The holy Qur'an in braille: "It is He Who has created for you the faculties of hearing, sight, feeling and understanding: little thanks it is ye give!" (Quran 23:78) Image:: flickr

In the name of God, compassionate & merciful بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ | Peace be with you السلام عليكم

Muslim Diaries: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5


Balal Hussain is a young man from London and has been blind since birth. But that didn't stop him from studying Islam and memorising the Qur'an in South Africa.

Muslimness was humbled to feature Kitaba in 2009 as an empowering community project set up to provide Islamic resources for Muslims with disabilities. Kitaba.org also supports families and teachers of visually impaired Muslims with relevant sight information to fulfil their Islamic needs.

"...Truly it is not the eyes that grow Blind but it is the hearts in the chests that grow Blind". (Qur'an, 22:46)

Here, Balal Hussain speaks about why he took a trip halfway across the world to study the Qur'an. A transcript of the audio file has been provided:

"As-salam`alaikum, jazakallah.

I want to begin by speaking a bit about my experiences as a blind person in society. Hamdulillah (praise be to Allah), I was born in East London, and I was born blind. At the age of two and a half I went to Clarke Joseph School For The Visually Impaired in London; the only one in the area.

I continued my education up to, I think 11 years old, in year 7. At that time my parents were worried that hamdulillah while my secular education was being met but maybe not my Islamic needs. I tried to study the Qur'an in various ways. Very often the mosque maulana/sheikh (teacher) would record the sabak or the Qur'an studies onto casette and I'd learn it that way.


But there'd be a lot of issues like the casette would break or snap and stuff like that. So, my father contacted a maulana from South Africa who actually used to come to the UK every Ramadhan at the local masjid to give bayyaan. And he asked him whether there was something to teach Arabic braille for Qur'an and Islam studies because hamdulillah, at that stage of my life I knew English braille but I had no idea how Arabic braille was read and things like that.

The teacher told my father that there was an institution in South Africa in Durban, Islamic Institution For The Blind, and passed that information onto my father.

You know, I was at the age of 12 when I left for South Africa. I was very upset, I didn't understand. But I also knew in the back of my mind that my parents wouldn't want me to go if there was no benefit in there.



Hamdulillah, I went with my father to South Africa and within my first year I learnt the Arabic braille and hamdulillah I completed memorising five 'juz (sections) of the Qur'an in that year. I started in 2001 and completed by 2007 and the last year I spent in South Africa - last year - I had actually done Islamic studies: fiqh and Qur'an translaions and things such as that.

The things that always played in my mind is, why did I have to to go all the way to South Africa, a country that's an 11 hour flight away, just to learn Arabic braille? It always made me think if such a thing was taught here in the UK and if the Muslim community had to cater for my needs, I would'n't have to go so far.

But hamdulillah, I think going there and studying in {Madrassa An-Noor}, was a good education and I think it helped me a lot, it matured me a lot. It gave gave me the ability to understand different cultures, societies and people; how they work, basically interacting with different types of communities. I'm very fortunate to have learnt Qur'an in another country and learn Arabic braille, which is much easier for me now, as I can open up a Qur'an and start reading like a normal sighted person.

For example, before if someone had to say to me, 'O.k., go to Surah Baqarah, to ayah number 111', I wasn't able to do that because everything was on a casette. But now hamdulillah because the Qur'an is in braille and I'm able to read that, I can actually do that and I feel the same way as anyone else. Also, if someone says to me 'O.k, we're going to recite Surah Ya-Sin', I feel included that I can pick up my Qur'an and read just like a normal sighted person.

Some of the challenges I faced were that, obviously, I left home at a very young age so it was very difficult to get used to a different climate - even the South African's complain about the weather! But then, they complain about many things!

And coming back to the UK, now I have a lot of visually impaired friends and I attend the mosque. I can use MSN and similar technology that exists nowadays that enables me to communicate with people, like the speech softwares. I had this one friend who wasn't a Muslim tell me on MSN that he was going in a taxi one day where the cab driver was a Muslim. This friend of mine had a guide dog, and this Muslim driver refused to sit him in the car, saying 'dogs are dirty, you can't sit in my car'. And I felt ashamed, I didn't know what to say to him. I just said that our religion, Islam, doesn't teach us this. But unfortunately, certain individuals that don't understand that.

Islam teaches us peace. And what did the Prophet ﷺ (Allah's peace and blessings be upon him) say to us?

طَلَبُ الْعِلْمِ فَرِيضَةٌ عَلَى كُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ 

Talabul `ilmi fareedhatun ‘ala kulli Muslim.
'Seeking knowledge is compulsary upon every Muslim.'

Our Prophet ﷺ didn't say, 'oh, because you're blind, you can't learn'. Our Prophet ﷺ said 'every Muslim'.

Insha'Allah, I hope our community comes over this and stops marginalising others because of disabilities.

I know I can say to myself that if I am made to feel I'm part of the community, that is the greatest feeling for me.

Shukran, a-salam`alaikum."
Balal Hussain

Images & transcript:: Copyright 2008 © Kitaba - Islamic Texts for the Blind.

Listen to brother Balal's experiences on Kitaba.org.


