FEATURE -
About 14 190 residents are situated in Kalaat M'Gouna, a quiet
town in the Ouarzazate province of Morocco. Amongst the population
lives a small Muslim community who bear the daily struggle of
implementation of the holy Quran of which many have not heard of before.
Khouloud Elboumashouli, a young Muslim female from the small town was
amongst many foreigners who attended a women’s conference held at the
Jumua masjid in Cape Town on Tuesday 9 October.
Elboumashouli who serves and teaches Arabic to young Berbers (Al-Mazigh)
in the Zawiyya of Moulay Abdal Malik in her town, said after being
married for eight years, she and her husband Shaykh Murtada
Elboumashouli continue to help Muslim men and women with their day to
day challenges and the teaching of the Quran.
“Many people in Kalaat M’Gouna have no idea what Arabic is. In Morocco there are different types of Berbers and a particular group of them are in our town who knows nothing about the language,” she said. “At the moment I teach the illiterate as well as young women. I want to specifically implement the language to them as much as I can so that they can read the Quran fluently.”
Elboumashouli said she had seen a great improvement in the women in the community. "Alhamdulillah, in these few years of my marriage, the women have started reading the Quran and speaking from it.” At first women were not allowed to study and could not to do much in the community. According to her, they never knew anything about the world outside their own. “Now it is different and the Zawiyya is bigger," she said.
Zawiyya history
The Zawiyya goes back a very long time ago and was filled with a host of scholars and sheiks. It was a place where one would study all different types of sciences like fiqh, Arabic and jurisdiction, said Elboumashouli. “The Zawiyya is based on a very sensitive time in Morocco. During this period they were very prejudiced against the Arab Berbers and the sheiks had a lot of clashes with Berbers because they always worked to help people with marriages and disputes.”“Then one day rain came down and destroyed the whole Zawiyya. Soon after a new generation came, along with Shaykh Murtada, who wanted to continue the message of Islam,” added Elboumashouli. She said that Muslims within the community plan to build a bigger Zawiyya than the one that had previously been destroyed. “There is one at the moment, but we want to make it bigger and once we have succeeded with this, there will be a matter of great implementation of the teaching of the Quran, its haadiths and many more, inshallah.”
Elboumashouli said not only have the community been implementing the Quran and its language, but they have also promoted taariqa’s amongst men and women for the past few years. “We want the community to grow and hopefully it will. I am grateful to be part of the Muslim community and only wish that I could speak English so that I could pass on the message of Islam to many more around the world inshallah.” VOC (Aishah Cassiem)
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