Source: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2012/11/21/Indias-madrassa-schools-refuse-to-teach-math-science/UPI-97291353500451/
Special Report by UZMI ATHAR, Written for UPI
BANGALORE, India, Nov. 21 (UPI) — Shabana Rizvi, 17, nervously shakes her legs as she talks. She is overshadowed by her eldest brother, Meer, and appears apprehensive to voice her opinion in his presence. She glances in his direction after every sentence she speaks, awaiting his reaction.
When he disapproves, Rizvi is quickly warned to choose her words more carefully.
This isn’t unusual for young Shiite Muslim women living on the Arab Lane in the Johnson Market in Bangalore, India.
In a rare moment apart from her sibling, Rizvi expresses a lifelong desire for a formal education and a career in fashion design.
The men in her family, however, decided long ago that she wouldn’t learn how to read and write or solve mathematical equations. Instead, she was forced to join an Islamic school, called a madrassa, for girls, where she learned about Islam, along with cooking, cleaning, sewing and how to prepare for important religious festivals.
Her mother, Marsia Fathima, supported the decision.
“I am proud of the fact that my daughter never stepped inside a school,” Fathima said. “She went to madrassas and attained her religious education there.”
India’s Ministry of Minority Affairs counts more than 1 million children who study solely at madrassas. The schools are partially funded by the Indian government but they don’t offer education in math, science, English or other standard subjects. This exacerbates already high unemployment rates among Muslims throughout India.
The Indian government wants to modernize madrassas and earmarked nearly $60 million to modernize madrassas. It has asked the Madrassas to include core curriculums of reading, writing, arithmetic and science, along with technical skills to help Muslim children compete in the job market.
Many madrassa leaders said they would rather close their schools than implement the changes. “Modernization is not at all necessary,” said Ummat-e-Tahir, head of Madrassa Islahul Banat, which teaches Urdu and Arabic, in addition to religious studies based on the Koran. “We have to concentrate on our religion and not on anything else. We have come to the world to spread Islam. We have to overcome the attractions of the world.”
Read more on the report at http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2012/11/21/Indias-madrassa-schools-refuse-to-teach-math-science/UPI-97291353500451/
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This is exactly what is wrong with the Muslim society. When we look at the Islamic history we find that all great scientists were scholars in both religion and science. Hadhrat Khalifatul Masih I also, for instance, was both a Quranic scholar (and Hadith) and at the same time a medical doctor. That is how Muslim did and can again achieve the highest level of knowledge. May Allah guide the Umma back to the right path…
To learn more about Hadhrat Al Haj Maulana Hakim (Dr.) Nuruddin please surf to:
http://www.alislam.org/library/noor.html
The Hadith says,seek knowledge even if you have to go to China.
Is or was there any religious knowledge found in China? It simply meant useful knowledge. It could be technical, medicinal etc.
It is good to have the ambition to spread Islam. But Islam does not stop seeking beneficial knowledge. If woman do not receive medicinal knowledge how can we have Lady Doctors to treat women. Lady Doctors are blessing for woman patients. Likewise are the female teachers.
I wish they used thier sensibilty and became rational. Amen
To educate a woman is equivalent to educating 40 men! For she is the mother of future generations.
And if she’s kept ignorant, how is she going to educate her children? After all her lap is the child’s first ‘madrassah’ (ummul madrassah).
Also, just by getting religious knowledge will not get her anywhere or for that matter any other Muslim.
The Holy Qur’an repeatedly tells us to travel through the earth and compare and see what and why and how previous people’s were destroyed by Allah.
Then there is the verse which tells us to apply knowledge regarding the creation of the heavens and the earth sitting, standing, lying down, etc., and contemplate that Allah has not made all this in vain.
How is one to do this if we do not have secular knowledge?
These ma’alims in these questionable madrassahs are themselves highly IGNORANT and it might be a blessing in disguise if they close (as they have threatened to do), due to the Indian govt. insisting that they teach other secular subjects. If they close as they have threatened then it will get rid of the dross and only the confirming ones remain, Insha’Allah.