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Accessibility, Acceptance, Islamic Education: Living as a Muslim with Disability

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By: Najah Zaaeed

We live in a world in which people are increasingly facing various challenges, many of which affect their well-being and lifestyles. Unfortunately, Muslims with disabilities are sometimes faced with barriers within their own Muslim communities. Recently, the Muslim Social Research Network launched a global study to understand the needs of Muslims with disabilities in the U.S., UK and Canada. The findings will be used to educate Muslim organizations about the challenges their community members with disabilities endure and provide recommendations on how to improve services, communication, and inclusion.

Imagine being limited to going outdoors or interacting with others because you have a disability or impairment. Imagine being unable to obtain general education because the school or organization does not have the resources or staff needed to teach individuals with disabilities and impairments. Imagine wanting to learn about your faith, including how to pray and how to recite words from the verses of the Qurʾān Al Kareem, yet there is no one to teach you because there is a lack of people willing to educate Muslims with disabilities and impairments. Imagine going to the masjid, only to be directed to pray in an isolated area or shoe room, not in congregation, because the facility does not provide ease of accessibility for individuals with disabilities who have medical equipment or pets to aid them. Sometimes the challenges for Muslims with disabilities and impairments are not due to structure, but due to a simple lack of awareness from other patrons and board members.  We live in a world that is filled with imagination, but we don’t realize some of those thoughts may actually take place in our own communities.  

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A place of worship is generally thought of as being a safe, kind, and like welcome-home to anyone, including individuals with disabilities or impairments. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. In fact, Muslims with disabilities and impairments, as well as their caregivers, tend to face challenges when attempting to participate in regular congregational prayers, Islamic educational programs, holiday/ special events, or general visitations to the masjid. Their struggles also extend to gaining access, participating with or obtaining resources from other Islamic organizations and centers. Granted, the world is not perfect, and individuals with disabilities or impairments may face barriers at even non-religious facilities; as faith-based organizations missions, however, typically connect religion with improvement of society, it has become ever more important to understand impaired or disabled Muslims’ concerns and challenges within Muslim organizations.

Like many Muslims, regardless of disability, Heather Albright would visit the masjid with the hope of learning about Islam, engaging with others, and performing her obligatory prayers in congregation. Instead, she oft times found her experience to be stressful, as she was bombarded with “off the wall” questions about her blindness and her ability to learn and be independent.  Similarly, Misty Bradly, a single mother who is also blind, found that many underestimated her abilities because of her inability to see.

“People didn’t realize that blind people were capable of doing things on their own,” Misty explains. Although masjid patrons are friendly, they often make Muslims with disabilities and their caregivers feel ignored, as though they don’t belong, or as though they cannot move without assistance. It is important to note that this is not the case in all masjids, as some actually promote inclusion and expect engagement of Muslims with disabilities in activities. Nonetheless, these experiences combined with the lack of resources to create, support, and sustain the inclusion of Muslims with disabilities are relevant and should be addressed.

According to Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, who cares for his aging mother losing her sight because of glaucoma, “going to pray at a masjid is hard particularly when they’re not user friendly. I don’t think we have the resources; not because they’re unavailable to us but because we don’t place enough value in it.”

Misty’s challenges associated with Islamic organizations and her disability affect how she is able to engage in her daughter’s education. Islamic school teachers failed to adhere to her request of alternative communication methods; her request to communicate and keep her informed through e-mail, so that she could use her JAWS for windows software which enables screen reading the information to her, was ignored.  This was troublesome as Misty was invested in her daughter’s education, but found herself missing special events due to a lack of communication.

Muslims with disabilities are not the only one to bear the stress of the barriers they endure in their Muslim communities. Caregivers of Muslims with disabilities have witnessed similar obstacles. Nicole Epps has realized her Muslims community lacks the resources needed to provide her five year old daughter Sarah, who has spastic cerebral palsy, an Islamic education. Sarah does not attend any type of Islamic school; this is not by choice, but rather because many Islamic schools, including weekend programs in North Carolina, do not accommodate students with disabilities or special needs. Nicole is not alone; Chess Conners has four children with some type of disability. Her oldest has autism while another has a physical disability affecting her legs. Like Nicole, Chess found that the Islamic schools are not equipped to educate children with special needs.

Accessibility Issues

While a lack of special education teachers prevent Muslims with disabilities from learning about Islam in traditional settings, it is still possible for many to participate in activities and engage in programs offered to everyone at the masjid. Unfortunately, many Islamic centers are not disability friendly due to infrastructure, a lack of resources, such as visuals for individuals that may be hard of hearing or visually impaired, or the simple lack of awareness on how to treat and accommodate people with disabilities from an Islamic perspective. Addressing this last concern would prevent misunderstandings regarding the permissibility of someone with special medical shoes, equipment, or pets entering the masjid.

