‘We have the brotherhood to offer you’: Inside the push to keep boys away from crime

As the time ticks towards 7.30pm on a Friday, the bustle of young boys running through the corridor quietens to a hush; dozens of men and children trickle into the prayer room of United Muslims of Australia’s sprawling western Sydney headquarters as the evening worship begins.

For 10 minutes, only the rhythm of Isha – the night’s final prayer – can be heard. As quickly as it subsides, though, the racket of the boys’ excitement returns. With their praying done, they rush out of the room, shove itchy feet into shoes, and race away into the maze of the centre; some make for the gaming consoles, while others – in the football jerseys of their sporting idols – are already halfway to the hardwood of the indoor futsal court.

While the games serve as an incentive for the boys to gather with their peers in the Muslim community, football is just one of many items on the agenda this Friday night. Inside these walls, there is important work to be done. Hundreds of boys and girls – aged nine to 15 – flock to the Padstow centre each Friday for youth programs offering guidance for those at risk of wandering to the wrong side of the tracks, teaching them about Islam, and instilling a sense of pride in young Muslims struggling with identity in a politically charged Australia.

“We want our children to be proud Muslims without compromising their faith,” says UMA founder Sheikh Shadi Alsuleiman. “I want them to be proud Australians that contribute back to their community.”

Alsuleiman welcomes this masthead to the centre at a time when the question of how to keep young boys – especially those in western Sydney – off the streets and away from organised crime is at the centre of a growing challenge for community leaders and authorities trying to combat the rise of criminal networks recruiting impressionable children.

In the past 18 months, police have charged hundreds of teenage boys, some of them from Muslim families, over their involvement in Sydney’s escalating gangland conflicts. The recruitment of children, some as young as 14, to carry out targeted attacks has become a hallmark of recent underworld violence and one of the most challenging aspects of policing feuds between rival criminal groups.

Last Wednesday, homicide squad detectives arrested and charged two boys, aged 14 and 16, over the mistaken-identity killing of 23-year-old university student Marco Tapia, who was shot dead lying in his bed.

This month, NSW Premier Chris Minns announced proposed legislative changes designed to deter children from working for organised crime networks. Under a proposed expansion to the serious children’s indictable offences scheme, children charged with offences linked to organised crime, including those related to public shootings and firebombings, would be tried as adults in the state’s District Court and Supreme Court, where they would face longer prison terms than if they were prosecuted as juveniles.

At UMA, the centre’s youth programs are designed to not only teach boys about their faith, but give them the sense of belonging many their age seek in criminal gangs.

“You’ve kind of got to ask yourself what those boys are finding in those gangs,” says Zaid Omran, UMA’s youth co-ordinator. “They’re finding brotherhood, they’re finding identity, they’re finding social insurance, they’re finding a home away from home, they’re finding … people who see them, people who hear them, people who value them.”

The key to keeping Muslim boys on the right path is offering comforts grounded in faith and community rather than crime, Omran says.

“If you can win a young person’s heart, then you have the ability to redirect whatever energy he has into something productive, into being a positive impact on the rest of society,” he says. “The ability for you to hold someone’s hand from as young as nine years old, if you have the steadfastness, if you have the fortitude to follow through and stay holding that person’s hand from as young as nine, from such a young age, then you’re decreasing the possibility of that person ever even coming close to all of that stuff.”

Omran says the acceptance young boys may feel within a gang is short-lived, unsustainable and fake. The second they are no longer useful to those in charge, the boys are turfed. “That’s very, very powerful, for a young person to be seen – in every sense of that word – for them to feel heard,” he says. “We have the brotherhood to offer you.”

Community leaders are also facing the challenge of organised crime and criminal gangs being glorified on social media, says Ibrahim Kayellou, 26, a youth mentor at the centre. Keeping boys away from content that could set them on a path to crime has become as much a priority for youth program leaders as teaching Islamic values. “It’s hard for the parents to keep up with it,” Kayellou says.

Outside the centre’s walls, Muslims face rising Islamophobia and negative stereotypes that threaten boys’ sense of identity and instil a sense of fear and anxiety within the community, Alsuleiman says. “Islamophobia’s becoming the norm,” he says. “It’s been accepted to insult Muslims, to speak against Muslims, to demonise Muslims, to vilify Muslims, and it is a huge concern across the board with the Muslim community.”

Alsuleiman, who is also the Australian National Imams Council president, has been a vocal critic of the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. He has also attracted criticism for public comments on homosexuality.

“I have previously noted passages in the holy Quran which do not support homosexuality,” Alsuleiman said in a statement to this masthead in 2016.

“However, I always follow such statements with a personal commitment to tolerance and encouragement that all Muslims and all people approach all individuals, no matter their faith, race or sexuality, in a considerate and respectful way.”

Now, Alsuleiman says many of the Muslim community’s most vulnerable members – women and children – feel unsafe. The bollards blocking the centre’s front door are not for decoration, he points out, adding that there is a strong sense within the community that an attack on Muslims like the Christchurch massacre in 2019 may be repeated. “It’s not about if, it’s about when,” he says. “There’s a very strong sense of anxiety in the community and fear.”

Some community members are so concerned about their safety that they are scared to walk on the street or commute to work. Coupled with what Alsuleiman says are harmful anti-Muslim rhetoric and narratives being pushed by prominent right-wing political parties, tensions between his community and others have become inflamed. Last month, he told the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion that recorded instances of Islamophobia had increased by more than 600 per cent since 2022.

“The Muslim community feels the collective blame for the actions of others, especially post-Bondi,” Alsuleiman says. “The community feels that it is a target.”

Alsuleiman, who was born in Australia to Palestinian parents, says questioning Muslims’ faith and loyalty to Australia is misplaced. “The vast majority of them were either born here or raised here,” he says. “They have no other home for them to go to or even call home, except Australia.”

It also risks marginalising and isolating them, he says. “The first step towards extremism in all its forms is isolation,” he says. “The moment you start isolating someone, you are pushing this person to the fringes, and you don’t know what pathway they’ll take.”

The median age of people practising Islam in Australia is 28, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics – a figure Alsuleiman believes reflects the Muslim community’s role in Australia’s future. He believes the training of imams in Australia will better allow religious leaders to relate to the Australian-born Muslims they are teaching Islam to. “The parents that are born and raised in Australia put a lot more focus on the education of their children,” he says. “We see a trend in the Muslim community to be more observant and protective over their children and making sure that their children are going down the right path.”

Omran believes attacks on Islam only motivate leaders to educate the public about the Muslim community. “It’s more incentive to us to keep doing the work. It’s more incentive to us to keep pushing harder,” he says.

As for keeping kids on the straight and narrow, Omran says that community leaders and authorities must choose the challenge they want to face. “Do you want the hard [task] of rocking up every single Friday night and dealing with all the shenanigans of the young boys?” he asks. “Or do you want the hard [task] of talking to the kid once he’s in an interrogation room?”

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