From Mothers To Madrasas For Girls

By Moin Qazi, New Age Islam

8 September 2023

We children, both boys and girls, had our first lessons in the Qur'an on our mothers' lap. Madrasas came later. I grew up reading the Qur'an on my mother's lap. Once Muslim children are about four or five, it's usual for their mothers to start reading the Qur'an and getting them to repeat the words until they become familiar and can be easily recited from memory. Most mosques have madras, an Islamic c boarding school, attached. We weren't enthusiastic about our madrasa lessons, which lasted about an hour. They lacked the loving touch of our mother. But I loved what happened afterwards. The classes were not graded: everyone from the locality came, all ages and stages mixed in the harmonics - to an untrained ear, cacophony - of reading aloud.   A select number of students would manage to memorize the whole Qur'an. They would be honoured with the title hafiz.

Representative photos

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Of course, the classes I attended were for boys. But the same lessons were held for girls; how else would mothers be ready to teach their children? But, after the madrasa, the awful difference in attitudes to and provision of education for women in many Muslim countries never ceases to outrage us. The girls have to fall out at puberty because of religious customs.

Every Muslim will tell you the Qur'an is eternal. It is timeless, its words unchanged. It is ever-present. The Qur'an addresses us directly, as it always has. But religious texts, by their very nature, are complex. And one of the most insistent commands in the Qur'an is: Think! Reflect! So, the struggle to understand and interpret is our eternal challenge. There is no getting away from it.

The significance and meaning of the verses of the Qur'an have to be rediscovered by each generation. Contexts change, and old definitions, the customs born of ancient interpretations, can be suffocating. Or worse, they can be turned into means to oppress or oppose others.

Indeed, of the 1.2 billion Muslims who populate the planet, only around 300 million are Arabic-speaking. In any case, modern Arabic comprises many dialects and is quite distinct from the Arabic of the Qur'an. Arabic speakers may have an advantage in pronouncing their words correctly. Still, they are in the same boat as everyone else when trying to discover the meaning and contemporary relevance of the Qur'an.

The  Arrival Of Female Madrassas

Female madrasas were virtually unheard of before the late 1970s; the religious institutions have always been aimed at males. Female students exceed males' academic achievements, with more registering for graduate exams and enjoying a higher pass rate. Female madrasas in South Asia are expanding dramatically, educating almost a quarter of a million young women and providing more than half of the candidates sitting graduate-level exams yearly.

Parents who send their daughters to madrasas are lower middle class and the girls who enter are between 16 and 20. Most say it was their choice. There is an emergence of a very conservative value system. Madrasas promote traditional roles for women, and students feel confident about their societal position. You cannot associate this phenomenon with poverty.

Madrasas gave women economic and social opportunities. Students could offer private tuition in religious education, increasing their respectability and upward mobility. The female madrasas provide a lens to study the uncertain interface between traditional values and beliefs and global influences that often result in further radicalization of conventional faiths. Muslim women are speaking up about Islamic scholars and clergy members who have allegedly preyed on their piety, and their stories are forcing a reckoning about the fallibility of these outsized personalities.

The Global Footprints

Indonesia has the world's most extensive Islamic education system. Non-state religious organizations run a vast nationwide network of madrasas alongside government-owned non-religious schools. These Islamic schools have significantly expanded schooling opportunities in remote and underdeveloped communities, particularly for girls. Indonesia's experience can be helpful in Afghanistan, where, since the return of the Taliban to power, concern has been growing over the "Islamization" of the education sector.

Hand in hand with the country's two leading Muslim organizations, Indonesia's government has created a nationwide network of madrasa-educated women. Setting aside ideological differences, both have historically welcomed female students to madrasas.

 Although there has been debate over their quality, Indonesian madrasas have achieved gender parity in school enrolment. There are also more girls than boys at the upper secondary level. Even enrolment in informal or traditional Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) is gender-balanced.

Another international movement for promoting Quranic studies for girls and young women is Al Huda. Al Huda, a female-focussed Islamic study movement with centres in Canada, the United States and Pakistan, has seen thousands of Muslim women move through its courses.

The Al Huda movement is the brainchild of Farhat Hashmi, a native of Pakistan. The niqab-wearing daughter of a conservative Islamic scholar, she boasts a PhD in "hadith sciences" – the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed – from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. 1994, she launched Al Huda by teaching courses outside her Islamabad house. Before long, Pakistan's chattering class was buzzing about the early adopters – the well-heeled women who had never appeared outwardly Islamic but walked into the Al Huda course in designer jeans and came out wearing high-end hijabs.

What does happen at Al Huda, around the world, is this: Muslim women dive deep into the Qur'an so profoundly that they treat the study as if it were a full-time job for up to 18 consecutive months. Many are young mothers whose husbands support them over that span.

Working in groups, they break down each verse, word for word, in unfamiliar classical Arabic before coming up for air to discuss the more significant life lessons with fellow students. This is intended to give them the mental tools to figure out, for themselves, what it means to be Muslim.

