The Schools’ Development and the Educational Project’s Aspirations
Sami Kulayb: Whoever visits Shaykha Maryam’s schools and institutes Ibrahim Ñas knows where this money is going. But some of those who want to keep Islam in Senegal and Africa within narrow bounds say that some of the money has been squandered in the wrong places. How does Sheikha Maryam’s son respond to this?
Sheikh Omar, son Sheikha Maryam: Everything goes back to its history. That is, because we have received from our ancestors, who were preachers and teachers of the Qurᵓān and Arabic, so from her grandfather and her grandfather’s grandfather. So if this has been their family occupation for more than two centuries, it is not possible for us to say that we entered into this occupation to earn something. Moreover, if you follow the development of my mother’s work, she was a woman in her house, that is (foreign words), that is, in her house with her husband. And you have seen, as God willed, all she has accomplished, which, you know, if there had not been faith . . .
Sami Kulayb: She was a homemaker.
Sheikh Omar: Just a housewife, along with memorizing the Qurᵓān, and she believed that there was a calling because her father had told her, told her through his poetry: “Oh daughters, compete to attain the greatest heights, but not in bodily things.” So they [daughters] must compete with sons in attaining the highest things, that is, the highest station of knowledge and status, and in piety in sainthood, but not just in showing off in worldly matters.
Sami Kulayb: Sheikha Maryam Ibrahim Ñas has her Tidjani Sufi family’s secrets of worship, which they do not reveal to anyone. They limit themselves to saying that they are committed to teaching the Holy Qurᵓān and its verses. And the important thing is that she has succeeded in enabling seven-year-old children to memorize the Qurᵓān, and she has taken them to the Gulf, where she met with Shaykha Fatima, the widow of Shaykh Zāyid and toured their schools in the Gulf, and they were met with great acclaim.
Thus, Sheikha Maryam Ibrahim Ñas writes characters on an old wooden board in the fashion of the schools of her grandparents and our grandparents and then writes prayers through her students’ hands.
Maryam Ibrahim Ñas: I’ll tell you a secret. You asked me about the secret of the Qurᵓān.
Sami Kulayb: She did not want to explain this in front of everyone, but she later explained to me that through writing a secret of the Tijani Sufi Order by hand, teaching the Holy Qurᵓān to those children becomes easier because it is closer to the spirit and to faith, not merely the intellect. Her institutes, which collected donations through the sweat of their brow, and through her and her family’s knowledge of Arabic, they have become like a balm for the cultural, educational, and religious injuries in Africa, as her son, Shaykh Tijani Omar, tells us:
Sheikh Omar: So, as I told you at the outset, I think yesterday, we found an opportunity to visit my mother’s school, which is my mother’s family house that she lived in for 35 years exercising the profession of teaching to memorize the Qurᵓān, until the time when God, that is, she received help from Algeria and bought this house, which is the second house, in 1989. Then things developed to the point where she bought a third house, which is the second center also for memorizing the Qurᵓān. Yet the work, that is, witnessed a qualitative leap in 1994, when my mother was able to build the first educational institute, Sultan bn Abd al-Aziz, through help from the Sultan. And here I should mention that President Abdu Diouf had granted to the Shaykha from 1982 a piece of land measuring 35,000 square meters. The teacher graduated hundreds of students who had memorized the Qurᵓān, since she started practicing this profession in 1952, that is, because the practice of teaching to memorize the Qurᵓān has never stopped. As you have noticed there three centers of memorizing the Qurᵓān, but each is different as the Shaykh established a pilot school that combines formal [modern] education with Islamic education and Qurᵓānic education, which began in 1994, and of course this school of course is based on the official program in Senegal, but it adds Arabic and Islamic education. The number of students has now reached 1500, in the formal school, that is, recognized by the government, from kindergarten to the last year of secondary. She even has a project to build a university and an integrated project, that is, she has been planning it for 20 years but has only carried out a part of it, because, as I told you, Shaykh Zāyid had pledged a million dollars in 1987 to adopt the project. At that time, the projects’ costs were estimated at four million dollars. Unfortunately, none of it has been realized, although we have begun to realize bits and pieces. Also, the Sultan Nāyif helped in 1992 and we were able to open the first kindergarten, then we began the middle and high schools. There is a boarding school, a conference center, a mosque, dormitory for girls and for teachers—an integrated project that we will show you, and we look forward to accomplishing it.
