Cults don’t always start out that way. Often, they begin as sincere religious groups—united by a shared purpose. Submitter communities are no exception. Many begin with noble principles: rejecting man-made traditions, upholding the Quran as the sole source of religious law, and consulting the teachings of the Messenger of the Covenant to resolve disputes.
But over time, even a community built on submission to God can slip into submission to men. A subtle shift occurs—away from mutual consultation and toward ideological control. What was once a collective search for truth becomes a tightly policed system of acceptable opinion. Questioning is tolerated, but only within narrow, leader-approved boundaries.
As Noam Chomsky observed:
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
The result? An illusion of freedom—but a reality of suppression.
It usually begins with the emergence of an informal hierarchy. A few individuals rise to influence—some through official roles, others through social capital. Over time, they begin to define what counts as “orthodox.” Anyone who steps outside that boundary—even on a minor point—is framed as compromising the truth, rebelling against God, or being a hypocrite.
And when the leadership decides someone poses a threat to their authority, they rarely address the real issue directly. Instead, they search for a theological disagreement to use as cover. Once they find one, they rally support, reframe the disagreement as spiritual treason, and move toward the next—and most damaging—step: cutting the person out by weaponizing the Salat, the most sacred aspect of community life.
Establishing Control: Shrinking the Boundaries of Acceptable Belief
The shift toward cult-like control begins when a community narrows what it considers “acceptable belief.” At first, members are united by the foundational paradigm: the Quran as the only source of religious law, and the teachings of the Messenger of the Covenant as a means of clarifying or resolving disputes. This foundational agreement allows for sincere exploration and growth.
But as time passes, communities often develop an unspoken orthodoxy—not just about major theological issues, but about every minor detail. What was once an open invitation to “listen to all words and follow the best” (39:18) becomes a fixed list of approved positions. Straying from these positions isn’t treated as error to be discussed—it’s treated as rebellion to be punished.
These are not matters of idol worship, rejecting the Quran, or disbelieving in God’s messenger. These are sincere differences in understanding among believers who strive to uphold the core of Submission. And yet, time and again, communities fracture over topics like:
The fourth dietary prohibition – Is it about animals sacrificed to other than God, or any mention of other than God over food?
Circumcision – Mandatory, prohibited, or neutral?
Punishment for adultery – Should it differ based on marital status?
Marriage to Christians and Jews – Permissible or prohibited?
Insurance – Is all insurance haram, or only certain kinds?
The tone of Salat – Can the entire Salat be recited at a moderate tone?
Befriending disbelievers – Does friendship imply support for disbelief?
Rashad’s writings – Are his statements binding, or is there a distinction from divine revelation?
In a healthy community, such differences are opportunities for discussion, reflection, and mutual growth. But in authoritarian environments, these issues become loyalty tests. The leadership draws a line: anyone who holds the “wrong” view is no longer just mistaken—they’re a hypocrite, an agent of the devil, an enemy of God.
Once this mindset takes root, control becomes easy. By limiting the spectrum of acceptable belief, leaders create an environment where dissent feels dangerous and conformity is equated with faithfulness. Members no longer ask what is right—they ask what is allowed.
And that’s how a community built on freedom of thought becomes one ruled by fear of thinking.
Isolating the Threat: When Leadership Faces Opposition
In a healthy community, differences in understanding are expected—even welcomed—as part of the process of sincere submission to God. But in a rigid, leader-centric environment, independent thought isn’t seen as a contribution—it’s seen as a challenge to authority.
The problem isn’t the position someone holds. It’s the fact that they hold it without permission.
In many cases, the individual is targeted before any theological issue even arises. The leadership senses resistance—someone who questions too openly, thinks too independently, or fails to show unwavering support for the leader. But removing a member for personal or political reasons would seem unjust. So instead, the leadership frames it as a matter of doctrine.
A theological disagreement is found—not because it’s the root issue, but because it provides cover. The leader will pretend that they speak on behalf of God and His messenger and that their interpreation is the correct interpetation. Therefore, anyone who opposes them is opposing God and His messenger. Thus they make themselves into an authority and use deception and manipulation to get buy in from the rest of the congregation. The point itself is not the threat. The threat is that the person holds—and defends—a view outside the leadership’s control.
The disagreement is then inflated, moralized, and weaponized. It’s no longer about interpretation. It becomes a question of loyalty, sincerity, and spiritual danger: Who is corrupting the believers? Who is misleading the community?
At this point, the leadership rallies support—not through open consultation, but by planting seeds of doubt. The target’s intentions are questioned. Their character is put on trial. Rumors circulate. Whispers replace facts.
