Little girls and boys carrying the school bags also rush to the Masjids along with the believers but with twin objectives – Namaz and Tuition.
After Salah, children move to the Masjid’s basement in three different rooms, where they are taught Mathematics, English and Telugu by different tutors.
Usually one associates Masjids with learning of theological subjects – Arabic, Quran and Urdu. But at Masjid-e-Meraj, the things are different. They are now after-school Mohalla tuition centres.
It was initiated by The Quran Foundation (TQF), a non-profit organisation run by a team of professionals working in the field of information technology, education and healthcare.
Neighbourhood networks play a crucial role. Masjid management committees, tutors and students are drawn from within Masjids’ neighbourhood. The committee ensures regular attendance, quality tuition and timely discussions about performance of both students and tutors.
Syed Munawwar, TQF general secretary, says there are 2500 students studying in 50 Masjids across Telangana. Most of them are either students of government schools or low-cost private schools, popularly known as budget schools that have a mushroom growth in Hyderabad.
The idea, conceptualised in 2020 in consultation with Masjid management committees, is to have free tuition classes for the students who find it difficult to pay school fees and can’t afford private tuitions.
WhattsApp groups for parents and tutors are created. Information connecting to the students’ performance is shared with parents. Regular attendance is ensured by incentive prizes. Closer ties between tutors, students, parents and Masjid committees create a conducive atmosphere in neighbourhoods. Comprehension about core subjects has improved in the students.
TQF, headquartered in Hyderabad, is a registered non-profit organisation committed to fostering the educational, economic, social, and cultural advancement of marginalised and underprivileged communities.
TQF operates in collaboration with other NGOs, combining efforts and resources to implement programmes that resonate with core objectives. Through collective action, they strive to enhance livelihoods, nurture intellects, and catalyse positive transformation within society.
Educational development, economic development, social development, health and wellbeing are the core areas TQF works in.
source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Focus / by Radiance News Bureau / December 13th, 2024
In year 1945, he was conferred with the title of “Khan Bahadur” by British Viceroy
Hyderabad:
In the 1920s after his father’s demise, Khan Bahadur Abdul Karim Babukhan took over the construction business and in later years attained remarkable credentials for his contribution towards the infrastructure and industrial development in the growth of erstwhile “Hyderabad State” during the rule of 7th Asaf Jah, Nizam Of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur.
He established “Hyderabad Construction Company” in the early 1930s under which, many architectural and engineering wonders were constructed under the rule and order of Nizam of Hyderabad as listed under.
Arts College – Osmania University, Hyderabad.
Hyderabad House – Nizam’s Palace, Delhi.
Gandhi Bhavan – Hyderabad, was his private property, later gifted to the Congress party for its headquarters.
Soan Bridge – Across the River Godavari , Adilabad.
Kadam Dam – Adilabad.
Tungabhadra Dam – Substantial part of it, presently in Karnataka State.
Ramagundam Power Station – First phase, Karimnagar.
A file photo of the Arts College building, which is considered to be the face of Osmania University.
Hyderabad House [Twitter]
Industries attributed and promoted by him
Nizam Sugar Factory – Nizamabad (He held a large portion of shareholding in it).
Sir Silk Mills
Sirpur Paper Mill
Hyderabad Vanaspati
Hyderabad Vegetable Oil Mill
Singerini collieries , etc.
In the year 1930, he was conferred with the title of “Khan Sahib” by British Viceroy “Lord Irwin” on behalf of King George V of England.
In the year 1930, he was conferred with the title of “KHAN SAHIB” by British Viceroy “Lord Irwin” on behalf of KING GEORGE THE V of England.
In the year 1945, he was conferred with the title of “KHAN BAHADUR” by British Viceroy “Viscount Wavell” on behalf of KING GEORGE THE VI of England.
“Khan Bahadur” title holds a higher rank and position and had superseded the earlier one “Khan Sahib”. It’s very rare to confer two titles to the same person.
Both titles were conferred for his recognition towards CIvil/Public services.
