Can (paid?) Shaykhs make mistakes?

Bradford, Birjas, and Zaid Shakir endorsed LaunchGood and never retracted

Terms like “zakat-eligible” and “shariah-compliant” are increasingly meaningless. I encourage you to read, “How LaunchGood keeps up to half of your charity for itself without telling you”. In addition, LaunchGood’s zakat-eligible verification was bogus, before the expose led to changes.

Joe Bradford, Yasir Birjas, and Zaid Shakir all endorsed LaunchGood. Some wanna-be-celebrities also endorsed. I spoke to Joe Bradford myself. He said, “I used to work for LaunchGood and I no longer work for LaunchGood, but I stand by the work they do.”

They have not publicly recanted their endorsement to date. If they were paid, they have not disclosed how much they were paid. They have not publicly returned any financial incentives they may have received for their endorsement.

Even Taylor Swift does some research before endorsing. In addition, its illegal to advertise without disclosing. Just ask Kim Kardashian.

A similar problem exists in the Islamic mortgage industry.

“I’m a zakat specialist working with LaunchGood. I want to tell you about the easiest way you can give zakat this Ramadan. This Ramadan, LaunchGood is opening a special portal on their site. This Ramadan, LaunchGood is opening a special portal on their site, which would be LaunchGood.com/zakat. LaunchGood is offering you the opportunity to diverse and globally relevant causes that are all zakat-eligible and it will make it easy for you to give to things that are meaningful to you.” Link

“So people keep asking me towards the end of Ramadan, I have my zakat, where should I put it? Can I give it to this cause or that cause? I would like to recommend for you to visit one organization that helps us put all these causes together and show all these campaigns together. Check it out, go to LaunchGood.com.” Link

“I am here to tell you about an exciting program and that’s Launchgood’s zakat program. We know LaunchGood has helped so many Muslim individuals, families, organizations, and institutions. And now LaunchGood is expanding the good that they do with their zakat program. Brothers and sisters, the recipients have already been vetted. The programs have already been vetted for eligibility and you just have to forward your zakat to LaunchGood and they’ll make sure it reaches the proper hands.” Link

This is part of my series on Interest Free Zone: All of the Sahih hadith related to riba, A study of weak hadith on riba, Defining riba, A detailed breakdown on why Islamic mortgages are backdoor riba, Do credit card rewards programs have riba?, Madness on options riba

Related, I have a Riba and Ruin series: Economics is to keep you a dummy, What happened to SVB?, Ward of the State, First Republic: A tale of a fake bank & a fake auction, Hush, hush, a small bank goes poof

Related, I have a Selling Islam series: Salaried Shaykhs, Can paid Shaykhs make mistakes?