Hyderabad, March 18: It is the sorry state of affairs of Muslim community that we have left the people who are offering religious services in the lurch. We have left them only with the hope of ‘reward in the hereafter’. We haven’t tried to know that in the time of financial problems either their needs and expenses have widened or their needs are also narrowed down like their salaries.
What is the reason that the students who graduate from religious madarsas do not want to become Imams. When the Siasat correspondent asked the same question to dozens of writers and also to Maulana Shah Fasih Uddin Nizami, manager library Jamia Nizamia he said ‘Disregard of religious scholars and the economic problems of the persons who offer religious services are the main reasons that the students who graduate from madarsas are forced to opt for other sources of income. Even those who become imams owing to religious passion, they face bitter experience by committee members and prayer performers. Some of them endure with patience but the others relinquish and opt for other sources of income.
He said ‘in today’s world Imams of mosque are not economically self sufficient nor the government pays salaries to them (be it in Muslim countries), in these circumstances if general Muslims too do not fulfill their religious and moral responsibility and do not care to satisfy their financial needs, instead discourage them, then it is quite comprehensible that they will gradually relinquish the important job of Imamat.
He lamented that today we spend lakhs of rupees on the renovation and decoration of mosques but we ignore the persons whose presence is vital for the mosques.
Renowned columnist Maulana Syed Ahmed Vameez Nadvi also expressed the same concern he said ‘even if you see the salary of a government watchman it is not less than 8 to 10 thousand but the salary of the Imam of a mosque, which is named ‘Hadya’ is not more than 3 to 5 thousand.
‘My parents sent me here to make me a religious scholar and I myself wish to serve my religion. But keeping in view the present circumstances I would like to associate myself with teaching profession rather than becoming Imam of a mosque’ admitted a student of Jamia Nizamia who wished to remain anonymous.
There is no doubt in it that there will be a great reward for religious services but it doesn’t mean that financial problems are ignored.
Siasat news