He attained high regard and respect, and maintained close relationships with prominent dignitaries, nobles, members of royal families, politicians, and businessmen.
He was appointed as Honorary Special Magistrate, Secunderabad. He was appointed as a Member of the Governer’s Staff as Oregon’s Ambassador to Hyderabad.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News> Hyderabad / by Guest Contributor, posted by Sameer Khan / September 11th, 2022
Team Telangana comprising Syed Mohammed Hashmi and Husain Ahmed from Osmania Medical College won the final of National RBI90 Quiz conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The RBI, India’s central bank, was established on April 1, 1935. This year marks the 90th year of the Bank’s operations. A series of events are being held to commemorate this historic milestone. As part of the events a nationwide quiz was conducted for undergraduate students. The quiz was general in nature and open for participation by students pursuing bachelor’s degree courses across all streams.
In the prize distribution programme held here on December 6, the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das gave away the trophy, citation and the prize money Rs.10 lakhs to winner team.
In the first round countrywide online contest was conducted.
Students took MCQ format quiz in teams of two. Teams which qualified through the online contest participated in an in-person quiz for the state level round.
State level winners faced Zonal levels-five different zones. This was held in Chandigarh, Kochi, Guwahati, Indore and Bhuvneshwar.
The Zonal winners competed for the top prizes in the final contest.
source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Latest News / by Radiance News Bureau (headline edited) / December 11th, 2024
Diwali melas, Ramzan fasts and Christmas feasts went together at Hyderabad’s Nasr School. With her passing on August 16, a quixotic idea seems to have died too.
Courtesy Nasr School/Facebook
Once a week around midday, Maulvi Sah’b would come in through the gates of our school in Hyderabad and class would divide briskly into two and troop off to different parts of the building. Those who were Muslim would be at religious instruction classes with him for the next half hour while the others trudged through moral science lessons. Something similar happened during language classes. We would hear a singsong chorus of “A-salaam-aleikum, Aunty”, from the Urdu classroom as we sat at our Sanskrit or Telugu lessons.
Through my nomadic childhood, I’ve been at many schools. None exemplified the idea of secular India as intensely as this Muslim school in Hyderabad. Begum Anees Khan, who made it so, died in Hyderabad on August 16. Her passing feels symbolic, as if it signifies the death of a quixotic idea.
Anees Khan was not given to seeking the limelight or making speeches. She never spelled out her secularism. It was instinctive: instead of words, there was action. Students of different faiths did their namaz or prayers separately, everything else together. Religion was not denied, but it was shown its rightful place.
When we were at Nasr School, we took all of it for granted, never suspecting goals or visions or manifestoes. It seemed natural for us that school should have both namaz and Diwali melas, that our classmates would fast during Ramzan and feast at Christmas. Maybe this is the reason for my rage and incomprehension when people around me casually describe neighbourhoods and towns as having “too many Muslims” in the way people might say “too many mosquitoes”.
It was not an easy act to pull off in the Hyderabad of the 1980s. Communal riots began on the flimsiest of pretexts and fear would ripple through the school. I remember panic-stricken phone calls to car-owning parents, who arrived and carried away groups of girls to drop them home before the riot came too close. The next day, we would return to school as if nothing had happened.
The school was identifiably Muslim: there was a signboard over the main gate with the name of the school, which means “Victory” in Arabic, inscribed below with a line in Arabic from the Koran, that means, “With God’s help victory is near.” Though murderous vigilantes didn’t roam the streets then, as they do now in certain parts of India, it was still a city divided down religious lines. Creating a school like Nasr was an act of wild courage and imagination.
Begum Anees Khan was born into the Muslim aristocracy of Hyderabad, and was an outlier who broke away from the feudal indolence that, according to an insider, characterised this world. Running a business was unheard of, the genteel lived off inheritances. It was in this milieu that Anees Khan began Nasr in 1965 as a small school in her garden. It became a family enterprise where gradually her sister, her husband, her two daughters and her son became involved. (There are now four branches, including a charitable school.)