Sami Kulayb: Shaykha Maryam’s first project existed with help from the former Senegalese President, Abdou Diouf, who appears to have been impressed by her great ability to teach children the Holy Qurᵓān. He saw a child like this child whom Shaykha Maryam held in her arms and named Ahmad Yāsin, after the late leader and founder of Hamas, Shaykh Ahmad Yāsin. And Islam here is related to the love of the Ñas family, Shaykh Maryam, and her family for Palestine.
Sheikh Omar: Because we have solidarity with Palestine since our youth, since it was in, I think, the ‘60s, that there was a delegation from Palestine that came, that is, refugees, and lived in our house for years, that is, in the Shaykha’s house, in the first family house, and they also went to her father’s house. And our grandfather is the one who raised us to love Palestine, and he fought for Palestine and for Islam and for the Arabs. His whole life was for that, and we, it became something natural for us. And Ahmad Yasin was born on the occasion of, on the day that Ahmad Yasin, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin of Hamas was murdered. So the Shaykha decided to give him this name.
Sami Kulayb: The child Ahmed Yassin does not know his family, and he believes—as most of those here at this Qurᵓānic school believe—that they are sons of Shaykha Maryam Ibrahim Ñas, who passes her day watching over them and educating them in the principles of Qurᵓān and the foundations of worship. Shaykha Maryam is attached to the child Ahmad Yasin, raising him, feeding him, and keeping him at her side until he becomes a young man capable of facing life. I was thinking of the patience of this great and noble eighty-something woman, who still carries her delapidated wooden tablet with great faith out of concern for her orphans and students.
Maryam Ibrahim Ñas: I recite the Qurᵓān in its entirety every day with the children.
Sami Kulayb: Every day?
Maryam Ibrahim Ñas: Every day they come to me at four o’clock, we give them a lesson, then they read and memorize their lesson. Then, after the morning prayer [around 6:00] we immediately begin the complete Qurᵓānic recitation. We finish it, then I pray to God for myself and the children and for Senegal and the whole world.
Sami Kulayb: Many who grew up in in the atmosphere of Shaykha Maryam Ibrahim Ñas in Senegal and grew up in her living quarters return to her, and some of them have become important officials and government ministers, and they return to bear some of her burden. Such is the case of the young African man who goes by the name of Muhammed III.
Muhammad III, teacher at Sheikha Maryam’s school: I studied the Koran with Sheikha Maryam since I was four years old, and I memorized it and continued my studies abroad, thank God. Now I’m back with her and I serve her and help her to educate the children, my brothers, praise God. Many people from Ghana, many, and Nigeria, and from Togo and from all the African countries are here, praise God, and we live at her expense and with her help and her cooperation, God willing, praise God, we praise God and thank him, and we wish for her to have long life and for God to preserve her and to realize all her projects, for all of them to see the light of day, God willing, with almighty God’s will.
Sheikh Omar: The Shaykha’s school is the only model in which children find Islamic education and Arabic language education beside French instruction. Because it is exemplary, there is a great demand for admission to this Institute, but because of our limited capabilities we are not able to admit every applicant. The people quoted, whether those of the church or secularists, the enemies of Islam of various colors, all gang up to fight and hinder us. As you have seen, the Sheikha is not dragged along behind the world. Because you have seen that, despite her ability to exploit children, you have seen that her sons and daughters are not in the house, all of them are employed and are self-reliant. She just takes the children of people.
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