Few Days in an African Country Zambia

Few Days in an African Country Zambia

By: Mohammad Akram Qasmi,

Director: Makatib Darul Ma’arif, Itarsi,Hoshanabad, MP

With the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.

All praise be to Allah; the cherisher and sustainer of the worlds. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon His final Prophet; Muhammad, upon his progeny and companions.

Say: "Travel through the earth and see how (Allah) originated creation, and then Allah will bring forth (resurrect) the creation of the Hereafter. Verily, Allah is Able to do all things." (The glorious Qur’an; AlAnkabut, 20)

The most valuable thing possessed by a Muslim is his Iman. The prophet of Islam Muhammad S.A.S. said, "If Allah wants to do good to a person, He makes him comprehend the religion". The basic knowledge of deen is must to safeguard the priceless asset of Iman.

In this world, there are a lot of people born in some Muslim family but they are deprived of basic knowledge of Deen and Duniya. Life and future of children deprived of basic knowledge is almost uncertain and their Imans are mostly at stake. Illiteracy generally takes these children to ignorance which cause them lead to adopt various kinds of irreligious innovations and non-islamic rituals. People in small villages live in a multi-religious atmosphere where they frequently observe lot of unlawful customs and practices. And gradually they start adopting those rituals of non-believers in their day to day life. This happens because of their shallow belief in Islam which couldn't have grown mature due to lack of basic education.

The most dire need in such critical circumstances is to establish maktabs (Islamic primary schools) for imparting the elementary education to the common people. Opening the institutions of primary education (makatib) at each such places is only way to protect the religious values of people, specifically in rural and remote villages.

The way the Muslims have been making efforts to safeguard knowledge of Deen, through the ages, proves it is indeed an inscription by Allah which also serves a very convincing evidence of the prophet Muhammad PBUH being the last Messenger of Him. History lays it bare that Allah has chosen some people in all the ages to convey the knowledge of Islam to those after him. Verily, the people chosen by Allah for safeguard of Islamic knowledge were the luckiest and most successful people in their age, irrespective of whatsoever people were speaking of them.

During a recent visit to Zambia, I came across a panorama when I was reminded of Allah's such wisdom in His land. My journey from India to Zambia was intended to visit some outstations (makatib) and to meet some of the very special friends: serving the knowledge of Islam in Zambia. I was accompanied by Maulana Ibrahim Sholapiluri (an expert Daee and a well-traveled person). His company made my journey more experiencing and beneficial.

We reached Lusaka on February 16th, 2020 and visited JamiaIslamia, Lusaka and DarulYatama, Makeeni; two institutions among the most trusted ones in Zambia. We met many renowned personalities and some administrators there. The present day education system, syllabus and way of teaching were our main topic of discussion with them.

On February 17, we started our journey from Lusaka to Mpulungu. Mpulungu is a city in Zambia and approx 1050 kilometers from Lusaka (the capital city of Zambia). Mpulungu is a town in the northern province of Zambia, situated on the southern bank of Lake Tanganyika (the world's longest freshwater lake). Many of the villages on the mountains alongside the lake have a significant number of Muslim populations. Even some Muslims dwell on the islands in-between the lake. All these villages belong to black people who are mostly tribal natives of these villages. They are mostly irrelevant of today's technological, educational and economical world. Though the journey to Mpulungu itself isn't easy, but reaching to these tribal villages (mostly on mountain tops) through difficult paths is a real challenge.

Some about 20 years ago, a fishing company was established in Mpulungu. The director of the company; Uncle ShahidMutala came to Mpulungu with the establishment of his company and later became a permanent residence of this town. With the passage of time, his children grew younger causing him worried of their education that appeared to be a challenge for him. As there was no any madrasa for Islamic education in Mpulungu, he decided to hire a personal mentor to teach his children the basics of Islam and started a small madrasa inside his own house. As soon as people around got aware of it, they started sending their children to uncle Shahid's house. Soon the number of children coming to madrasa got multiplied and a significant number of pupils started coming to this madrasa-like house to acquire the knowledge of Deen. And thus blessings of Allah turned towards these people and resulted in fetching some thoughtful, generous person's attention towards it.

In the beginning, those unselfish people established a school with a separate department of Islamic knowledge. Afterwards, they took to care for the believes of people residing in rural areas and started establishing maktabs. Most of these maktabs are situated in the mountainous tribal villages. The paths to those villages are full of various difficulties. Some villages could only be reached through seaway, using small boats. Number of these maktabs had crossed seventy, until 8 months ago. Out of these 70 plus maktabs, just two/three have electric power. Language is one of the biggest challenges when it comes to speak of skilled staff. Local people are almost unaware of teaching methodologies, while outsiders couldn't play any significant role cause to language-barrier in-between. Most of the present teachers at these maktabs are local youngsters, who had done Muallim Course. 'Muallim Course' is a three year diploma which had been specifically designed to train youngsters for teaching basic religious education in maktabs. During this 3 year diploma, students are taught basics of Deen, _masail_ , _aqaid_, Quran teaching method, _Imamat_ etc.

