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I am afraid to say — though he is friendly man, at last fluent in English — that our young imam lacks the capability to guide his congregation. Not because he is not steeped in religious knowledge. Without a doubt, he has learned well and brings much to the youngsters he teaches.

But he is hampered by one thing: a lack of experience in the world. He is a young father, with a young family, still enjoying that hopeful period, raising dear young things, completely dependent on him and his wife. He cannot yet fathom what comes next, and the trials it will bring.

In his sermons, he declares bold, untested solutions to the problems of our community. What’s wrong with the renegade kids, so completely out of control? The problem, he tells us, is the parents, the lack of parental guidance, and on top of that no religious upbringing, as absent dads chase after money and luxury.

In my mind, listening to him, I think: “Just you wait!” For the Quran promises us that our children, spouses, properties and wealth are all tests for us. And this, I find, is one of our central problems: we rarely delve into the stories of the Quran, to reflect on the tales we find there, of the rebellious children even of the greatest of Prophets, or the trials and tests they faced.

I too, when younger, once declared all sorts of noble opinions about the shortcomings of others, in respect to their responsibilities towards their families, wives, children and society. But I was writing then from a position of naïve ignorance, my idealism not yet tested by reality. Indeed, in many instances, we did not even have children in our midst yet, still reeling from an unexpected diagnosis.

But here we are, nearly twenty years on, and everything has changed. For years now we have had to deal with the explosive tempers and disrespect which daily shatter our inner peace. Did we not parent these children well enough? Without a doubt, we have grave shortcomings, but we dispensed all the love we had in us.

Did we not teach them their deen? As much as we were able to, and thought appropriate. Did they never see us pray? No they witnessed us bowing to our Lord daily. Was the Quran never heard within these walls? No, they heard their mother recite each evening. Did they never fast in Ramadan? No, they have joined us for years.

And the absent dad, too busy chasing after dunya? For the entirety of their childhood and youth, I have been near at hand, working away in the back room, or upstairs, or at most in the summer house at the bottom of the garden, a five minute commute away. Sure, sometimes I have worked late due to deadlines, and at times prioritised lines of code over an attentive ear to a worried child.

But contrary to the imam’s prescriptions, we did everything we could to raise our children well — or as best we could, without going to extremes either of too strict or too lenient. And, yet, despite all this, we have rebels in our midst. One just testing boundaries, lightly pushing them daily in an effort to get a reaction, and the other knocking them down completely, joining the club of the heedless, intent on destroying every safety net built with care.

There’s a risk standing before a congregation to pronounce untested declarations to the hundreds listening patiently: they begin to see the learned sage as an ignoramus who has no idea what he’s talking about. Many of these men are just as despairing as we are, no less distraught by the decisions of some of their teenage sons and daughters.

Some, because the tearaway is not the sum of our experiences. Many of their children have set out into successful careers, despite the humblest of beginnings, and they are a credit to their parents who worked long, painful hours in dreary jobs, whether driving taxis all day long, or serving up fast food to the local hungry. They were not working every hour God gave them in pursuit of luxury, but to build a better life for their children.

But the imam, with his simplistic faith, sees none of this, for he has not yet walked in their shoes, and perhaps he never will. Perhaps he will go on preaching his sectarian wisdom even as his congregation haemorrhages all around him, as both young and old find no practical worth in his weekly rants which seem to have no bearing on their lives.

He is yet to tell us how this path can carry us through these trials and tests. Yet to make it relevant to us. He is yet to provide realistic solutions to the real problems we face. Because, in reality, he does not really believe they exist, except for the impious, whose problem it is, and who reap what they sow and, really get what they deserve. Untested declarations.

I hope he is not tested.