Courtesy Nasr School/Facebook
My classmate Saira Ali Khan, whose older sister Fauzia was in that first lot of students along with Anees Khan’s youngest daughter, says there were few other English-medium options for girls then. Most schools were convents where Muslims didn’t want to send their children. Because Anees Khan was one of their own, conservative Muslims felt safe enough to send their daughters to Nasr School even though it was not a religious institution, nor was it exclusively for Muslims. In an act of daring, Anees Khan made it co-educational, but perhaps this was the one dream she had to sacrifice. By my time it was all-girls, though some of the teachers were men.
When I joined it in the 1980s, Anees Khan’s own home stood to the right of the school building. This was an old white mansion with an inner courtyard behind the raised entrance, and a playground in front of it. Lines of casuarina trees stood like sentries along the playground, and at the gate was a shack for us to buy deliciacies such as churan and sweets.
Mrs Khan presided over this little empire with the elegance and style that the British queen with her dumpy handbag and hat could only have aspired to. Elahé Hiptoola, a classmate of mine (producer of films such as Hyderabad Blues, Dhanak and Modern Love Hyderabad), has a vivid memory of Mrs Khan’s chiffon saris, her perfume, the remarkable way she exuded authority without ever raising her voice. I remember her telling us to give time and thought to our written signature – it had to make a statement, it was not merely the writing of your name. I wonder now if these were ways in which she had to assert her own identity, with calm firmness, within her deeply conservative world.
Reconciling differences in the school must have taken a great deal of effort for Anees Khan. A few of my classmates arrived in burqas, which they swiftly shed to reveal our standard-issue olive-green tunics or the white sports uniform. There were great disparities in income levels – many students were from landed, feudal families, while others came from humbler backgrounds. There was much swapping at lunch between tiffin-boxes containing venison, dry fruits, and salan, and those with parathas or idlis.
To make sure everyone could afford the school, fees were kept absurdly low, exercise books and stationery were free. Textbooks were handed down from one class to the next until they fell apart from doodles and grease. Even those who could afford new books had to have used ones. Each of us had a desk with a lock and key and we had to leave our books at school, carrying home only the ones we needed.
I now marvel at the imaginative ways by which Mrs Khan taught us to be spirited and daring, to look after our possessions, start small businesses, care for animals, and most of all, enjoy life. During the cool months, classes were cut in half and you could do what you pleased – provided you actually did something, such as painting or gardening or acting.
She made us start a plant nursery, look after animals such as rabbits and geese, collect money and cook food to sell during the Diwali melas. The teachers were given a free hand and some, like Chandra Dorai, our brilliant English teacher, spent whole afternoons making us write stories instead of attending to our grammar books or set texts.
Long before words like creativity and can-do became common currency, Anees Khan had made them a way of being. “It was a girls’ school,” said Elahé Hiptoola, “but she did not keep us secluded or confined. We were sent off to dance at the Asian Games. There was a school trip to Kashmir. She emphasised creativity and originality. She was far ahead of her time.” Very little discipline was enforced, though Hiptoola remembers being summoned to the principal’s room on occasion, and standing outside the thick green curtain at the door of her office, heart thumping, wondering what she had done.
My own memory of this ordeal has crept into my novel, The Earthspinner, which has a character based on Anees Khan. In the book she is called Tasneem Khan, and she has summoned a young student to her room. After their conversation, “she dismissed me with a wearily elegant motion which was both a wave and a gesture towards the door… Her green-blue eyes, usually watchful and impersonal, seemed amused, and maybe she was even smiling a little as she returned her gaze to the open file in front of her.”
What mattered to Begum Anees Khan was humanity, not religion. The school she created was in miniature the secular country that was dreamed up in 1947. With her death, she no longer has to suffer witnessing the destruction of that ideal.
With inputs from Elahé Hiptoola and Saira Ali Khan.