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From The Muslim Link Paper | 23rd Dec 2010

“Hard of hearing people people have been able to do more to be religious...but as deaf people...[we] are not able to hear anything. We must sit there and act as if we understand—but we really don’t.” said the the president of Global Deaf Muslim, Nashiru Abdulai through an ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter at a fundraising dinner held in Herndon,VA on December 11.

In hopes of making the audience realize how cut-off deaf Muslims feel from the greater Muslim community, Abdulai illustrated the frustration he and others felt so often when trying to take part in Islamic gatherings, “when I go, I would like to be able to understand but, instead, I have to ask other people what’s going on and a lot of times I just decide I won’t go because I really won’t be able to understand anything.” He recalled how he and deaf Muslim college friends would skip events they had originally planned to attend because they would lose hope of ever being any more than outsiders looking in. Isolated and unable to benefit from the knowledge and camaraderie of hearing Muslims, they would sit with each other to hold on to their Muslim identity.

As perhaps many who hear do not realize, lip-reading is very difficult, and many deaf have not mastered it. Written text can also be hard to follow because most deaf do not develop a strong reading vocabulary. Unable to hear words, even their own, speaking properly is also a great challenge for the deaf.

Most are comfortable with sign language, a system of hand movements and other gestures to communicate thoughts. There are many sign languages throughout the world. American Sign Language is dominant in the United States and Canada. ASL is also used in other parts of the world.

Parents of deaf Muslims often neglect their children’s religious education. And since the Quran and Sunnah are not translated into ASL (or any other sign language) nor are most Islamic events and Friday Khutbahs interpreted, deaf Muslim Americans have very limited access to Islamic teachings. Learning about Islam can be an even more daunting task for converts and non-Muslim deaf.

“So, many times we just go through the motions but don’t understand what is behind those motions” said Abdulai.

“Their knowledge of Islam is poor no doubt, to say the least” Dr. Muhammad Alvi told The Muslim Link. “For a simple reason—nobody tells them anything” he explained. Dr. Alvi teaches Islam to a group of 15 to 20 metro area deaf Muslims at Adams Center in Herndon, VA, many of whom attended the dinner.

Global Deaf Muslim is an advocacy group based in Bethesda, MD. The group organized the event to raise money for a project to present a video translation and commentary of the Quran in ASL.

“There are about 500,000 to 2 million people in the United States that are using ASL...so if we can produce the Quran in sign language, I’m sure it will reach lots and lots of hearts and they will come to Islam, too.” Dr. Alvi speculated.

GDF has global ambitions and a few high-level connections. It was announced during the event that Rashad Hussain, known as President Obama’s special envoy to the Muslim world, was working to set up a Global Deaf Muslim forum in Qatar for 2012. Another of GDF’s projects aims to analyze the sign languages across the Muslim world to create a universal hand sign system for Islamic words and concepts.

Many deaf people in the U.S. and elsewhere have developed their own culture due to their lack of full integration with the hearing world, separate system of communication and distinct views on deafness. “Deaf” with a capital “D” is preferred by those who embrace this culture. Most deaf people in the U.S. consider themselves a part of the Deaf community. GDF mostly presents the views and interests of Muslims who are a part of this culture. (We have mostly used “deaf” in this article for simplicity.)

“Deaf people have their own traditions” Maher Esghi, a professor at Towson University who teaches ASL and himself is deaf, told the audience. “We actually have a large culture. We have lots of jokes and humor and idioms within our language. But hearing people aren’t exposed to that.”

Prof. Esghi spoke, through an interpreter, about misconceptions hearing people have about the deaf. He said many deaf Muslims don’t think of themselves as lacking something or having a problem, “we accept deafness...Allah blessed me with this. We take it as a whole. It’s a different perspective.”

Several deaf Muslims could be seen throughout the evening energetically running the event in a sort of noble silence which was, however, frequently broken by those quick, coded hand gestures which inevitably make one long to learn sign.

Yet, you would not have been able to tell from their appearances that the deaf attendees were challenged by a disability. They are so often among us without our notice.

The bright-eyed, enthusiastic men and women—many young, some new to Islam and a few obviously not very knowledgeable on religious matters—sat together, signing away to each other throughout the evening. And, irony of ironies, one sometimes felt a yearning to be included in their circle.

The dinner seemed a success. Though a bit short of the stated goal, thousands of dollars were raised during a call for donations by Dr. Altaf Husain of the Islamic Circle of North America.

All speeches by the hearing were interpreted in sign. There were deaf panelists sharing their thoughts and experiences. It was an evening when deaf Muslims could tell non-deaf Muslims about their pains and struggles, their hopes and dreams. It was their night, their event.

At one point, guest speaker Daoud Nassimi called on all deaf to stand up to be recognized. And as they rose, surrounded by a crowd of their hearing brothers and sisters, it was as if close family members, long absent and nearly forgotten had, at last, come home.

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"We at the Islamic Texts for the Blind believe that all people with visual impairments should be empowered and should be able to participate fully in cultural, community and religious activities. We recognise that Muslims with visual impairments have to overcome many barriers."

Kitaba have information for downloading and purchasing. Their links with communities really impacts the blind with braille resources.