Number of pupils across the maktabs differs according to Muslim population of the village. When any center for education is started in any village and though thenumber of Muslims in that place is not high, people usually send their children to that center irrespective of religious barriers. English is generally taught in the schools here. School-going children have knowledge of English language but the ones having no access to schools, don't know English, rather they can speak only Bemba (their mother tongue). For our easiness' sake, approx all the teachers know English language and can speak too.

The educational standard in these maktabs has always been a challenging task. Cause to unavailability of any proper teaching method and well-designed syllabus, never did those maktabs reach to any satisfactory standard. So getting no suffice outcomes and having no results of years-long work, trustees had decided to temporarily terminate all the maktabs, round about 8 months ago. Later they themselves thought of restarting them, with some profitable syllabus and reliable methodology of teaching. Many of the friends residing in Zambia were always been a significant part in all such efforts. So we all discussed the issue for months and contacted field experts for their suggestions. The same thing became reason behind my visit to Mpulungu, Zambia.

Having reached Mpulungu, all related things were studied deeply once again. After taking all the factors in account, 36 places amongst the previous ones were selected to restart maktabs with reappointment of previous muallims, whereas 16 new teachers were appointed for more 16 places. Muallims who were already working at maktabs couldn't be called upon for the workshop we had on 'Methodology of Teaching', because things weren't clear prior to our visit. 16 freshly appointed teachers were present, with whom we sat together to discuss teaching methods. In a three day workshop on Methodology of Teaching, muallims were shown method to teach Qaidah from very beginning. With consent from muallims,we decided a roadmap for first 6 months of upcoming academic year, where a syllabus of things to be learnt by heart has been decided and assigned to them. We have also started work to generate detailed data of every maktab, which is supposed to be tabled within two months. Once we have all the required data aboutmakatib in our hands, the way forward would be decided according to the requirements and necessities, InshaAllah.

For now, the center for makatib related activities is JamiaIrfania, which is situated in Mpulungu. Faculties at JamiaIrfania include Nazera, Alimiyat classes and Muallim course. It was a pleasure to meet JamiaIrfania's teaching staff but we couldn't discuss their teaching method and syllabus in detail. At least, mallim course does require a thorough study of its syllabus, to get it utilized at its best.

Getting free from the makatib activities, we visited Moon Rays School as well. Moon Rays school is a private school run by a muslim body. It has a separate department of Islamic knowledge. Students acquire knowledge of Islam once the school is over. We could only visit the girl section of the school due to lack of time. Alhamdulillah, students were able to recite glorious Quran nicely. They were also good at basics of Islamic knowledge. We pray to Allah to make this school a dynamiccenter for knowledge and light and bless the trustees, teachers and all the well-wishers! It was experiencing quality time we spent in Mpulungu and unforgettable days that got fitted to our pleasant memory. May Allah reward all the friends in Mpulungu for their great hospitality and precious company!

On 24th of February, we were on our journey back to Lusaka. Once having reached Lusaka, we were to visit Petauke and Chipata to meet many friends serving Islam there. But due to some unexpected breakdowns midway, we changed our program and decided to directly visit the friends in Petauke. It took us two days to reach Petauke. We couldn't manage to go uptoChipata, yet the friends living there came to Petauke itself and we had an enjoyable quality time together. There is a school in Petauke run by a muslim body wherein our friends work. A Hifz class is also operated in this school.It runs many makatib too. Lack of time didn't allow us to visit more than two maktabs. Teachers and students were busy in their jobs of teaching and learning respectively at both maktabs. Though the path to these maktabs isn't smooth, but comparing to Mpulungu-side maktabs, these are easy to reach to. Both the two maktabs had a satisfying education standard. Still the infra and well-set system demands much more improvement in education standard. We are very thankful to all the friends for their priceless love and wonderful care more than what we deserved for.

We returned Lusaka on February 26. On 27th of February after Asar, some of the trustees gathered at Rehanbhai's house. The meeting was related to Makatib visit. Alhamdulillah, it was very fruitful get together, as we discussed lot of important issues. It caused us increase in our intentions and strengthen our will-power as it energized the spirit inside us.

May Allah reward this collective effort with His acceptance; making it beneficial for all in both the worlds! May Allah bestow his favour upon all and help us all to get the makatib work to exemplary criteria! Aameen!

Mohammad Akram Qasmi, Surat (Gujarat) INDIA

04 March 2020