:salam2:
I have just seen the documentary linked in the thread starter's post. There were two primary issues discussed in it :- Corporal punishment on children (which is clearly inhumane) and promoting hate speech against other faiths and 'other muslims'.
On the issue of corporal punishment, it is definitely not the way to teach someone the sciences of Quran. With every mistake, comes an inhumane blow or a kick. That doesn't seem to be an effective way to teach.
Firstly, it's not a proper way to treat young muslim children like that. Even though they maybe unruly and naughty (as kids are), hitting them indiscriminately is a total no-no. I think the teacher at the Kayleigh mosque seriously has some issues. And making young teens incharge of young children without an elder's supervision is a total management disaster. It just shows how little thought has gone into their Sunday school setup.
This issue of hitting and teaching the Quran in the Indian Subcontinent has been discussed earlier on this thread :-
http://turntoislam.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57726 ..
It seems like these schools setup by immigrant muslims are following in the same cultural manner of teaching the Quran as in their home country. It has more to do with the Indian subcontinent culture than anything.
Secondly, as one of the students mentioned in the program (who spoke unanimously to 'Dispatches'), the learning process would not get any faster or better with the increasing of whacks/kicks. Rather it would put the child in constant fear of making a mistake. How would he ever develop a love for learning and reading the Quran out of love and respect ? Rather he would dread learning it, when infact they should be inculcating a yearning in the student's heart to learn such a noble & blessed science of tajweed.
The second issue raised in the documentary however is not one that I see eye to eye with completely with the program presenter. The Deoband moulana and their teachers were way over the top with the 'kuffar' rhetoric, however the crux of their teaching/message was correct. It could be that 'Dispatches' would have edited out teachings that encouraged them to better society and give dawah, so maybe we can give them the benefit of the doubt. (The 'buzurg' narration of socializing with a 'less than fistful beard' muslim person being akin to spending time with a serpent was clearly strange and quite peculiar. Where do they come up with this stuff ?)
In any case, Muslims have a different outlook towards life and have to abide by different set of rules that non muslims don't have to.Therefore we need to have our guard up, not to get swayed by the 'popular culture' or 'commonly practiced'. Thus we are against women and men dressing immodestly or listening to music etc etc. I think 'Dispatches' presented this segment of the program in a partially sinister manner, by terming such beliefs/views as 'extremists' (by portraying them to the teaching of the 'same mosque/madrassa' that hits children).
Darul Uloom network is going to be in some scrutiny over the next months/years. Strange way of teaching from an equally strange sect/brand of Islam. (though the whacking part seems to be mainly from Indian culture)
Quite surprised to know that Deobandis operate about half of the mosques in Britain. I thought they were mainly concentrated in Birmingham and Bradford.
