The Present State Of Almajirchi And Its Socio-Economic Implications On Society

By

Alhaji Abdurrahman N. Rafindadi

yunusarafindadi@yahoo.co.uk

Paper presented by Alhaji Abdurrahman N. Rafindadi at the Katsina State Economic Summit held on the 16th March, 2006 at Katsina   1.0 INTRODUCTION The word almajiri in Hausa comes from the Arabic al-Muhajirun - referring to the people who migrated from Makkah to Madinah in the footsteps of the Prophet Alaihis Salam. It was initially used to refer to the boys who travel away from home to study the Quran with a malami (teacher) that the boys’ parents considered trustworthy and pious enough to entrust them with the children. The word is however now used to refer to anybody who begs.

2.0 HISTORY AND EVOLUTION Throughout the history of Islamic civilization, people have always travelled in search of knowledge following the Prophetic injunction to “…..seek knowledge even (to) faraway China….” However, the almajiranchi or almajirchi system is unique to Daular Usmaniyyah founded by Sheikh Uthman Bn Fodio. Islam is a religion based strictly on knowledge. The most important pillar of Islam after the Shahadah is As-Salah which is only complete if one can recite the fatihah as a minimum.

The rest of the pillars also require knowledge. In fact the Shari’ah is only practicable in societies that are knowledgeable. Learning to read the Quran is Fard ain, and teaching that to children is a parental and societal responsibility. Since not all parents can carry out this task, some people (the malamai) are allowed to carry out this responsibility on behalf of the parents and society, and the parents and society are in turn expected to take care of them through fees, zakkah, sadaqah, waqf and baitul mal (treasury). Knowledge is a fundamental right of every child which the society must offer. It is the most important means of raising the social, economic and spiritual status of any person. The Daular Usmaniyyah recognized that lack of Malamai (especially in villages and rural areas) and poverty (which was more widespread in rural areas) must not be allowed to be an impediment to the attainment of education for any child. It is this recognition that gave birth to the traditional system of education.

Together with karatun zaure, the almajirchi system has been in practice in Northern Nigeria for hundreds of years and has spawned world class scholars in every field of Islamic knowledge (such as Shaykh Uthman bn Fodio, Shaykh Muhammad Bello bn Uthman, Shaykh Abdullahi bn Fodio, Shaykh Muhamad As-sabbagh, Shaykh Muhammad Al-Kashinawi etc). It did that at very minimal cost, requiring little infrastructure, and with emphasis on building “people” with piety ie. the malamai, around whom the whole system is centred, rather than physical structures, much like was obtained in the Madinah of the Rasul (SAW). One malami mutafannini could produce thousands of students and could influence large areas, a recent example being Mallam Na’iya of Zaria. The thing to note is that all students were taught in the same class irrespective of their level, every student proceeded at his own pace based on his abilities, and all this without requiring examinations. This is something that has not been achieved anywhere in the world, and this great legacy should be properly researched with a view to adopting it to bring down the cost of education and make education available to all.

Here is a synopsis of how it was practiced: Every child attends the makarantan allo of his unguwa, together with almajirai from outside the town. All children start with learning alphabets. The system allows all students to be in the same class (depending on their number and the size of the hall) whatever their level, and for each for each child to proceed at his own pace. Depending on the student’s aptitude, after saukar zuku or saukar sara, some leave school at this level (sun samu na sallah! ie they have learned enough to enable them carry out the ritual prayer ) to learn a trade or craft (usually that of their parents), some proceed to memorise the Quran (gardawa), and some proceed with karatun zaure to study various books in different areas such as fiqh, nahwu, hadith, tafseer, luggah, adab, etc. also usually with the students all in one class and with one malami, to become the next generation of malamai.

One could study for all his life, and could attend lessons at his convenience. One could also engage in any sana’a as a student. All that is required is a learned Mallam who is willing to devote his time to teach, the zaure or hall to carry out the darasi (lectures). No special buildings were required, no special exams were required, and one could attain the highest level of knowledge if one wanted, even if one was from a poor family.

