Murdered for Not Memorizing the Qur’an
By Farrukh I. Younus
14 January 2013
Years ago as an ex-pat child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I retained a distinct memory of my fist Qur’an teacher. He lived in another block in our compound and to all extents and purposes looked the part: of Indo-Pak origin, dressed in a thobe, and had a long beard.
On one occasion I recall him ‘punishing’ me for a mispronunciation, ‘It is the word of God,’ he cried out, ‘This is not how you pronounce it’’, at the same time grabbing my ear and twisting it – as if somehow that action of temporal pain would in any way incentivize me to improve my pronunciation.
Needless to say, when the story reached my parents, it was the first and last time he lay a hand on me.
Today we hear the sad case of a seven-year-old child named Yaseen – incidentally also the name of a chapter of the Qur’an – who was beaten to death by his mother, Sara Ege, for failing to memorize verses from the Qur’an. In a vain attempt to hide her crime, she burnt her own son’s body. Thankfully, justice caught up with her, and she has been jailed for 17 years – though the death penalty would be more fitting.
Despite having committed large swathes of the Qur’an to heart, Sara Ege, a Maths graduate, confessed that she ‘…would shout at Yaseen all the time. I was getting very wild and I hit Yaseen with a stick on his back like a dog.’
In a further twist, she opined that she had been urged by ‘bad jinn’ to beat her son, a claim she later retracted, blaming her husband, as a violent man, who was responsible for murdering her son.
Back and Forth
When I imagine a child learning the Qur’an today, whether a native Arabic speaker or otherwise, I have images of children sitting on the floor of a room, swaying back and forth, reciting lyrically, words and phrases which I suspect they do not understand.
There is a statement of Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace who observed that for some, they will speak words of faith with their mouths, but it will not have reached their hearts, that is to say, it is superficial as they have little understanding of faith.
Of course it comes as little surprise that despite having memorized large segments of the Qur’an, this woman compared hitting her son to beating a dog. The attitude of so many Muslims, particularly towards dogs, is neither reflective of the history of Islam, nor of the respect any of God’s creatures deserve.
Indeed, one of the classical scholars Ibn al-Marzuban, authored a text ‘The superiority of dogs over many who wear clothes’ in which he wrote, ‘Dogs are loyal and human beings are capable of treachery. But dogs are loyal without making promises or creating expectations of mutual trust. Truly, in all of God’s creation there is a lesson for us.’
In his book, Muslim Education in Medieval Times, the author observed that it was not uncommon to see a boy aged 10 to be paraded through the streets of a town after having memorized the Qur’an. Indeed there is no shortage of reward for doing so throughout religious literature. Here is a woman who not only memorized large sections of the Qur’an but she is also professionally educated, yet neither her knowledge of the Qur’an nor her knowledge of Mathematics gave her understanding of how to respect and raise her child.
Her insistence that her son memorize the Qur’an – it was said that his last few words, his remaining murmurs were of him reciting verses of the Qur’an to please her; this insistence of hers was entirely oblivious to the purpose of the Qur’an: a text, a revelation, a mercy to humankind, that is meant to guide, to inspire, to lead, to remind and to motivate us. What should have been a treasure to learn and share had become a trial leading to an unnecessary and unjust loss of life.
While Sara Ege’s approach is a shameful extreme, it reflects a wider underlying problem facing the Muslim community – a shameful misunderstanding of the simplicity and beauty of faith, which has been substituted by an arrogant, often self-righteous approach to spiritual purity. While in principle there is no harm in seeking ‘purity’, if along the way one’s choices lead to injustice, be it the murder of a child for not memorizing the Quran, or reviling God’s creation (dogs, pigs, etc), then I am reminded of a verse from the Quran:
“Would you encourage people to be righteous but faith to practice it yourself? And you are reciting the book of God? Have you no sense?” (Qur’an 2:44) May God Almighty have mercy on those who have gone before us and those who follow, ameen.
Rote-learning the Qur’an is not the solution. It is only when Muslims understand its uncomplicated beauty that when justice fills our lives, that our actions will be proper, and that we will find peace; success for all, in this life and the next, ameen.
Farrukh I. Younus holds a master's degree in international business management and works in the emerging telecommunications industry across Europe and Asia.
Source: http://www.onislam.net/english/culture-and-entertainment/iblog/460887-murdered-for-not-memorizing-the-quran.html
URL: https://newageislam.com/ijtihad-rethinking-islam/murdered-memorizing-qur’an/d/10018