It is a fact that Muslims across the globe unequivocally believe that the Qur’an is the accurate Book of Allah revealed to his beloved and last prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. One cannot claim to be a full believer unless he or she bear witness that there is no one worthy to be worshiped but only Allah and that he send the prophets to guide man to the right path. Some of these prophets were given scriptures /Books such as Torah, Zabur, Gospel, and the Holy Qur’an which was revealed to our prophet Muhammad as a true guidance of all mankind, Allah said “This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah” Qur’an 2:2.
Yes, as Muslims we sincerely believe that Qur’an is our guidance. But the question here is, to what extent does Muslims up-hold to the teachings of the Holly Qur’an? And what efforts are being put in place to ensure that the future generations will walk side by side with the Qur’an? I mean, are we creating the environment that would allow our children to take Qur’an as their teacher and guidance for their everyday deeds? To answer these questions systematically I think there is a need to thoroughly analyze the education system the Muslim Ummah in Malawi offer to their children.
If I remember very well, one day I came across news published by this website informing the Muslim community of Malawi that efforts to unify the Madrasah syllabus in the country were cat short due to some reasons. Now, let’s assume that this is the real situation on ground; how far do we think we can create the Muslim generation that will hold Qur’an as their guidance?
It should be made crystal clear to all Muslims in this country that any educational system that has no sound and or unified syllabus is known to be a failed system that produces nothing but half-baked learners who will cause a great damage to our religion.
The core reason that was given in that write up was that the committee could not carry on their duties due to inadequate funds to fuel the project. Sometimes it is very shameful to utter such sentiments. I mean the Muslim Ummah of Malawi claiming that there is no money for such an important project. On other hand, the very same Muslims are the big financier of various projects in the country that has no connection with their lives hereafter, i.e. dishing millions for political mileage and etc. Sadly, not only that, but again when we look at the populace of the Muslims in Malawi, it’s very pathetic to believe that they cannot afford to get funding for such an essential program.
Nevertheless, I believe all Muslims in the country send their children to Madrasah and at the same time to secular education where in many cases they pay fees. The question is, if we manage to pay for secular education can’t we do the same to finance this imperative project, that has a future of our children as well as ourselves? I strongly believe that Muslims of this country if well informed about this project can hold hands with the little they are blessed with by their sustainer to finance the project.
Thus, I suggest that the Muslim community of Malawi should introduce what I can call ‘One Kwacha Foundation’ (MK1.00)for the project. This foundation can play a significant role of collecting one kwacha or so, from every Muslim in the country every day or twice a week for the project. I know that same will say what difference can that make? Yes, I respect your argument but what we all agree unanimously is that to reach hundred kwacha (MK100) we have to start from one.
Although we don’t know the exact number of Muslims in the country, but still we estimate that Malawi has more than 4 million Muslims. In this case, how much can be collected every day? What all we need is to have a proper strategy and mechanism of how to run this foundation and most importantly how to use the funds once collected. Above all transparency and accountability should be put on front to ensure that the funds collected are in the safe hands.
Believe you me, we can do this and ultimately accomplish our projects. Muslims in this country can do this if and if only there is a reliable working group to facilitate this foundation. I pen off by throwing this suggestion to all Muslims in the country in general and Islamic organizations in particular to look at this issue seriously taking into cognizant that to create a Qur’anic unique generation, it needs a vibrant unified syllabus of our Madrasahs.