Disability Counseling

Mohammad Yousef is very familiar with the treatment of Muslims with disabilities by fellow Muslims and with accessibility barriers in Islamic centers and masjids. Although Mohammad is a well-educated engineer and founder of the organization, EquallyAble, he still finds himself having to defend the use of his medical shoes and leg brace in the prayer area. Mohammed’s organization aims to create awareness and advocate on behalf of Muslims with disabilities. Similarly, Chess feels accessibility, especially in Islamic centers or masjids that have multiple levels, can create barriers for people wishing to attend yet can’t due to a physical disability

Interactions

I “never really felt accepted in the community, because of how my children are,” explains Chess, who has felt a difference in the treatment of her and her children by others in her Muslim community. Chess feels that community members can sometimes make parents feel as though their child has a disease, rather than a disability. She remembers how someone found out about her second child’s incident and quickly informed others at the masjid. Chess believes education about disability is key, because people don’t realize the emotions individuals with disabilities may experience, especially if they have negative interactions with others. Chess wants parents to understand that “your child isn’t going to catch autism by being around my daughter.” Chess is not alone; Nicole shares, “kids don’t understand,” and parents do not help their children comprehend that people with disabilities may not be that different and may want to play and participate in activities just like any other child. Children with disabilities should “feel included, that it’s a disability but not a handicap.” Other children, such as Misty’s, are taunted by their fellow peers because of the parent’s disability. Sometimes Misty’s daughter is told “your mom can’t do that,” leaving her own child to wonder what her mother is capable of doing on her own. Misty now finds herself reminding her daughter that she is independent and able to care for herself.

Adaptive Counseling

All individuals interviewed stressed the importance of breaking down the stereotypes surrounding disabilities, specifically Muslims with disabilities. In addition to ease of access, many wish for improved Islamic education and resources for individuals with disabilities.

Learning about Islam

While some caregivers, such as Nicole and Chess, opted to teach their children about Islam at home, others continue to visit the masjid because they still want to feel as though they are a part of the community and learn something about Islam. Heather wanted to learn versus of the Qurʾān, yet cannot read it; instead of doing nothing, she decided to search for the Qurʾān in braille and was eventually able to get a copy.

Learning how to read the Qurʾān in braille presents its own challenges. Although a Qurʾān in braille is available, it is important to understand that even Islamic texts in braille require one to be educated on how to read it, explains Norma Hashim of the International Union of Braille Quran Services. The IBQS is comprised of 13 organizations in thirteen countries with hopes to grow. Braille phonetic is based on sounds and most braille Qurʾāns found in places such as Saudi Arabia have words that are shortened, which non-Arab speakers would most likely not understand or even pronounce correctly. The braille Qurʾān offered by the Malaysian Braille Association, whom Norma is also associated with, offers the longer braille version of the Qurʾān, which can be understood.

As technology and research advance, the opportunity for Muslims with disabilities to address their needs increases. Many Muslims with disabilities have used their impairment as a resiliency, developing organizations to create awareness and solutions.  Although some may look for organizations to advocate on their behalf, “in general you need to be your own advocate and talk to the Imams and people and explain to them why this is different,” says Mohammad Yousef, of EquallyAble.  Rabia Khedr, executive director of CAM-D (Canadian Association of Muslims with Disabilities), is blind and knows all too well the stigmatism that is associated with impairments. Amazingly, Rabia and her fellow peers at CAM-D have come a long way to establish their organization, which started off as a resource and advocacy center. They will soon be launching a project called Deen. Interestingly, CAM-D faced many challenges from Islamic organizations during their initial years of establishment. According to Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, who is also a board member of a masjid in central New York, “I find the challenge is getting Muslims to be sympathetic!” The internal struggles and recognition and leadership within Islamic organizations hinder their ability to address their Muslim community’s needs. This is one of the reasons CAM-D board members decided to be a stand-alone organization. In part, doing so allowed them to serve a greater community, advocate on behalf of individuals with disabilities, and make recommendations that are built on the needs of Muslims with disabilities, regardless of an Islamic organization’s affiliation.

While many of the parents interviewed for this article stated they would like to see disability awareness programs conducted by Islamic organizations for their community members, individuals such as Misty also express the concern of basic accessibility challenges at masjids and Islamic events. Misty shares, “a lot is culture, while we have to respect, and they need to learn more about disability and capabilities of disabled.” While Yusuf Abdul-Qadar shares similar agreement he reiterates, “the Muslim community isn’t competent enough to care about these issues, unfortunately. This is from a board member!”

