How Muslim Parents Run Down Madrasahs By Sanni Kay Yūsuf

When a Muslim parent hears a child sonorously recite the Qur’ān and/or eloquently speak in Arabic, the interest to have his own child(ren) do same is usually birthed. He would consequently want his child on a similar pedestal but unfortunately with no significant zeal for the sacrifice done by the parents of the admired child?

My experience as a madrasah administrator — for over a decade now — has clearly shown to me why and how our forefathers were pauperised and made to die poor by the Muslims. Aside doing the work of an imām with no pay to their pockets, they would teach children free of charge, yet they had nothing giving them earnings. That was perhaps the reason they resorted to moneymaking at nikāh and childbirth ceremonies, funerals, walīmatul Qur’ān etc. May Allāh overlook their shortcomings.

Muslims complained of the act. They even disliked the actors. Of course, we all knew it wasn’t good. In fact, they too knew it wasn’t befitting – spending four, five hours reaping people off at a gathering that shouldn’t have lasted more than one hour (or thereabouts).

Now that the narrative is changing, Muslims aren’t cooperating. Muslim parents don’t want to be extorted on walīmah day, yet they don’t want to pay for madrasah. The mallams who sacrifice their own time to teach their children while they (the parents) would have gone about their daily businesses are either niggardly paid or are not paid at all. What if the mallams too went about their own businesses, who would prepare the kids for the future of the religion?

Every amount charged for madrasah is too much for some Muslim parents, yet they pay multiples in schools. #2k per month is #6k or #8k per term on a scale of three or four months. A parent who joyfully or struggles to pay #40k or more per term to see his child through school is complaining that the former is too much. What a misplacement of priority! Calculate it in a year, madrasah is #12k, while the other is #120k. Imagine the astronomic difference and the inhuman injustice!

The fees collected are used to pay mallams employed by the madrasah management. What those sacrificers are paid is not even speakable. They are ridiculously paid, yet parents complain. By Allāh, if not for the heavenly rewards accruable to the service rendered, many would have quit the job and our mosques would have been without madrasahs.

Imagine a madrasah with less than 100 students whose monthly fee is #1k having parents indebted to it to the tune of #200, yet most parents owing settle that of school. What a disservice to Allāh!

Administrators of madrasahs are now enemies to many parents. Why? Because they will not allow students with outstanding debts into the madrasah. If fees are not paid, how will the employed mallams get motivated to do even more than paid for? Something is apparently wrong with this ummah. Muslims are the problem of Islām. Muslims are the reason why alfas became glorified beggars.

Kudos to parents who, out of nothing, do something. They will owe no kobo, and whenever that will happen, they have a polite way of reaching out to the madrasah management for consideration. This is how responsible parents should behave.

There’s apparently more to madrasah education than mere spoken Arabic and Qur’ān memorisation and recitation. It is a place where the child’s personality is built. What the Qur’ān and the Sunnah say of morals and spirituality are instilled in him.

As done for secular schools, students should be neatly dressed in madrasah uniforms. They should wear covered shoes or sandals, not flip-flops. The male students should put on caps as done scholars and the female attired in hijābs. It baffles how girls are dressed to madrasahs wherein uniform isn’t statutory. Some parents have little or no respect for the sanctity of the mosque. What their children wear at home and to the madrasah are nothing to write home about. How on earth does one explain leggings, mini-skirts, transparent and tight-fitting skimpy wears to madrasah? What sense does that make?

Parents don’t only refuse to pay madrasah fees, they equally don’t buy textbooks that will enhance children’s learning. Months after enrollment, their children don’t have books, whereas triple of that would have been provided for the secular education. This is the discouraging attitude with which madrasahs are treated by parents.

When haflah (aka walīmah) is to be done, they can spend their all to wine and dine but will price certificate fees to ridiculous figures. If they had their way, they would want it free, but would splurge huge sums on eating, drinking, music and alcohol. What a misplacement of priority!

Ask parents to come for meetings so issues pertaining to their children may be discussed, only a responsible few will turn up. It’s either they give one excuse or another, or they don’t show up at all. Such is the ill-attitude of madrasah parents. They can be frustrating. Thank God we have our jobs, we would have been rendered irredeemably penurious just like our forebears were made to suffer.