The goal isn’t correction—it’s isolation. The strategy follows a familiar pattern:
A leader or influential member takes issue with someone—not necessarily over doctrine, but over personality, independence, or perceived disloyalty.
Rather than acknowledge personal differences, they focus on a theological disagreement, often one of the disputed topics mentioned earlier.
The issue is reframed not as an interpretation, but as a corruption of the faith.
The narrative becomes moral, not intellectual: this person is not just wrong—they are misleading others, compromising God’s message, or even working against the religion.
Once this framing takes hold, everything the individual does is reinterpreted through a lens of suspicion. Their tone becomes arrogance. Their questions become subversion. Their friendships become alliances with God’s enemies. And the longer they remain in the community, the more dangerous they’re made to seem. In reality, nothing has changed except that someone dared to think differently—and voiced it.
And the most disturbing part? These individuals are often deeply committed believers—they uphold the Salat, Zakat as prescribed by God’s messenger, and strive sincerely to understand and apply the Quran. But that no longer matters. What matters is that they didn’t conform.
And so, a personal threat is recast as a doctrinal crisis. The person must be neutralized—not because they’re wrong, but because they’re inconvenient.
From there, the next step is all but inevitable: alienation through the most sacred and unifying ritual in the religion—the Salat.
The Salat as a Weapon of Division
Salat is meant to be the ultimate expression of unity among believers. It is the ritual that erases distinctions of race, wealth, and status as rows form shoulder-to-shoulder before God. The Quran describes it as the main meal for the soul of a believer and a communal act of remembrance. But in communities drifting toward cult-like control, Salat becomes something else entirely: a tool for enforcing conformity and justifying exclusion.
Once leadership has framed a member as a spiritual threat, the next move is to isolate them through the Salat. The strategy is simple: convince the congregation that it is religiously impermissible to pray behind someone labeled as a hypocrite or enemy of God.
This framing accomplishes several goals at once:
It delegitimizes the target without needing formal expulsion.
It shifts responsibility to the congregation (“We’re not banning them; we’re just following God’s law.”)
It forces a false dilemma: accept this person’s leadership in prayer, or side with the supposed enemies of God.
All it takes to fracture the group is for one person to say, “I’m not comfortable praying behind them.” That single objection becomes the excuse to bar the target from leading Salat or giving sermons—not because they’re disbelievers, but to “preserve unity.” The irony is stark: the person advocating separation is seen as protecting the group, while the one being excluded is blamed for causing division.
But the division was orchestrated long before. The leadership manufactured it—by framing a disagreement not as a difference in understanding, but as a marker of hypocrisy.
Once that wedge is driven through the Salat, everything else begins to collapse. The individual is effectively blacklisted, and the person is no longer seen as a believer with a different view—but as a danger that must be avoided.
The Social Fallout
Once Salat is weaponized, the social consequences move swiftly and silently. The individual—once a respected member of the community—is now labeled as a deviant. There is no need for official excommunication. The system polices itself.
The person becomes untouchable.
Members are discouraged from engaging with them. Salam is withheld. Their presence becomes uncomfortable. Their participation is quietly unwelcome. Social events exclude them. Quran studies turn into indirect condemnations. Simply showing up becomes an act of defiance.
Those who dare to remain friendly or neutral are warned:
“Why are you still talking to them?”
“Don’t you know what they believe?”
“Are you siding with the hypocrites?”
Loyalty to the group becomes measured by distance from the outcast.
Even more insidiously, this tactic serves a deeper purpose: it allows the leadership to control not only who is allowed to lead Salat—but who members are allowed to associate with. If you cannot pray behind someone, how can you justify socializing with them, attending their gatherings, or even speaking to them with kindness?
This is the brilliance of the approach. It doesn’t require formal expulsion. It doesn’t even require confrontation. Just the suggestion that someone is “unfit to lead Salat” is enough to brand them as spiritually toxic—and to pressure the rest of the community to stay away.
The result is tragic: a community that once claimed to follow God alone now revolves around avoiding a fellow believer in prayer. And the ritual meant to unify them becomes the very tool that tears them apart.
The irony is striking: befriending a disbeliever is often tolerated. But befriending a fellow submitter who disagrees on one verse or opinion becomes grounds for suspicion. This is textbook narcissism of small differences—when those closest in belief are treated as the most dangerous for daring to differ.
The outcast is often left with two options: remain in silence within a cold and hostile environment, or leave. And when they do leave, their departure is used to justify everything:
“See? They couldn’t handle the truth. They were never sincere to begin with. This proves they were a hypocrite all along.”