Anuradha Roy is a writer.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Idea of India / by Anuradha Roy / August 20th, 2023
The philanthropist transformed neglected Wakf properties into exemplary educational institutions
Hyderabad :
Khaja Mohammed Arifuddin, celebrated academician, dynamic educationist and one of the founding members of the 1969 Telangana agitation movement, popularly known as KM Arifuddin, breathed his last on Monday. He was 77.
Arifuddin is irrefutably regarded as one of the most powerful educationists in the history of Hyderabad who helped thousands of families fight darkness by illuminating their minds and homes with education, in the process pioneering ‘modern and Islamic education’, a concept that has now promoted by many institutions largely for commercial merits.
The institutions he founded continue to benefit scores of students, including those from society’s weaker sections at different educational strata.
An advocate by profession in his early career, he employed his legal acumen to prevent the misuse and illegal occupancy of Wakf properties in Hyderabad. As a young activist, Arifuddin raised slogans, protested against exploitation and encroachment of Wakf lands, and pioneered an educational movement nearly 40 years ago that continues its momentum in the form of the Madina Group of Institutions and Global Group of Institutions, where thousands of Muslim and even non-Muslim students had the privilege to access modern education in an institution built on Muslim values and Islamic teachings.
He successfully led the movement in freeing the Wakf properties from illegal occupancy in 1977, and was instrumental in transforming them into educational centres with academic and disciplinary standards unprecedented for any minority institution of the time.
By fighting for winning the case and transforming the Wakf land into an educational centre, he set a prime example on how Wakf properties can be rightly used for the benefit of the community. In his own words, social success can be achieved by “conventional reimbursement of the Waqf properties and education”.
On August 15, 1982, former Governor of Orissa Padmabhushan Mir Akbar Ali Khan laid the foundation stone of the Madina Public School. He set up Madina Public School under the aegis of Madina Education and Welfare Society (MEWS), followed by Madina Degree College for Girls in 1983. Promoting education of girls, and making them self-reliant was his dream. In 1984, Prince Muffakham Jah Bahadur inaugurated the new block of Madina Public School.
His uncompromising academic standards and meticulous discipline helped his altruistic yet relentless educational pursuits in establishing 14 educational institutions from K.G. to P.G., including Madina Public Schools, Global College of Pharmacy, Global College of Business Management, and Global College of Engineering and Technology.
These educational power houses over the years have become the pride of the community under his tenure as the Secretary of Madina Group of Institutions. Several notable leaders of national repute, including former Prime Minister of India Chandrashekhar, former President of India Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, Farooq Abdullah, Indian’s Union Law Minister Ram Jethmalani were among several others who visited the Madina Public School in the past and appreciated its standards of education.
His patriotic fervour reflected in the several initiatives he pioneered with nationalist sentiment. He conceptualised and granted monthly pensions for freedom fighters of Hyderabad, instituted an educational scholarship of Rs 1 lakh in the name of his deceased son K.M. Razi (IRS) Memorial scholarship for helping aspiring civil service aspirants qualifying the preliminary exams. The Madina IAS Hostel was built for this purpose.
MEWS, as part of its philanthropic initiatives, also provides pensions to widows, funds Muslim and non-Muslim welfare organisations.
In 1989, he constituted the Madina Gold Medal to recognise the talents and achievements of outstanding students at regional and state levels. The first medal was awarded to Dr Ausaf Sayeed in 1989, who is currently the Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The tradition still continues even after more than 30 years.
He was the co-founder and Editor of Awam, an Urdu daily in the late 90s. His weekly column titled Zara Ghaur Kijiye published in Urdu newspapers in Telangana inculcated social activism among the masses by throwing light on the pressing social and economic issues.
Arifuddin, born to Mohammed Qamaruddin in August of 1944, hopped different government Urdu medium schools to complete his schooling, and post-graduated in Law from the Osmania University in 1974. He was the first Muslim graduate to be elected as the Vice President of Students Union of the Osmania University, and was one of the founding members of the Telangana Separation movement in 1969, for which he served a brief time in jail.
