Obscurantists against schools: ban on singing, taboo on Russian literature and ''the Devil's jurisprudence''
How Islamic bigots ''fight'' against school programme
While some parents argue about teaching national languages at schools, others raise a question radically: ''Should our kids attend such establishments, in general?'' Some religious people are indignant about secular schools with accompanying elements. In her today's op-ed column, Muslim journalist and our columnist Aisha-Galina Babich puts examples of at times absurd decisions of fanatically religious adults about the school educational system.
Debates on the content of secondary education traditionally renew when autumn begins. Parental communities unite to defend different ideas and views: they fight for a quality inclusion or purchase of sofas for a group that has an extended day.
Meanwhile, some Muslim parents prove the right of girls to wear hijab at school, others are indignant at the system: Darwin's theory and pictures in books, music, art, literature, PE and boys and girls who study together.
''Kufr schools''
A secular character of education fixed in the Constitution is the main complaint of Muslim obscurantists. Like, at our schools, kids are not taught Islam and aren't explained that God created a human. Instead, they offer pseudoscientific life history theories and tell how organisms reproduce without Most High's will.
Parents boast that they tear out book pages where Darwin's theory is described. Others require their kid to answer according to the Islam religious doctrine at school despite texts from books by receiving a reprimand and bad marks. ''He is Muslim, let him get used'' – to suffering, fighting and hating.
''It is Kufr (unbelieving) schools. Kids stand in front of teachers praising them. Nobody can be praised but Allah!'' a virtual fighter explains the ''ban'' on going to school by Muslims children. Non-Muslim teachers are not able to become a moral guide for a religious kid, what should they be respected for?
Even the inclusion of the subject Basics of Religious Cultures and Secular Ethics doesn't solve the problem: kids need to understand that ''only Islam is the true religion'' and one can't study other religions, otherwise people can ''be confused''. Arguments about all-round development irritate: ''There were not any schools when Prophet lived, peace be upon him, and it was fine!''
Not to see, not to hear
It is rubbish to tear out pages from books. To deprive kids of a possibility to create art, analyse, think is the main message of the righteous men who ''close the door to a sin''.
Muslims who jealously defend their opinion that musical instruments and singing are forbidden boil over: ''Why should a kid know who Tchaikovsky and Mozart are? It won't be necessary on Judgement Day!'' At the same time, they share ideas: ''My daughter has to go to music lessons but she doesn't sing herself and just closes her ears with her hands when music sounds not to listen to this flute of the Devil!''
Parents forbid kids from featuring animals and people in art lessons, require to draw headless creatures and paint their faces. Even landscape painting and still life are a doubtful thing. Did Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, tell about still life?
Even if the strictest followers of Islam recognise the allowance of ornament and calligraphy, a young Muslim can't create art and deal with ''unnecessary entertainment'' because he hasn't learnt Quran by heart yet.
Useless words
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy turn literature lessons into polytheism and lascivious behaviour by ''praising sins'' and with ''invented stories''. What benefit will Kufr writers and followers of Jahiliyyah give to a true Muslim? Reading any books except religious are a useless waste of time.
Opponents of ''reading at leisure time'' see a danger of Russian folk tales with mythic characters, evil spirits – everything that is censored in Islam to a Muslim kid's belief. Compositions about Christian festivities are inappropriate, what is Gogol's Christmas Eve?
Poetry, especially lyric poetry where poets praise love than corrupt young souls and lead to adultery and other nasty things is also a ''haram''. Even if some of the Muslims did write about love for God like famous Al-Busiri, Füzuli or Navoiy, they were Sufis, it means we need to stay clear from them.
As for the language's beauty, vocabulary and literacy, these are not the ''qualities'' a religious person needs. ''Our Prophet was illiterate,'' illiterate fathers and mothers repeat by giving hint about their selectness and closeness to Sunna. Why does a schoolgirl need the Maths, Physics, Biology? A Muslim girl is a wife and mother, not a professor. ''Is she mature?'' Marry.
Mixed in a pile
Of course, religion, in itself, can be a ''barrier'' between a person and society, between a kid and education, between a kid's curiosity and knowledge, in itself. Not Islam impedes parents from developing the analytical mind, outlook and aesthetic sensitivity in a kid but an obsession with ''scientists' fatwas'' on the Internet that were badly translated.
It is time parents thought about sending their kid to a Muslim school. The paradox is that even those few Muslim schools in Russia what manage to survive in the market of educational services with difficulty don't correspond to ideals of Islam in these people's mind.
Firstly, here boys study together with girls, like it is a grave breach of the ban on ''mixture of genders'': women and girls should sit behind the curtain, they have a separate entrance and exit, they's be better having a separate floor or a building without windows.
Secondly, female teachers ''teach'' boys even if they wear hijab – they are future men, doesn't it put women ''above'' men and breach the Quranic principle where everything is on the contrary, to be honest? And the example of Prophet's wife Aisha who taught also men religion doesn't work here, it was a long time ago.
Finally, thirdly, these establishments have a ''doubtful belief''. As far as we know, it is not too complicated to define an establishment's belief: the school opened in the ''Kafr'' country, considering ''Taghut laws'', not Sharia – you certainly should not expect anything beneficial from it.
Alternative requires victims
One can close the school and send kids to study religious sciences because a homeschooling model already works in Russia. And here it is easy to agree on final exams in uncomfortable subjects on quite comfortable conditions.
Indeed, when a school is not able to give a kid as much as very parents are able to give, the choice of homeschooling is justified and appropriate. Who else, if not angry and indignant Muslims, should develop this alternative educational system?
But teaching kids at home is an unbearable burden. It will be necessary to choose a separate programme for a kid, look for teachers, develop independence, curiosity and enthusiasm, the concept of competitiveness. To achieve it, one needs to distinguish not only ''haram'' and ''halal''.
It is impossible to teach a kid the Arabic language without speaking the Arabic language. It won't be possible to give him Quran and a couple of books about supporters and go on the Internet to ''fight for the truth''. So part of Muslim schoolchildren will continue going to ''Kufr hotbeds'' and ''Taghut schools'' while their parents will damn teachers, the system and the country.
Another part runs a risk of remaining without knowledge. Moreover, if any breakthrough that requires academic skills is not planned after school and reasonable arguments about obtaining a profession are killed by useless metaphors. ''Official medicine is a lie, one should treat according to Sunna.'' Jurisprudence comes from the Devil, Muslims recognise only Sharia.'' ''PR and ad are inventions of Kafirs''. Constructors, taxi drivers, athletes, managers are a pile of unnecessary professions in the ummah. Ummah needs to become ideal. Like in the 7 th century.