But the truth is: they weren’t defiant—they were pushed. Their departure wasn’t rebellion—it was survival. Their exit is not a failure of faith, but a failure of the community to uphold its own ideals: consultation, compassion, and sincerity.
And the damage doesn’t stop with one person.
Each purge hollows the community a little more. Fear replaces openness. Suspicion replaces sincerity. Conformity replaces conviction. And anyone who thinks differently learns to stay silent—or prepare to be next.
The Cycle of Splits and Spiritual Burnout
What begins as an effort to “protect the community” eventually becomes a machine of division. Once the pattern of control is established, it repeats—over and over—tearing through the congregation like clockwork. And with each cycle, the community shrinks, weakens, and loses its soul.
It always starts the same way:
A leader identifies a member who challenges their authority.
A theological disagreement—often minor—is chosen as the battleground.
The disagreement is framed as hypocrisy or rebellion.
The Salat becomes the weapon of exclusion.
Social pressure isolates the individual.
The person either conforms or leaves.
Their departure is framed as proof they were never sincere.
Then the dust settles… until the next “problem” arises.
Each time, those who remain become more fearful and less honest. People learn to self-censor. To suppress questions. To avoid saying what they truly believe. The focus shifts from submitting to God to surviving the group. Submission becomes performance. Unity becomes silence. Faith becomes fear.
Ironically, these communities often pride themselves on being “unified” while quietly bleeding members year after year. They believe they are “protecting the purity of the message” while losing the very people who were most invested in upholding it. The few who remain may become more zealous, more insular, and more hostile to any dissent—but they are also more exhausted, more anxious, and more spiritually numb.
Eventually, burnout sets in—not just for the individuals, but for the community as a whole. Constant vigilance, doctrinal suspicion, and interpersonal tension take their toll. The Quran, once a source of peace and guidance, becomes a tool for gatekeeping. The community, once a space of learning and brotherhood, becomes a place of fear and factionalism.
The tragedy is not just that people are pushed out. The greater tragedy is that a community formed to serve God ends up serving control.
Conclusion: A Call to Return to Quranic Values
Communities built around submission to God alone should be the last place where control, exclusion, and fear take root. And yet, time and again, we see the opposite. Communities that once stood for freedom from man-made religion become consumed by internal policing, social coercion, and a thirst for ideological purity. The pattern is not unique—and it is not inevitable. But it will continue unless we name it, reject it, and return to what the Quran actually calls us to.
God does not ask for uniformity—He asks for sincerity. The Quran does not promote groupthink—it promotes consultation, patience, and discernment. It does not teach us to exile the sincere—it warns us against driving away those who seek God, even if they struggle, even if they disagree.
6:52 And do not dismiss those who implore their Lord day and night, devoting themselves to Him alone. You are not responsible for their reckoning, nor are they responsible for your reckoning. If you dismiss them, you will be a transgressor.
3:103 You shall hold fast to the rope of GOD, all of you, and do not be divided. Recall GOD’s blessings upon you—you used to be enemies and He reconciled your hearts. By His grace, you became brethren. You were at the brink of a pit of fire, and He saved you therefrom. GOD thus explains His revelations for you, that you may be guided.
3:104 Let there be a community of you who invite to what is good, advocate righteousness, and forbid evil. These are the winners.
3:105 Do not be like those who became divided and disputed, despite the clear proofs that were given to them. For these have incurred a terrible retribution.
30:31 You shall submit to Him, reverence Him, observe the Contact Prayers (Salat), and—whatever you do—do not ever fall into idol worship.
30:32 (Do not fall in idol worship,) like those who divide their religion into sects; each party rejoicing with what they have.
It is not submission when people are afraid to speak. It is not unity when people are forced to conform. It is not righteousness to turn believers into enemies over minor interpretive disagreements. The moment Salat is used as a loyalty test to leadership—where even minor disagreements become grounds for exclusion—it ceases to be a unifying act of worship and becomes a tool of division.
The question before us is simple: Will we build communities based on fear, control, and exclusion—or based on consultation, mercy, and trust in God?
Submission is not about control. It is about freedom—freedom from idols, freedom from ego, and yes, freedom from self-appointed authorities who demand allegiance in God’s name.
4:76 Those who believe are fighting for the cause of GOD, while those who disbelieve are fighting for the cause of tyranny. Therefore, you shall fight the devil’s allies; the devil’s power is nil.
Let us return to the Quran. And let us make sure that the most sacred parts of our practice—like the Salat—remain what God intended them to be: acts of remembrance, not weapons of division.