Muslim Perspectives

Sheer poverty and struggle to make ends meet causes the Muslim students to drop out as the educational level increases.


Muslims pursued education vigorously and achieved so much success in the early period of Islam. But why do we find ourselves in such pathetic state now?

There are various viewpoints, which have been put forward in this regard and the reasons, Mr. Mohd. Shafiquz Zaman (I.A.S) has classified in his eminently authoritative book, “Problems of Minorities Education” which are worthy of being mentioned. In the last issue we presented the reasons he lists and here are a few more.


Indifferent bureaucracy: Mr.Shafiquz Zaman observed in his book that bureaucracy in India has come to be closely identified with the interests of ruling group and class and perceives every change as a threat to the hegemony of this class/group. He further said that year after year and report after report, bureaucracy has explained this educational backwardness of Muslims by putting the blame at their doors i.e. being antipathetic towards education. The explanation, he said was not only simplistic but also preposterous.


He has further quoted instances when he argued with Department officials that in the name of excellence which is the luxury of haves, they are depriving non- excellent education which is better than not having education at all to the have- nots by putting conditions/rules which are difficult to meet for the Muslims and the poorer or backward classes. Some of the Rules that work as deterrent are given as below:


1. Provision of playground.

2. Requirement of distance of 1 to 1.5 kms between the new proposed School and the existing School.

3. Corpus fund of a minimum Rs. 25 to 50,000 as deposit before permission is granted.

4. Commercial rates for amenities such as electricity, water and other taxes.

5. Insistence on a minimum pass percentage from the School, failure of which for three consecutive years resulting in the cancellation of licence. This sounds all the more ridiculous considering that the Govt. run Schools themselves fall well short of the standards specified.


Poverty: Sheer poverty and struggle to make ends meet causes the Muslim students to drop out as the educational level increases. There is pressure of circumstances on them to supplement the family income. Hamdard Education Society did a study in 1983 of 430 Muslim schools and 44 Muslim- managed degree colleges and found that the number of non-Muslim students in these institutions rose from 3.7% at Primary level to 59.60% at the Graduate level. In the case of Muslim boys, the percentage declined from 56.3% at primary level to 32.1% at the Graduate level. The percentage of Muslim girls also declined from 40% at the primary level to 8.3% at the Graduate level. (Quoted in Religious Minority Educational Institutions by Dr. Satish Chandra and Dr. Mala Chandra, page 3).


There is a need to combat this phenomenon of dropping out of the Muslim students as they get to higher classes.


Misdirected Community Effort: In the field of Islamic Education, the community’s initiative has been tremendous rather unparalleled in human history.


Manzoor Ahmed commenting on this rightly says, “This is the largest peoples’ endeavour, on absolutely voluntary basis in the field of education, in history anywhere in the world.” (page 32, Islamic Education)


However in the field of contemporary education, the community’s effort and initiative has neither been adequate nor properly directed. This is where focused attention needs to be given in case we want the educational standard of Muslims to rise.


(To be concluded)

Muslims are rarely projected in the positive light and their good deeds escape media attention. Recently, three honest Muslim taxi drivers broke the stereotype.

Mumbai Taxi driver, Mohammad Sajid Noor Mohammad found a passenger’s handbag in his taxi. containing Rs 6,000 in cash, debit cards, credit cards, membership cards, office I-card, sunglasses and other receipts, in the taxi. He felt sorry for the poor woman who had lost her handbag and knew he had to return it. Passenger Minal Vishvanath Rahate had taken Mohammed’s taxi to her home in Worli. She had been out shopping and was carrying three bags. When she got off, she left behind her handbag Same day, Rahate received a phone call from her fiancé Amit Sangekar. He told her that her handbag was on its way back. He had received a call from taxi driver Mohammad whose daughter found it under the seat of the taxi. In the handbag, he found Amit’s visiting card and immediately called him up asking for Rahate’s address. Mohammad refused to accept a reward, but at least he has accepted an invitation for the whole family for Rahate’s wedding later this month.
Another taxi driver, Amjad Khan found a hand bag containing seven lakhs belonging to businessman Vithaldas Sayar and his brother Shashikant and returned the bag to the Taxi Union Office which handed it over to the owners.


The third taxi driver, Mohammed Khan found an expensive mobile left by a woman passenger. Not knowing what to do, he came to the same spot where the passenger had alighted and waited for one hour Prof. G.Sayed who had forgotten the mobile came to the same spot praying that she finds the taxi and her mobile and she did. Since mobile was in silent mode and Mohammed had never handled the mobile , he waited at the spot.

Mohammed Shafi, 60, was born to a timber worker in the pre-dominant beedi belt of Tirupattur, a dusty township having close to 5000 families of beedi workers. Education became an unfulfilled dream as he had to take up beedi rolling at the age of 8, following the death of his father. Driven by the urge to save the poor boys and girls form a similar fate, he set up the Noorul Huda primary school in 1983, in a hut built on a land he bought with collections from beedi workers and other donors. His aim: ‘to give free and quality education for children of beedi workers.’
The school was dedicated to the children of the less privileged like fellow beedi workers, rag pickers and the like. He started out with 18 students in lower kindergarten. Today he has expanded to a primary school and more than 1000 children have passed out. The school provides free uniforms, textbooks and notebooks obtained from NGOs for its 250 students. The school also received government recognition in 1997. He had to battle several obstacles from finance to socio-economic odds and religious dogmatism to keep the institution on.