No healing for parents of tahfiz fire victims?

Imagine having a son of about 11 years old. You’ve known him long enough to know his character and his interests. He’s probably told you what he wants to be when he grows up. You also know he’s about to reach that critical age of puberty and you wonder what kind of trouble he’ll get himself into. So you start looking at his friends with some suspicion because you’d stop at nothing to protect your little boy.

Now imagine you’re awoken in an early hour of the morning by a text message informing you that your son’s school is on fire. For a moment, you’re a little confused. And then you quickly realise that your son sleeps in his school.

You rush to the school hoping and praying that your boy managed to get out of there and is safe and sound. But when you arrive at the scene, someone gives you the horrific news that your son died in the fire.

This was what 21 mothers and fathers who sent their children to study at the Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah tahfiz school had to face. In fact, they soon learned that it was not an easy death. The boys were screaming and frantically trying to get out of the locked building – God knows for how long – before their young lives were snuffed out.

Knowing that their sons had to suffer before they died must have destroyed these parents. And yet, their suffering was far from over.

Recently, some of the mothers agreed to talk to FMT on condition of anonymity. They made serious allegations against the school and its headmaster, some of which involved money.

FMT reported only some of these allegations. It is yet to be known whether there is truth in any, some or all of the accusations. Either way, the headmaster refused to respond to FMT when they were brought to his attention.

The mothers had good reason for not wanting to be named. They were afraid of, among other things, being condemned by sections of the public for attacking an Islamic school. After already losing your son, would you be able to handle being called greedy or anti-Islam?

However, even hiding their names could not protect these parents from the onslaught the public was waiting to unleash upon them.

FMT’s report from interviews with the women quickly caught the attention of the public and some news organisations. One particular news organisation took that report and published it in its newspaper but with the addition of a response from the headmaster, the same person who had rebuffed FMT.

That second-hand news report caught the attention of more members of the public. Many of them were harsh in their criticism of the parents, with some calling them money grubbers and some saying they probably sent their children to a boarding school because they never loved them anyway.

The parents have now decided to submit to whatever injustice they believe has befallen them. They have decided not to pursue any course of action because, as some of them have explained, the pain of losing a child and then being blamed for it or being called greedy and anti-Islam is too much to take.

Even politicians and activists have largely refused to take up these parents fight out of that apparently all-encompassing fear of being stigmatised as anti-Islam.

What the really Islamic thing to do here is a debate for another occasion.

Sumber

Tweet