Even until a few weeks before his demise, he kept discussing empowering Muslims and the weaker sections with education, knowledge and by securing berths in Indian Civil Services. Arifuddin is survived by two sons K.M. Fasihuddin, K.M. Minhajuddin and daughter Maria Tabassum who must shoulder the burden of great responsibility Arifuddin left behind in his legacy, while living the life of an ascetic despite all the talents and many intellectual virtues.
Earlier, his body was kept at the Madina Public School he founded in Himayathnagar to allow the public to pay homage. In the evening, Arifuddin’s funeral prayers were offered at the Royal Mosque of Pubic Gardens where a large number of intellectuals, academicians, heads of different educational institutions, former lawmakers, civil servants, alumni of the institution and senior community members were present. He was laid to rest at the Osman Nagar graveyard. The great scholar’s departure is an irreparable loss to the Hyderabadi and the Indian education community.
source: http://www.clarionindia.com / Clarion India / Home> India> Politics / by Syed Khaled Shahbaaz, Clarion India / December 07th, 2020
When we talk about Baseball, India is not the country one would think about, but the game is not only catching up in the country, but India also has an internationally recognised umpire.
Meet Shaheen Begum, India’s first internationally recognised baseball umpire.
source: http://www.thecognate.com / The Cognate / Home> Sports / by Shaik Zakeer Hussain / March 20th, 2020
She was elected in 2020 GHMC corporator elections. Shaheen Begum was suffering from health issues and was hospitalized
Hyderabad:
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) corporator from the Erragadda Division Shaheen Begum passed away due to a prolonged illness on Tuesday.
She was elected in 2020 in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections. Shaheen Begum was suffering from health issues and was hospitalized, said local media reports.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News / by Tamreen Sultana / June 04th, 2024
Over the past few years, some organisations have a part of their savings during the holy month set aside for charity, to free prisoners who cannot afford bail, thereby helping them and their families.
Movement for Peace and Justice secretary Shaik Kasim Sahah with Khammam district jail authorities. Photo: Special Arrangement
It is in the month of Ramzan that most Muslims busy themselves in calculating zakaat, a prominent manifestation of charity in Islam. Usually given to those in abject poverty, over the past few years, zakaat funds, calculated at 2.5% of an individual’s annual savings, are being used to free inmates of jails who have served their prison sentences but have no support systems to pay fines associated with their convictions.
Moin Pasha, an octogenarian, says, “It was two years ago that I got to know of an organisation that uses zakaat money to pay those who cannot afford bail. Some of these prisoners are sole breadwinners and everything depends on them,” she says, adding that the consequences of imprisonment for the person’s wife and children are often disastrous.
The Movement for Peace and Justice (MPJ), a non-profit, is one such organisation that has been gathering zakaat from donors and channelling these funds to secure prisoner release. “Since last year we have paid 130 fines that are associated with prison sentences. Additionally, we have paid bail money for 35 prisoners and have got them all released,” Ahmed Hameeduddin Shakeel, finance secretary, MPJ, says.
The MPJ, an affiliate of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a socio-religious organisation, after due diligence, identifies prisoners who are first-time offenders involved in small crimes, and who have no family or friends to pay bail or fines. “We have been active since 2007-08 and have seen cases in which family members have no idea of the whereabouts of the prison inmate. It is only much later, maybe after weeks or months, that they get to know that they were in jail. The situation is so bad that families cannot even afford to pay ₹500. The aim and object of our organisation is to help everyone. Of our varied activities, we also work as facilitators for prisoner release,” he says.
Like Ms. Pasha, Ghazala Ahmed (name changed upon request), an entrepreneur, too has been earmarking a part of her zakaat funds for this cause. She says that Islam prescribes the freeing of prisoners within the legal system, and it is considered an important act. “Usually, people give zakaat to madrasas and those in need, especially poor relatives. But the goodness here is two-fold: a religious injunction is being fulfilled, and we help a family in dire need. Some organisations have networks and an understanding of how prisoner releases are done,” she says.
