There are a number of cases from various common law jurisdictions exploring whether a minister of religion is an “employee” of the church for purposes of vicarious liability, for purposes of being able to invoke the protection of the employment laws, and no doubt for other purposes, or whether he is more properly regarded as a office-holder, a contractor, or something else. I’m not aware of any cases that deal specifically with imams, or of any cases from any US jurisdiction, but I wouldn’t take it as a given that an imam ministering at a mosque is an employee at all. He may be, but you’d need to look into the exact terms on which he serves at the mosque, and on the existing state of the law of the jurisdiction concerned on this point.
I asked the question because the current opinion is that otherwise non-violent muslims somehow become “radicalized”. Just what this is is open to discussion, but I gather that a muslim can become “radicalized” by listening to “hate speech” at a mosque. If this radilcalized persoon then purchases weapons, and goes out and kills people, is it his fault or the mosques?
I think your first problem will be evidencing all the fact-claims and assumptions in there. There is some evidence, from studies of those radicalised, that a strong connection with a mosque in fact counters radicalisation; radicals tend to be the Islamic equivalent of unchurched, or they tend to be recent converts whose connection with Islam is intense but superficial or, if they have been radicalised at a mosque, it’s more likely to be through relationships with other members of the congregation, rather than through the preaching of the resident imams.
That’s not to say that somebody couldn’t be influenced by inflammatory preaching. But it’s certainly not a typical or common account of radicalisation. If you want to prove it in a particular case, you’re going to have to lead some fairly strong evidence about the nature of the preaching and the effect it had on the offender. You’re also going to have to deal with the obvious rebuttal; if there is a causal link, how can you show that it’s not working the other way? I.e. could it be that an angry and violent person seeks out a mosque where the inflammatory preaching appeals to him? Is he radicalised by the preaching, or does he attend the preaching because it appeals to his radical sentiments?
The second point is a more general one. When somebody injures you by behaving in an unlawful way, you don’t generally recover damages by suing people who encouraged them to behave that way. Much crime in the US is committed by people who are seeking to fund a drug habit; as a victim of that crime, how much success would you expect to have by suing somebody who encouraged the perpetrator to experiment with the drugs that he became addicted to? If somebody steals your property, do you think you have much prospect of success in suing those who told the offender that the acquisition of property was an imperative which justified the flouting of other moral rules?
Finally, there’s the point that others have mentioned; the right of free speech is strongly protected in the US constitutional tradition, and it certainly doesn’t be come any less so when it’s exercised in the context of religious practice. If you were looking to extend the law in the way you suggest, I wouldn’t pick preaching as your test case.
And all that goes to whether you can sue the imam. Suing the mosque takes the whole thing one step further.
I just want to clarify something here; an “imam” is like not* a Priest or Minister; he is simply the person who leads a specific prayer*. A person who delivers sermons is known as a “Khateeb”, and they often are separate persons and indeed typically the senior person “incharge” of the day to day running of a mosque is usually the Khateeb.
Mosques are run in many ways. Some are run by governments, others are community owned, others are societies, others might just be a department of some organization (my local hospital, privately owned, has a small mosque on its premises complete with a Mullah.)
No.Well, typically Friday prayers (and Eid prayers) are the only ones which have a sermon. Khateeb is from Khutba; sermon. So Khateeb will be delivering a sermon and leading prayers on Friday. But its not necessarily a term usee for the Friday prayer leader.