Refreshingly, people like Mohammad, Rabia, and Heather are contributing to the slow, but effective changes ensuring their concerns, as well as the concerns of other Muslims with disabilities are heard and their needs are being met. Rabia says the need for awareness and advocacy is “huge and the resources are small.” Rabia and Mohammad both mention the importance of pro-activeness from Muslims with disabilities, in their communities. Mohammad goes further to mention the importance for Imams and Muslims organization board and community members to take the time to “get to know someone with a disability and understand what happens in their life and with their family members.”

The current reality is that Islamic centers across the US, UK and Canada can easily become overwhelmed with a plethora of community concerns and sometimes need to rely on information and training from third party organizations or advocates on issues such as addressing the concerns of individuals with special needs. The recent study on Muslims with disabilities is not the first research to address the needs of Muslims with disabilities, and it may not be the last as social concerns and needs are steadily changing. However, findings of the study by MSRN will be greatly beneficial to Muslims with disabilities, their caregivers, and Muslim communities and organizations overall.

If you know someone who has a disability or is a caregiver of someone with a disability, please share the following link,  http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/disability, and ask them to take a few moments to complete the survey anonymously. Voicing their concerns can only improve conditions for themselves, those they care about, and those that come after them.

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20 Comments

20 Comments

  1. Abu Hudhayfah

    March 4, 2014 at 6:35 AM

    JazakAllah Khair!

    Autism Awareness – Muslims on the Spectrum:

    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Autism-Awareness-Muslims-on-the-Spectrum/607380229319051

    • solitaybird

      March 5, 2014 at 11:42 PM

      This isn’t the same autism awareness that treats autism as an evil disease which must be genetically eradicated and includes no one on the autism soectrum in their organization, only parents who harp on and on about how difficult and horrible autistic children are, by any chance?

  2. m s Khan

    March 4, 2014 at 8:57 AM

    jazAKs sr Najah for addressing a very vital issue in our communities even in the west. While the world looks to the west for guidance on matters of inclusion in the Muslim community, Islamic Centers in the west are themselves falling short to deliver such practices.
    Yet as some one who is mobility impaired after a trauma I suffered 7 years ago which left me without legs, I have come to the understanding that it is us the Muslim disabled who need to address these issues with a kindness we may not want to exude when shunned away from Islamic centers. I travel all over the United States in my accessible van and make it a point to check out masjids far from home. I communicate with the masjid staff my needs and best ways to circumvent the problems of accessibility. More often than non, the local staff will cooperate and make necessary accommodations.
    Most often I find that Islamic centers are not aware of the issues disabled people come across. If we approach folks with the intention of education and not assault, better results are achieved.

  3. S. N. Smith (@muslimcomments)

    March 4, 2014 at 10:07 AM

    What an excellent article. I shared it with hundreds of people.

  4. Pingback: Accessibility, Acceptance, Islamic Education: L...

  5. David Banes

    March 5, 2014 at 1:04 AM

    Mada – Qatar Assistive Technology Center has a range of information in English and Arabic on a range of assistive technologies you can find out much more at http://www.mada.org.qa and http://madaportal.org – All of our resources are freely distributable

  6. Abez

    March 5, 2014 at 6:16 AM

    Sister, you are preaching to the choir on this one. I can’t get my son into any Hifz programs here because he’s on the autism spectrum, so he studies Qur’an on his own. We had him studying one on one with the Imam of our masjid for a while, but after a while the Imam said he couldn’t continue teaching Khalid.

    I don’t blame him, because he has zero experience in teaching children with specials needs, and we’re genuinely grateful that he gave it a real try before admitting he was in over his head.

    Alhamdulillah, one of Khalid’s strengths is memorisation, so he’s almost done with Juz ‘Amma on his own. The sad thing though, is that he has outgrown my ability to help him (unless I memorize the Qur’an first) and needs to be taught tajweed properly. So we’ve reached a serious lag in his progress towards HIfz. Not because he can’t learn Qur’an, but because so far no one will teach him. :(

    • Lily

      July 8, 2014 at 9:50 AM

      You can get audio readings of the Quran. One of my cousins is disabled and he learns by listening and repeating. Alternatively, you could look for online options.

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  9. Mommyof2

    March 13, 2014 at 12:29 PM

    I cannot open the survey!