Sanni Kay YūsufWhen a Muslim parent hears a child sonorously recite the Qur’ān and/or eloquently speak in Arabic, the interest to have his own child(ren) do same is usually birthed. He would consequently want his child on a similar pedestal but unfortunately with no significant zeal for the sacrifice done by the parents of the admired child?

My experience as a madrasah administrator — for over a decade now — has clearly shown to me why and how our forefathers were pauperised and made to die poor by the Muslims. Aside doing the work of an imām with no pay to their pockets, they would teach children free of charge, yet they had nothing giving them earnings. That was perhaps the reason they resorted to moneymaking at nikāh and childbirth ceremonies, funerals, walīmatul Qur’ān etc. May Allāh overlook their shortcomings.

Muslims complained of the act. They even disliked the actors. Of course, we all knew it wasn’t good. In fact, they too knew it wasn’t befitting – spending four, five hours reaping people off at a gathering that shouldn’t have lasted more than one hour (or thereabouts).

Now that the narrative is changing, Muslims aren’t cooperating. Muslim parents don’t want to be extorted on walīmah day, yet they don’t want to pay for madrasah. The mallams who sacrifice their own time to teach their children while they (the parents) would have gone about their daily businesses are either niggardly paid or are not paid at all. What if the mallams too went about their own businesses, who would prepare the kids for the future of the religion?

Every amount charged for madrasah is too much for some Muslim parents, yet they pay multiples in schools. #2k per month is #6k or #8k per term on a scale of three or four months. A parent who joyfully or struggles to pay #40k or more per term to see his child through school is complaining that the former is too much. What a misplacement of priority! Calculate it in a year, madrasah is #12k, while the other is #120k. Imagine the astronomic difference and the inhuman injustice!

The fees collected are used to pay mallams employed by the madrasah management. What those sacrificers are paid is not even speakable. They are ridiculously paid, yet parents complain. By Allāh, if not for the heavenly rewards accruable to the service rendered, many would have quit the job and our mosques would have been without madrasahs.

Imagine a madrasah with less than 100 students whose monthly fee is #1k having parents indebted to it to the tune of #200, yet most parents owing settle that of school. What a disservice to Allāh!

Administrators of madrasahs are now enemies to many parents. Why? Because they will not allow students with outstanding debts into the madrasah. If fees are not paid, how will the employed mallams get motivated to do even more than paid for? Something is apparently wrong with this ummah. Muslims are the problem of Islām. Muslims are the reason why alfas became glorified beggars.

Kudos to parents who, out of nothing, do something. They will owe no kobo, and whenever that will happen, they have a polite way of reaching out to the madrasah management for consideration. This is how responsible parents should behave.

There’s apparently more to madrasah education than mere spoken Arabic and Qur’ān memorisation and recitation. It is a place where the child’s personality is built. What the Qur’ān and the Sunnah say of morals and spirituality are instilled in him.

As done for secular schools, students should be neatly dressed in madrasah uniforms. They should wear covered shoes or sandals, not flip-flops. The male students should put on caps as done scholars and the female attired in hijābs. It baffles how girls are dressed to madrasahs wherein uniform isn’t statutory. Some parents have little or no respect for the sanctity of the mosque. What their children wear at home and to the madrasah are nothing to write home about. How on earth does one explain leggings, mini-skirts, transparent and tight-fitting skimpy wears to madrasah? What sense does that make?

Parents don’t only refuse to pay madrasah fees, they equally don’t buy textbooks that will enhance children’s learning. Months after enrollment, their children don’t have books, whereas triple of that would have been provided for the secular education. This is the discouraging attitude with which madrasahs are treated by parents.

When haflah (aka walīmah) is to be done, they can spend their all to wine and dine but will price certificate fees to ridiculous figures. If they had their way, they would want it free, but would splurge huge sums on eating, drinking, music and alcohol. What a misplacement of priority!

Ask parents to come for meetings so issues pertaining to their children may be discussed, only a responsible few will turn up. It’s either they give one excuse or another, or they don’t show up at all. Such is the ill-attitude of madrasah parents. They can be frustrating. Thank God we have our jobs, we would have been rendered irredeemably penurious just like our forebears were made to suffer.

Sanni Kay Yūsuf