Islamic education of children: beating and chaining?

..... A child is ordered to pray when he reaches the age of seven, and beat them to do so at the age of ten, and it becomes obligatory upon him when he reaches puberty.
.........
The source for the aforementioned is what Imaam Ahmad and Abu Daawood have related on the authority of the Prophet (sal-Allaahu `alayhe wa sallam): ((Order your children to pray at seven and beat them to pray at ten, and separate them from each other in bed)).

The Permanent Committee for Academic Research and Fataawa, comprising: Head: Shaykh 'Abdul-'Azeez Ibn 'Abdullaah Ibn Baaz; Deputy Head: Shaykh 'Abdur-Razzaaq 'Afeefee; Member: Shaykh 'Abdullaah Ibn Ghudayyaan; Member: Shaykh 'Abdullaah Ibn Qu'ood Fataawa Ramadhaan - Volume 1, Page 233, Fatwa No.177; Fataawa al-Lajnah ad-Daa.imah lil-Buhooth al-'Ilmiyyah wal-Iftaa. - Fatwa No. 1787

Narrated Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As:
The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) said: Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it (prayer) when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds (to sleep) separately.

"Another of their good qualities is their habit of wearing clean white garments on Fridays. Even if a man has nothing but an old worn shirt, he washes it and cleans it, and wears it to the Friday service.

Yet another is their zeal for learning the Koran by heart. They put their children in chains if they show any backwardness in memorizing it, and they are not set free until they have it by heart.

I visited the qadi in his house on the day of the festival. His children were chained up, so I said to him, "Will you not let them loose?" He replied, "I shall not do so until they learn the Koran by heart."

15. Hadhrat Abdullah bin Abbas (Radhiyallaho Anho) Teaches His Slave. Ikramah, the slave of Abdullah bin Abbas (Radhiyallaho Anho), is one of the eminent scholars. He says, "When I started learning the Quran and Hadith, I was kept in chains by my master, so that I could devote my full time to my lessons, and not go anywhere else."

In fact, real knowledge can only be acquired when one is totally devoted to it. The students who are in the habit of wasting their time in roaming about and enjoying themselves can seldom acquire deep knowledge.

Students freed from Kenyan 'torture'
Tuesday, 28 January, 2003
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At the Kasarani police station, five kilometres from where they had been rescued, the children narrated their ordeal at the hands of islamic teachers bent on turning them into good Muslims. ..................

"It was a terrible place, they chain both legs and both arms, sometimes hands and feet together," he said. "They beat you at lunch time, dinner time and grab both legs and hands and give you lashes on the buttocks." ..................

"We sleep in chains, eat in chains, go to the toilets in chains. Sometimes we are hooked on the roof in chains and left hanging. We have to memorise the Koran and get punished if we cannot recite the Koran in the classroom". ..................

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuter) - Pakistani authorities freed 42 children Wednesday who had been kept in chains or ropes at a Muslim religious school near the city of Multan in Punjab province, a local police officer said.

The English-language Nation newspaper reported that some parents had even paid for their children to be shackled at the Madrasa Siddiqia Talim-al-Koran (Koranic instruction) school.

``Some of the recovered children told us that a few had been in chains for more than a year,'' Memon said.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan drew attention in its 1995 report to the strict discipline imposed at some Koranic schools. ``Many even kept the children in chains round the clock so that they... were not exposed to any outside influences, which were all regarded as evil,'' it said.
10:36 03-20-96

According to press reports, there are several madrassahs (religious schools) where children are illegally confined and kept in unhealthy conditions. One investigative report, in an English-language daily, detailed the death of a 9-year-old boy who was killed on September 23 while escaping from a madrassah near the Punjabi city of Multan. The boy reportedly was kept in chains at the madrassah and, while attempting to cut the chains on a railroad track, was struck and killed by a train. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan filed an appeal with a local court for an investigation of the incident, as well as a cancellation of the madrassah's registration. As of December, the courts had not acted on the case.

Mr. Abbas estimates that only 3-5% of the madrassas, like some in Karachi, can be considered modern and progressive, teaching their students subjects such as math, science, computers, and history. As he recounts it: "These kids do not know Arabic but they memorize the Koran, all 6346 verses, and they can recite it beautifully, but they do not know the meaning or the spirit without knowing Arabic. They are keeping kids in chains, teaching them conservative Shari'a law…." 5

Ultimately, students will be prepared only for positions as mullahs and religious scholars, where they will be respected as religious leaders despite their effective religious illiteracy. The students are vulnerable to becoming the unwitting tools of Islamist leaders, to be used in terrorist attacks by extremist groups and even the government intelligence services, or in wars like the one in Afghanistan. 6

Over twenty students were rescued from an Islamic school in Chittagong, Bangladesh, where they had been chained and subjected to barbaric torture. The students, all under age 14, apparently were not excelling in their study of the Arabic language and memorization of the Koran. One 11-year-old boy had been at the school for only two weeks before being bound to other classmates and forced to carry a section of a steel railroad tie.

