What is a Maktab?

A Maktab (also known as the Madrasah) is where young Muslim children from approximately the age of 5 years till the age they leave secondary school (or at least finish grade 10 in school – age 15/16) attend after school classes to learn the foundational and primary knowledge of Islam, Islamic practices and Islamic culture and identity.

The Maktab is generally attached and operated by the Masjid, or an Islamic organization.

Another way to describe the Maktab is:

Maktab is the backbone of the Muslim child.

Without the Maktab education, the Muslim child is spiritually spineless and totally lost and chances are they may not even remain a Muslim in the long term due to the wider dominant culture and influences. (May Allah protect us).

This signifies the importance and the indispensable nature of the Maktab in the life of every Muslim child.

And at the Muslim community level the Maktab is:

Maktab is the fertile field for the flourishing of a Muslim community that is strong in its Islamic identity.

Without a functioning Maktab, the Muslim community will sooner or later disintegrate, disappear and become assimilated in the wider dominant culture leaving no trace of Islam and their Islamic identity within them. This is evident and became a reality in such places and countries where the Maktab was not prioritized and therefore did not exist or was sustained.

Cascading Effect of the Maktab System

The Maktab System is a very powerful system. It has a cascading effect where its imprint will remain with the students till their very end. Its effect filters and permeates into all aspects of the person’s life and also within the wider community.

The Maktab years is the time to plant the seeds for the future harvesting of spiritual fruits in the life of these students.

It is for this very reason that all the pious scholars regard the Maktab System (in every part of the world) the backbone for the preservation of Islam in our future generations.

However, the challenge is to utilize the Maktab System to its fullest potential. This includes utilizing the potential and talent of our children to its maximum. This leaves us with many questions still to be answered:

• Are we being smart in these areas of developing talent?
• Why are we are not harnessing the true potential of the children?

The answers to these questions requires us going beyond merely being happy with printing flashy books to looking at more substantial mechanisms to achieve the desired results.

Maktab is not primarily only about teaching knowledge (Taleem). Tarbiyah (تربيت) has to be the overriding feature or at the very least an equal priority and goal. Taleem and Tarbiyah both needs to go hand in hand. That is the only way we can preserve the future of Islam. That is the only way these children of ours who are going through the Maktab System will be able to preserve their ideals, character, belief, etc. in this big ‘bad’ world they will be entering (full of distractions and from evil forces at every step and from every direction to steal their priceless asset of Imaan).

This demands knowing at a high level the purpose (objective) that underlines the setup of the Maktab System. In sha Allah we will discuss this tomorrow.