    • Najah

      March 18, 2014 at 3:25 AM

      Asalam U Alaikum Mommyof2,
      Unfortunately the survey has closed. Please stay posted for the upcoming publication of the findings in the upcoming months. If you have any questions or comments, you can find us on Facebook @ Muslim Disability Awareness.

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  13. Apple

    March 17, 2015 at 7:06 AM

    As someone who has worked in numerous full-time Islamic schools, I agree that many do not have the resources to serve the needs of children with special needs (physical or mental). I don’t think this is due to not caring, since these schools generally operate under a bare minimum budget and lack basic resources. As a teacher, I did my best to try to balance the needs of all the children in my class, but there were some cases (such as severe ADD) where the child simply was not flourishing in a traditional classroom setting. In reality, all children have special needs of one kind or another (emotional, intellectual, physical, etc.), and a teacher does their best to cater for as many as possible but at the end of the day has limited time and resources.

    So, I feel that parents of special needs children should take a solid look at what resources an Islamic school has to offer, and if it can’t provide the services that their children need, they should put them in a school that can offer those services (like a public school). I also think the administration should step in and not allow a student to join the school if they know they are not able to provide for him/her; however, that doesn’t usually happen for financial reasons.

    Also, I noticed that some parents were in denial about their children’s learning disabilities and seemed to think that shuttling them off to an Islamic school and putting them in the same class as everyone else would ‘cure’ them, while what the children really needed was for their parents to acknowledge that their children needed special attention and would best be served by visiting a health practitioner or specialist rather than just having things ignored.

    Lastly, if a teacher isn’t following up on a special request, I’d look into why rather than just seeing it as failing to comply or disinterest. Teachers in general are overworked (Islamic school teachers even more due to the lack of resources) while at the same time are bombarded by individual requests by parents who feel they have the right to demand more because they are paying for the school. Sadly, my experience is that some parents were very demanding and wanted the maximum time, attention, and services for their own child (who may not have had any special needs that required special accommodation for), at the expense of taking that time and attention away from other children (some who really needed it such as language learners). This is not limited to Islamic schools, it is human nature, but looks a lot different on the teacher’s side when he/she is trying to balance the needs of the entire group and who has a vested interest in all the children, not just one. (Sorry if parents feel I should not be qualified to teach after saying that, but just saying.) It is possible that the teacher really didn’t have time, or simply forgot, or didn’t get a sense of how important it was to that parent because of all the special requests that s/he gets on a daily basis. The parent may think that s/he is not asking much, but 50 individual requests for small amounts of time to do different things add up, and because time is a finite resources, and the teacher is already working hours overtime, the teacher will have to decide between the good of the group (such as lesson planning) versus the good of the individual (such as individual emails). At an Islamic school, where resources are tight, there may also be additional barriers such as a lack of accessible internet access at work (a computer lab is not helpful if it is locked after hours).

    In short, an individual request to a teacher to take care of a personal need is much more difficult to comply with than establishing a system or procedure which takes care of the need. Establishing a school-wide procedure to communicate important information electronically with parents (and, even better, one that is handled by the administration, not overworked teachers) would be a solution that would serve the needs of many, rather than relying on a teacher to address the needs individually. In general, something that is good procedure for serving the needs of people with disabilities is good procedure for the general population as well.

    • David

      March 17, 2015 at 7:41 AM

      It is an interesting issue and raises a debate as to what is meant by an Islamic School. Ultimately all schools work within the education system of the state within which they operate. A British or German Islamic school may be quite different to that of a state school in KSA or Pakistan for instance. What is it that parents of a child at an Islamic school should expect – as a non Muslim I believe they should expect that the school should deliver an Islamic centered curriculum but with the same quality of differentiation and attention to individual needs as any other school within the education system of that country, there are interesting issues to discuss as to the extent to which a Muslim school is defined by both curriculum and teaching style, and whilst certainly maintaining the ethos and values of the community should also seek to address the needs of the special needs child to equip them to function within the wider community in which they live. From my point of view, in the area of technology for special needs we recognise the importance of both language and culture of the children we serve, but those inform the approach that we take in seeking solutions rather than used as a restraint on the options available

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  15. AYEINA

    February 28, 2017 at 8:08 PM

    I love how you highlighted the positive aspects of it! Alhamdulillah! We recently started a series in our ‘gratitude and positivity’ section and the first collaboration was with a deaf muslimah. We’d love to collaborate with you for a post as well in shaa Allah :)

    • Najah Zaaeed

      July 25, 2017 at 1:18 PM

      ASA,

      I would love to collaborate. You can contact me via email tarkeyzrd@gmail.com

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