the gap.

Meanwhile, with all this money supposedly raised, some JKs are serving chai and chips, chai and cookies, sometimes not even chai. People are leaving JK events hungry and stopping at McDonald’s afterward, spending $20+ on their own dinner.

I’ve also heard that for some events, including MHI’s lounge, council is paying for outside staff instead of our own volunteers, and outside caterers instead of Ismaili ones. They are deliberately using outside vendors because they seem to think Ismailis can’t handle this, while the President and LIF Chair run a truck over everyone. 

Where has the Canada Visit Fund money gone? Where’s the JSF money? How is there no oversight or accountability here? How does a council waste away this much money?

And beyond the money, there’s just no communication. MKs are getting nothing. Everything is “a national decision” with zero visibility into what that actually means. National President and his wife are supposedly micro managing *everything*. We just ran this same visit successfully in the east a few months ago, so why does the West feel like it’s being reinvented from scratch, last-minute, with none of those lessons carried over? It’s as though our community has never held a visit before. And it’s being controlled by a small group around the president. His wife, and the LIF chair are all that matters. My cousin was at the recent leadership event in Vancouver, and if you ever want to know who matters and who does not to this leadership, in front of a room of volunteers and MKs the president thanked and welcomed only one person: the LIF chair and his wife.

We’re days away from MHI’s visit, and groups are still waiting on decisions. Meanwhile leadership have booked their hotels and parking, organized their stuff and the Jamat is just left wondering what’s happening. 

Genuinely, what is going on here?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I’ve been blessed to have had multiple didars in my lifetime but an upcoming visit with MHI would be my first as a parent with young kids (multiple kids under 6).

Anyone who’s already gone through this experience… what’s it like? How do you handle the little ones while also trying to take in the experience yourself / get in and stay in the right mindset?