"I did not complete my lessons and for this I had been given punishment of fetters for at least one month," recounted Atual Haq. Although the police reported that this was an isolated incident and the principal and teacher are now in custody, there have been similar reports of children being chained at Koranic schools in Pakistan and Sudan. At many such schools, the Koran is the only subject taught, and only in Arabic a language foreign to many areas.

"Students chained at an Islamic school in Bangladesh"

The film traces the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in Sudan which has led to the civil war between the Muslim North and the Christian South. Included is a view of a Koranic school, where boys are chained and whipped for misdemeanors.

Gone are the days when madressahs used to be headed by renowned scholars of their times and were considered beacons of knowledge and wisdom in a traditional Muslim society. In recent years, as the madressah culture has proliferated partly because the regular education has gone beyond the reach of the poorer sections of society, the standard of education provided at the madressah is often a big question mark.

The children enrolled at these institutions have little to look forward to in terms of job opportunities offering a decent income which they will need to support themselves and their families when they enter life on their own. A typical madressah today is headed by a semi-literate maulvi who, besides teaching children how to read the Holy Quran and pray, also makes them do his personal chores and beats them up mercilessly should they dare disobey him.

This was precisely the case with the two eight-year old boys the Sanghar police picked up after they tried to escape a heartless maulvi who had tied them up in chains. It was the boys' second attempt at escaping the harsh punishment the maulvi meted out to those guilty of even minor infractions. This is not the first time a madressah teacher has acted cruelly towards young children.

Madressahs are notorious for routinely awarding severe corporal punishment to non-complying children. Oddly enough, chains and fetters seem to be the regular instruments of torture used to 'discipline' young children, which really constitutes child abuse of sorts in that it may leave deep scars on the young victims' psyche. That this should be happening in a religious school is a sad commentary on the credentials of the maulvis passing for teachers in many of our madressahs.

5. INSIDE A RELIGIOUS EDUCATION INSTITUTION

Overview
The Environment of the Religious School
Awareness & Prevalence of CSA
The Victims Choice: Silence or Disclosure
Recommendations


The State shall protect the child from all forms of maltreatment by parents or others responsible for the care of the child and establish appropriate social programs for the prevention of abuse and the treatment of victims.
CRC, Article 19

Overview
The Focus Group Discussion conducted with a group of religious schoolteachers, reveals the dynamics at play in the restricted and restrained environment, typical of traditional religious schools, in a large mosque cum residential Madrassah in Lahore. These teachers recognize physical abuse as an important part of learning. Since the respondents are also ex-students of the Madrassah they are able to provide an extremely comprehensive picture of the Madrassahs' internal environment.

Essentially there are two distinct types of religious schools. There are Madrassah, usually attached with mosques, where the Quran is memorized. This is termed as hifz, and one who successfully memorizes the Holy Book is called a hafiz. Islamic teaching is not imparted to such students and normally a vast majority of them is very young. Many children start hifz even before they are ten years old. In other institutions, a six to eight year old Dars-e-Nizami course is taught. This includes Arabic grammar, hadith, Islamic jurisprudence and various other subjects of religious teaching. Different sects have varying curricula and textbooks and each has distinct titles for its religious teaching course, Dars-e-Nizami being one of them, and the most common. Students pursuing such a course have usually done their matriculation and join the program after the age of 15. The FGD participants asserted that CSA was more common in Madrassahs where young students go for hifz.

The Environment of the Religious School
Participants of the FGD claimed that children were not allowed to socialize and they had no access to recreational facilities in the Madrassah. They memorized the Quran all day and the rest of the time was spent working. Managing the personal chores of the teacher was a very important part of their studies. "It is not fair to make a child work like this," commented the teachers, "Respect for the teacher is okay but slavery is not on." Children are taught no life skills as part of their training and total dependency on the teacher is encouraged and ensured thus making them vulnerable to abuse. Supervisors have unquestionable authority and at their complaint children can be beaten mercilessly. There is a lot of physical abuse therefore children try and curry favor with their supervisors or senior students and teachers and so the stage is set for exploitation and manipulation.