The Al Huda movement is the brainchild of Farhat Hashmi, a native of Pakistan. The niqab-wearing daughter of a conservative Islamic scholar, she boasts a PhD in "hadith sciences" – the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed – from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. 1994, she launched Al Huda by teaching courses outside her Islamabad house.

Before long, Pakistan's chattering class was buzzing about the early adopters – the well-heeled women who had never appeared outwardly Islamic but walked into the Al Huda course in designer jeans and came out wearing high-end hijabs.

Ms. Hashmi insists to the Urdu-speaking masses that the Qur'an is best read in its original classical Arabic. Technology helps spread the message: Al Huda's embrace of PowerPoint was considered remarkable in the early days, but the centre now circulates its own branded Android and iPhone apps.

Many students said a close read of the Qur'an taught them to be more gentle and loving, better wives and mothers. The number of Islamic girls' schools has grown across Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power, with teenage girls increasingly attending classes after they were banned from secondary schools.

Instead of maths and literature, the girls focus on rote-learning the Quran in Arabic — a language most of them don't understand. Those who want to learn the meaning of the verses study separately, where a teacher translates and explains the text in their local language. The Taliban government adheres to an austere interpretation of Islam.

The Pedagoyg Of Al Huda

What Al Huda teaches is not dogma: Qur'anic passages are taught in a historical context, tailored for students who grew up in Canada. The course takes more than a year, he says, because it can be time-consuming for students to break down verses into Arabic root words.   school and others across Turkey, where girls ages eight to 19 spend up to four years trying to memorize all 604 pages of the Muslim religious text. Some of these boarding schools provide secular classes, but the main focus is on learning the Quran, a traditional practice dating to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. 

As for women, the Qur'an says to "draw your veils over your chest," but there is no consensus on which specific kinds of garments. As she speaks, several niqabis – women wearing fuller face coverings, chat in a cluster in the prayer hall. A toddler runs around in a veil, too, which seems unusual – the headscarf more typically arrives on a young girl's head with puberty.

The girls who join Al Huda credit the course, giving her the self-confidence to reboot relations successfully. But they fear that these schools will shut down or girls will be excluded. There have been reports, for instance, of Taliban plans to enforce gender segregation, restrict women's activities outside their homes, impose hijab norms, and replace schools with traditional madrasas.

However, millions of girls worldwide have been schooled under similar conditions, often inspired by strict interpretations of Islamic law. In particular, Indonesia can serve as an essential model for the Taliban of how Muslim nations and faith-based organizations can play a critical role in expanding girls' education.

Many parts of Afghanistan remain isolated. Poor digital infrastructure and the lack of state schools mean community-based madrasas remain the only viable option to expand girls' schooling. Even after the trillions of dollars invested by the U.S. government, around two-thirds of secondary school-aged girls in Afghanistan have been left out of school. Indonesia's model can be a low-cost solution for state authorities to create educational opportunities for girls. For instance, another Muslim country, Bangladesh, has followed the Indonesian partnership model with madrasas. Today, girls outnumber boys in secondary education in Bangladesh.

Thus, an essential lesson for Afghanistan from Indonesia –the world's largest Muslim-majority country – is that even a preference for Islamic law does not conflict with the global agenda to educate girls in school. Partnership with madrasas does, in some ways, undermine the full transformative power of education. However, Muslim communities should be left alone to negotiate civic rights with their ruling elites. Bringing girls to school is the main priority right now – educated women are the best force for future social change.

Indeed, they don't understand what they are memorizing at this age, but we believe that understanding comes when the Qur'an becomes part of you. At those meetings, participants are tutored further in the faith. They are even taught how to influence some of their well-connected fathers and husbands to accept a more significant presence of Islam in public life.

These are the two faces of an Islamic revival for women, which could add to a potent challenge to this determinedly secular state. 'Their history is Islamic history. The younger generation read the Qur'an: "Women are in the vanguard. Though men across the Islamic world usually interpret Scripture and lead prayers, Syria, virtually alone in the Arab world, is seeing the resurrection of a centuries-old tradition of sheikhs or women who are religious scholars. The growth of girls' madrasas has outpaced those for boys, religious. A girl thinking to be serious about her faith may be invited by a relative or school friend to a meeting. There, a Sheikha sits on a raised platform, addresses the assembled women on religious subjects and takes questions.

The debate should not be about gender segregation and whether or not to mix religion with schooling. Education should be a priority, regardless of the form and type. If past trends are sustained, instruction will empower Afghan women and help them mobilize further to negotiate more inclusive education.

We find that, over time, a larger and critical mass of educated women can mobilize on shared interests and use their literacy to negotiate better rights with state authorities.    The diversity in how Indonesia has expanded educational opportunities for girls – despite intense conservative religious campaigns at the grassroots level – reminds us that Islamic traditions alone are no barrier to women's development.

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Moin Qazi is the author of the bestselling book, Village Diary of a Heretic Banker. He has worked in the development finance sector for almost four decades.

 

URL:    https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/mothers-female-madrasas-girls/d/130631

 

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