The All India Milli Council, another socio-religious group, has secured the release of 68 inmates lodged in prisons in and around Hyderabad, since last year, according to its office-bearer Mufti Omar Abedeen Qasmi Madani. Explaining the issue from an Islamic jurisprudential perspective, he says, “Before slavery came to an end, zakaat money was used to free slaves. The expression used to describe this in the scriptures was to “free necks of slaves”, an act that was greatly encouraged. Fines paid to secure releases were between ₹500 and ₹5,000. “This may seem like a small amount, but for the poor, they are unfortunately unaffordable,” he says.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> India> Telangana / by Syed Mohammed / March 31st, 2024
Yousuf Tekri is a bungalow built by Syed Yousufuddin Mohammed who was a Subedar during Nizam rule. This building was a farm house built during 1850’s which later served as a residence for his progeny.
Tolichowki:
This building is now in the list of heritage structures in Hyderabad and is being restored by the hereditary family Syed Mohammed Aliuddin grandson of Yousufuddin, and his great grandsons Syed Mohammed Najmuddin and Syed Mohammed Mawaheduddin are financing and restoring the building independently.
This building is beautifully constructed uphill, which gives a scenic view of the city which was all farm and isolated landscape, which is now a concrete jungle. Syed Aliuddin said “Yousufuddin was born in the city of Hyderabad and was appointed as an officer in the revenue services working for Asaf Jah VI, Mahbub Ali Khan. Yousufuddin was later entitled as a Subedar for Gulbarga District”.
The bungalow was built by Yousufuddin as a farmhouse as it was away from city back in those days, surrounding the area of about 290 acres. During land acquisition most of it was acquired by Indian Army and colonies were build, Yousuf Tekri colony is where our family lives. Now we are renovating the structure with plaster and cement, because preparation of lime takes much effort and time.
Syed Mohammed Najmuddin said “We are restoring the building independently there as is no financial aid from the government. In spite of being in the list of the heritage structure, government is taking no initiative”.
source: http://www.thehansindia.com / The Hans India / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad / by Mayank Tiwari / Abhyudaya Ya Karamchetu / March 05th, 2015
Hyderabad, TELANGANA / SAUDI ARABIA / California, U.S.A :
Hyderabad:
Syed Burhan Badshah Quadri alias Salik, a well-known media person in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, lost a five-year long and painful battle with cancer in Santa Clara, California, the USA, on Thursday (December 22).
Burhan, as he was known among most of his friends, came from a traditional and elite family of Hyderabad. He was 74 years old.
His father Syed Kaleemullah Qadri was the last Subedar of Hyderabad of the Nizam era. After the Police Action of 1948 he was arrested and released after some time. After he was reinstated he worked as head of several departments before his superannuation.
Burhan is survived by his wife Shahnaz and four children–two daughters and two sons.
Burhan after completing his bachelor’s degree with the Nizam College had joined Nizams Sugar Factor as a management trainee and moved over to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia somewhere in the mid-seventies.
Within few years of him arriving in the Kingdom, he became one of the topnotch executives from India. He worked with several companies and finally began his own advertising agency Zee Ads which counted many major companies among its clients. He was one of the few Indian executives in the Kingdom at that time who owned a BMW and lived comfortable, if not luxurious, life. The company had to be closed down owing to some managerial issues. From there started the next phase Burhan’s life.
Among a host of his close friends who are deeply bereaving his loss are Mohammad Majid Ali, Nadir Yar Khan, Zahyr Siddiqi and Syed Inamur Rahman Ghayur.
Burhan a photographer by passion took keen interest in the political developments taking place in India and expressed his opinion without any hesitation. His talk which he considered free and frank was painful for many of his friends. Among his favourite personalities was Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of Hyderabad. He would never keep quiet if he heard any negative comment about the Nizam. In his eyes the Nizam was a symbol of tolerance, development and Hindu-Muslim unity.
It is not yet known when and where he would laid to rest.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Obituaries / by Mir Ayoob Ali Khan / December 23rd, 2022