Now for both types of schools ie. the makarantar allo and makarantar zaure, there are two types of students- those whose parents lived in the same town, and those who came from other towns, usually the poorer rural areas, where there was shortage of malamai. The students whose parents live in the town usually returned home, while the out-of-towners (the almajirai) were either fed by the malam (rare) or begged for food (ie. taken care of by the society) – leftover food that would usually have been thrown away anyway, and usually earned their upkeep by serving as house helps in homes during times when there are no lessons. The bigger students earned income through trading or crafts eg. yankan farce, dinkin hula, shoe shining, aikin riga etc. In those days there were no GRAs, the rich and the poor lived a symbiotic life in the same unguwa. The rich gave out their zakkah and sadaqa (charity) to their immediate neighbours, the talaka. Since their children attended the same makarantun allo and makarantun zaure as those of the poor, it means they also subsidized the education of the children of the poor through giving zakkah, sadaqa and fees to the malamai, and often times also provided free housing to the malamai and their almajirai. The poor in each unguwa could look up to the rich in their midst for help, building of wells and mosques, and generally felt they had a stake in the wealth of the rich, and their well being. The rich could in turn look up to the poor for their security! There were also two types of malamai - the itinerant malamai (usually teachers of the Quran who travel with or without almajirai) and the malamai that have settled in certain towns. Many children went through this system even if they did not go on to become malamai themselves. Many went on to become sarakai, masu sana’a, tajirai etc. But whatever they became, they never looked down on the system, they never looked down upon almajirai, and they always respected the malamai. And because they went to “school” with the poor, they were always accessible to them, whatever they became. In summary, the malamai took care of the education and spiritual development of children on behalf of the society and parents. The society and parents in turn took care of the malamai through fees, zakkah, sadaqah and the baitul mal. The society also took care of the almajirai through giving them leftover food, and offering them opportunities as house helps. This unique system did not exclude willing students even if they were poor, produced world class scholars in every field of Islamic knowledge, required little infrastructure and maintained social cohesion by promoting the interaction of the rich and the poor. This is a legacy that we must not throw away! 3.0 ALMAJIRCHI AND PRESENT STATE OF OUR SOCIETY The almajirchi system has basically collapsed due to many factors and changes in our society. The problems facing the system can not be divorced from the problems facing the society in general. They include high levels of poverty, irresponsible parents, irresponsible malamai, and an uncaring and irresponsible society and leadership. In major towns where the problems are most acute, the rich now generally live in GRAs, their children attend “islamiyyah” schools and not makarantun allo, and they don’t mix with the children of the poor. Even their mosques are elitist and the poor only have access to them when they visit their houses. And with the advent of Izala in 1979, most of the elites despise malaman allo and malaman zaure, and so even when they give out zakkah, which they rarely do, the malamai are not their priority. This breeds enmity between the rich and the poor. Irresponsible parents send their children to irresponsible malamai at too early an age such that the children don’t know how to take care of themselves and their hygiene. The parents don’t take care of the malamai who in turn don’t take proper care of the children. The rich don’t take their children to these schools and they give neither zakkah nor sadaka to the malamai. They on the contrary spend thousands of naira on the private schools of their children, but are unwilling to spend even a fraction of that on the religious and spiritual training of their children. So also the various levels of government. Last year for example, the Katsina State government spent about three billion naira on education, but not a single kobo was spent on the traditional system of education.

Since neither their parents, nor their malamai, nor the society take care of these children, -feeding, clothing and health wise- they spend most of their time roaming the streets and begging even when they should be studying at school. These children may even end up working in indecent areas in town, and become potential hard drug users. Because of increasing poverty, more and more of these children are roaming the streets of our towns, and they have little or nothing at stake in society. These children are a real economic and social time-bomb waiting to explode. For now, they beg the rich, who may or may not give them.

In the nearest future , they may take by force (as area boys, or ‘yan daba- in fact in some places it has started already!). They are willing tools in the hands of mischief makers, and have nothing to lose in the event of social and political unrest – in fact they have a lot to gain since they can then loot the shops (please read “Inyamurai shops”) and other properties of the rich. They represent a massive case of child abuse and a waste of the most important resource any nation can have – its human resource. And by mortgaging their future, we are mortgaging our society’s future, since even if we are able to educate our children, they will live with the massive resentment of this large mass of un-educated, uncared-for segment of society. Once these children leave their parents and taste city life, they may never return to the rural areas, and may never learn the tradecraft of their parents, and this may be lost for ever. WE IGNORE THEIR PROBLEM AT OUR PERIL! 4.0 SOME SUGGESTIONS ON THE WAY FORWARD 4.1 Poverty alleviation One of the most important contributory factors to the collapse of the traditional educational system is poverty especially in the rural areas. This drives parents to send underage children as almajirai. Once parents in rural and other areas can have a decent means of livelihood and thriving crafts, they will prefer to keep their children with them for longer periods, and send them to makarantun allo in their villages. There should be emphasis on supporting local and other crafts.

4.2 Minimum age There should be a minimum age below which no parent should send his child to almajiranchi, and social welfare should be empowered to return such children, and parents should be penalised.

4.3 A special body should be set up with structures at State, Local Government and District levels to oversee the overhauling and running of the traditional educational system. It must have acceptable representation from among the malamai, and not just ‘yan boko. If it is not acceptable to them, the whole scheme can not work! This body should be charged with registering all makarantu that have out-of-town almajirai, and the suitability and qualification or otherwise of the malami to run such a school. Those that are suitable should have Government support for feeding, healthcare and accommodation, and those that are not should be closed. The activities of the body should be started on a pilot scheme, and be expanded gradually to cover the whole state. The state and local governments should contribute the funding for this body, and I suggest that it should start with at least 10% of the budget for makarantun boko, as a “gidauniya” that will be run by people of impeccable honesty and character (which is nothing new to Katsinawa – look at how the Gidauniyar Jihar Katsina has been run!). 4.4 An apprenticeship scheme should be developed for the almajirai that will not proceed to become malamai.

This way, this enormous human resource that we have will be harnessed for the good of society.

4.5 The traditional system of education has a lot to offer society, especially one that wants to offer education for all its children. Considering the cost of providing modern education, in which area the Katsina State government has the best record in this country, it is obvious that even if the entire state budget is devoted to education, it will still not be enough, talk less of competing demands from other equally important sectors. As I have mentioned before, the traditional system which has been in practice for hundreds of years has a lot to offer us. I believe we should invest in research to see how it can be adopted and utilized to solve our educational problems. These suggestions are by no means exhaustive. The main point of this paper is to awaken us to the potentially horrible consequence of ignoring this problem. And I believe we have a unique opportunity to nip this problem in the bud as we have a determined and far-sighted administration that has the discipline to carry it out. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to contribute.