A common ploy used to involve children in CSA is the idiom that "Knowledge can only be gained by respecting the teacher and attending to his needs". The teachers believe that when these kids grow up, they repeat the abuse-exploitation patterns because it feels like such a normal way of being to them. Teachers say that children are sometimes chained and parents often insist on this when the institution head complains to them about the child's indiscipline. One of the participants himself had gone through this humiliating and torturous experience. There is a belief in the system that children cannot learn without being physically beaten and tortured.

Life of a Student
Young boys have to do a lot of chores like washing clothes, and working at the teachers' house. Most of the time children are given work that is unsuitable for their age. They are forced to work as if it were a part of their studies. Teaching a child to respect his teacher, saying Salaam to him, bringing him food are all right but making him a virtual slave is unfair. There is no time for children to play or relax. In such a restrictive environment, children are vulnerable to the advances of older students who offer them sweetmeats, eatables, and visits to video shops. Children must be provided at least TV facilities in religious schools. If this is not done, naturally they will go out more often for recreation. Video shops are common places where boys are fondled and senior students make sexual advances on them. We know that sometimes, older students stand behind younger children in the video shops and rub against them.
FGD: Religious School teachers, Lahore

Awareness & Prevalence of CSA
The teachers felt that the administration of the school was very much aware of the possibility of sexual abuse and were therefore vigilant about the same. Regular rounds are made at night to make sure that children are not indulging in any such activity. The respondents claim that information on sex is given to children however it is not stated what type of information is provided. At the same time the teachers feel that this information is given in fact to provoke and lure the child into sexual activities. The respondents also say that it is the younger boys (between 5-12 years old) that are abused as they can easily be manipulated and if children come in at an older age then it is difficult for this to happen. Only some teachers are involved in such activities, and as for prevalence of CSA, they estimate that 1 of 5 boys in religious institutions is abused. In many cases the boys are paid some money for the services they provide.

CSA Victims
Participants said that students, as young as 7-8 years were lured into sexual activities by senior students and teachers. "They are given information about sex in a certain way so as to lure them. They cannot comprehend the nature of these advances, so when they are called by senior students or teachers into their rooms, they go there out of respect. Only when they reach there, do they find out what is in store for them but by that time it is too late. By virtue of their position, the older students or supervisors take undue advantages one of which is the sexual abuse of younger children".

One participant said that many older students are known have to sexual relationships with young boys, and everybody knows that they "keep" boys. One of the boys complained of sexual abuse against a teacher but his parents refused to believe him and returned him to the religious school. He was given in charge of the same teacher who then repeatedly abused him. The boy is now under another teacher but he now talks profusely about sex with fellow students. He takes younger children to his room and some of his colleagues to video shops.
FGD: Religious School teachers, Lahore

The respondents do not believe that the management or the donors are aware of CSA happenings in the Madrassahs. The offenders, teachers and senior students, are normally 17 years or above. They emphatically state that there is no mutual consent to begin with. Different kinds of lures including bribe and escape from punishments or threat are used to ensnare the kids. The forms of abuse range from molestation to sodomy and often, senior students are suspended on charges of abuse but are usually re-instated on someone's recommendation or through a donation to the institution.

Offender-Victim Relationship Mostly offenders are aged 17 or above. They are older students who also work as supervisors or monitors of the younger children. Victims are between 5-12 years of age. There is rarely a case where both are of the same age group. The elders dominate younger children because of the power imbalance both physical and authority wise. Sex is definitely not with mutual consent, at least to start with. Married people may also be involved though very few married people are enrolled as senior students. Some married people may not go to the extent of actually performing the sexual act but they will stroke the body, the private parts of the child and kiss and fondle him. Everybody knows these people in our institution but no one dares to complain against them.
FGD: Religious School teachers, Lahore

The Victims Choice: Silence or Disclosure
The respondents feel that children don't usually disclose because they feel that no one will believe them. Another reason for keeping silent is that they fear the teachers' wrath and influence as the teacher is given unquestionable authority over students. However if the abuse is disclosed, the institution has to take certain steps against the offender ranging from warnings to suspension. As soon as the CSA incident is reported and becomes public information, the head of the institution is forced to take some disciplinary action to protect the reputation of the school. The repercussions of not taking appropriate action could include social pressure from the community and punitive action against the head by the management. Worse, it might result in donors' withdrawing support. The teachers disclosed that child victims who report CSA are also often reprimanded. The respondents said that some of the child victims complained of passing blood in the urine and/or of pain whilst urinating. Children are usually sent to quacks and they do not get to see a proper doctor. Children often tell the quacks that they have these problems due to eating hot and chilly food as no one wants to admit to their abuse.

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