Hyderabad :

Seventeen-year-old Sayyeda Salima Asra took up the mantle of increasing the literacy rate among Muslim girls in the country, which stood as low as 50 per cent and lower than the national female literacy rate of 54 per cent.

The Hyderabadi’s presentation and exposition on the ‘Indian Perspective of Muslim Minority Girls’ Education’ won her accolades from over 1,000 delegates from across the world. She spoke at the World Women’s Congress which was held at the University of Hyderabad between August 17 and 22.

Asra, a second year student of the Home Science College at Saifabad, was the youngest speaker among a galaxy of speakers drawn from the academia, women’s rights groups, industry, politics and other spheres of society.

Undeterred by the deafening silence, the 17-year-old Hyderabadi in her 12-minute talk, took the audience by surprise and received a standing ovation after her address.

Asra’s talk was far from dry statistics and abstract analysis of the problem and primarily focused on a first hand account of the issue. Her narration of the experience of visiting two Madarsas in the city reflected the issue in its crude form and brought to the fore the appalling conditions under which Muslim girls pursue their education.

According to Asra, it is not the principles of Islam which prevent girls to pursue education but personal thoughts of some leaders and preachers who manipulate texts leading to utter chaos.

“In his first revelation of Allah to prophet Mohammed, God said Islam and theory and practice always should promote knowledge. Seeking of knowledge is incumbent upon every Muslim. It never discourages women from obtaining knowledge,” she said.

Asra considers the Indiansation of Islam largely responsible for the low literacy rate among Muslim girls.

“Although Islam in its true sense never had any caste system, the increased intervention of extraneous forces brought the system into the community. This changed the attitude of people and only aggravated the issue,” the 17-year-old pointed out. Continuity in policy-making is important to tackle the problem, according to Asra. “There are many schemes to address the issue. The problem is that a political party, which comes to power after few years, wants to undo what its predecessor has done. This is hurting the cause of Muslim girls’ education,” the Hyderabadi concluded.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Express News Service / August 25th, 2014