This is Muslim Reviews’ official statement on Shaykh Hasan Ali’s LIVE Facebook video posted 15-03-2018 following his meeting with partners and founders of the Muslim Entrepreneur Network and his original LIVE video response to our article.

At the centre of the controversy are the partners and founders of the Muslim Entrepreneur Network. From left to right; Rocky Mirza, Haroon Qureshi, Com Mirza, and Harun Rashid

السَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ 

Everyone at Muslim Reviews would like to extend our appreciation to Shaykh Hasan Ali for his commendable leadership in bringing this issue to the public forum.

He mentioned key points which we will summarise:

• Increase transparency – “show accounts, monies, records, and therefore become more transparent”
• Ensure written contracts are in place before members join any scheme
• Obtain Shari’ah certification if you claim a business complies with Shari’ah
• Consider not involving mosques due to concerns of fitnah amongst committee members, and mosques coming to disrepute
• Prepare to prove your track-record
• Permissible to publicly warn others
• Expect to be judged by religion if you use religion in your marketing

Our clarifications:

1. Muslim Reviews

Although Muslim Reviews began with Mustafa Patel, it quickly grew to include over 20 people assisting in research and operations. Our researchers include lawyers, entrepreneurs, current and ex-Leverage members, and ex-business partners of Com Mirza – who is a co-founder of MEN. The website muslimreviews.org has several contributors and writers; it is a new website that has a few active articles, none of which were authored by Mustafa Patel.

2. Disgruntled employee narrative

MEN have repeatedly put forth the narrative that Muslim Reviews began as an attempt by Mustafa Patel to tarnish the reputation of MEN out of vengeance for not having his contract renewed. This narrative is demonstrably false. Mustafa Patel has written his own statement to dispel the disgruntled employee narrative:

I hope my statement goes a long way towards dismissing MEN’s fabricated reasons for why I began raising awareness with Muslim Reviews. – read the full statement

3. Leverage and Empty Trip are separate

It was surprising to learn the Shaykh was told by MEN that Leverage and the Empty Trip App were two separate entities and should be viewed as such. Even the Shaykh acknowledged that the same people ran both entities and that Leverage members were closely involved in the promotion of Empty Trip. For partners and co-founders to invoke such structural technicalities was a weak defence, and perhaps intended to limit potential fallout from Leverage on to Empty Trip.

We asked one ex-member of Leverage 300 for his view; this is his response:

At an event held at Barking mosque last summer, Rocky told us that there will be many businesses they will invest in and members should come forward with business ideas. Members should offer up a small share of the business to the “Leverage family” and in return they will help it grow. Here, Rocky introduced the business idea of Empty Trip and said this is one of the businesses that all of Leverage will benefit from. The clear impression we got was that the Fitness franchise and Empty Trip were “Leverage businesses.” 

To take illustrate this further, they had the members contact taxi firms to pitch the idea of Empty Trip, getting them to signup to a webinar. You can take either two things this: First, that Empty Trip business is part of Leverage as was implied and that’s why they had members work on it – or second, Empty Trip is separate from Leverage and they used members to promote a business that would give them no financial benefit. That would be a real kick in the teeth to the members. Either way they are not looking great on this point.

We also asked a current member of Leverage 300; this is his response:

I can confidently say we were given the impression that Empty Trip and Leverage would be complimenting each other. We were sent instructions from the same email addresses for all tasks, including those relating to Empty Trip. They would push hard on members to sign people up for the Empty Trip. If it’s not part of leverage, why then make us do the tasks and get us to download the app?

There are numerous videos, presentations, and official internal communications where MEN promote Empty Trip to Leverage members as one of the businesses that Leverage will benefit from – corroborating the above statements. If Empty Trip is now to be viewed as a separate business from Leverage, then MEN have demonstrated yet again the misleading nature of their marketing and the confusion they create, something the Shaykh acknowledged in his LIVE video.

4. Beyond operational and business viability

Understandably, the Shaykh focused on the operational aspects of MEN as well as how it might impact mosques. However, much of Muslim Reviews attention has been on the past business activities of its founders and partners, where we question their claims of successes and highlight current allegations of misrepresentation and misappropriation of funds.

This, more than any other, is our biggest concern, and why it should not be dismissed. We believe the Shaykh agrees, from our understanding of his statement under 1:22:40 of his video:

General advice is given to everyone including taxi drivers to be careful of any schemes like this and that people should look into details of the scheme and also the history of who is offering you something

There are so many questions arising from past activities of the Mirza brothers, that these alone are sufficient reasons to doubt their current business propositions.

Wael Rajab is an ex-business partner of Com Mirza who worked on Habibi Coin, a cryptocurrency that is being offered to new recruits of MEN. He has this to say:

I have known Aziz “Com” Mirza and his family for a long time, even before he moved out to Dubai and claimed to be some sort of Islamic entrepreneur guru worth half a billion dollars. I partnered with Com Mirza in his recent venture Habibi Coin, and I was with him when he deceived people with his “charity contest” where I was allowed to win. I even lived with him for over a month and was able to witness his habits and character closely.

During my time, I saw numerous red flags – but after 8 years of knowing him the age of 15, I never questioned him; it was just sat in the back of my conscience. I did not speak up then, and maybe I let it go on too long, but I cannot watch him do this to any more people.

I believe the Mirza brothers should not to be trusted with investors funds as myself and others have documented evidence that he misappropriated funds for Habibi Coin and ISG.

We are currently mounting a legal case against Com with relevant authorities for using us in his manipulative games and to bring him to justice.

Listen to Wael Rajab speaking about his experiences

A renewed mandate for due-diligence

The Shaykh acknowledged that people must do their own research when making financial decisions, and we agree.

Muslim Reviews will therefore continue to ask questions as we believe it is in the Muslim community’s interest to know what is being done in their name.