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A Western Muslim's Guide to Hijrah

Part VII: Schooling and Other Issues

Schooling

In some (most?) Muslim nations, your child will not be able to attend public schools unless he or she is a citizen of that country. In some countries, your access to private schooling may be very restricted (due to cost or legal residency issues). I think home schooling is pretty much illegal (and frowned upon) across the board, but it seems like the authorities really don’t care what foreigners (that’s you) are doing when it comes to this, so they’ll probably leave you alone.

If you’re intending to make hijrah for life, consider what you will do when your children reach university age. They may be unable to attend the universities in the country you choose to go to. In some countries, the government determines what the student majors in, and thus their entire professional career in some cases. I know so many people put on the engineering track who went to the US and never had anything to do with engineering at all — they hated it! We have some friends from an Arab country where the husband was in the US for a long time and the wife moved to the US about six years ago with the kids (she, like many ladies I know, stayed at home in the Arab country so the children would have a solid foundation in their language and culture). Then last year, they decided to make hijrah to another Arab country where he was being paid quite handsomely and where the lifestyle is very amenable and fairly laid back. Only once he got there, they realized… their two oldest kids were almost ready for university. They couldn’t or wouldn’t attend university in this new country, or in their home country (b/c they had not taken the government’s high school program which determines the school and course of study), so they had to go back to the US. Well, they weren’t about to leave two teenage sons living in the States all on their own, so after a short while, they ended up doing mijrah right back to the US.

So if you’re planning a permanent move, consider what you’ll do in five or ten years when your kids want to go to college. Will you be comfortable sending them back to the West if they are unable or unwilling to attend university in your adopted land? Will you have the money to send them to a Western university? You also need to then consider their “track” in high school or even junior high. For example, here in Jordan, the main national program is called tawjihi. But for students who will be attending university in the US, Canada, UK, etc., they need to attend schools that teach IGCSE. This can be an added educational cost for you. What if it is not available in your adopted country?

If you’re home schooling, you have to plan how you’re going to have materials shipped to you. It can be pretty expensive, and sometimes difficult. Last year, I had to have a friend pay for my materials and ship them b/c the vendor wouldn’t take payments from out of the country. If you’re sending your kids to private or public school, you may want to strongly consider supplementing the regular curriculum with materials in English at home, to make sure that their English understanding and comprehension of math, science, and, of course, English is up to par when they graduate.

Issues Facing the Disabled and Special Needs Families

Access issues are something I noticed right away when I got here. I’ve also read articles in magazines from disabled Western Muslims who had a very difficult time visiting Makkah, Madinah, and other locations (particularly those who are unable to walk).

In Jordan, if you are unable to walk, you are severely, severely restricted in your mobility. You need to roll down the streets because the sidewalks are impossible to navigate — they’re 6 to 8 to 12 inches higher than the streets and there are no ramps (plus, half the time, there are olive trees planted smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk). Government ministries, apartment buildings, stores, and other places are off limits — they’re full of stairs. For example, if a person in a wheelchair had to go to the Ministry of Education (Special / Private Division), he or she would not be able to get their business done without someone else's help the offices are on three separate floors — and there are only stairs. Same with the Interior Ministry where you go for your passport. The only places I have seen that have decent wheelchair access are Mecca Mall and a few of the newer masajid (and the hospitals).

If you have a child that is learning disabled, or has cognitive or neurological issues, such as autism, you need to do a lot of researching and, preferably, networking before you come over here. There simply is not the level of services available here — from therapy to special ed on down — that there is in the West. In recent years, enterprising women (it seems to be mainly women) — both natives and Western expats — have begun establishing networks, schools, programs, and so forth to help parents with special needs children navigate the schools and government systems. I know this is the case in Egypt and Jordan, and is probably true in the Gulf countries and places like Malaysia as well (others would know better than I do). On a positive note, I will say that in my personal experience, people seem to be very accepting, friendly, and loving towards differently abled and neurologically impaired children here. There also seems to be some awareness of deafness. Sign Language interpreters are common on the news programs, and the last time I read about it (some years ago), schools for deaf children were not unknown. I’m not sure about blindness, but it seems like everyone has a blind relative over here, so it’s not rare. But I think it might be difficult to navigate public places given the sidewalks, lack of braille on public buildings, and so forth.

Marrying a Local

If you’re going overseas or marrying overseas, viewing that person as your means to hijrah, you need a reality check before you sign the contract. Many of my friends who did this found themselves living with goats in their houses (not kidding) in rural villages with no electricity, under the threat of attack from government forces or rebels, with dozens of people crammed into cement homes, in a country where almost nobody speaks English, in extremely traditional (and not always Islamic) environments that left them gasping for air. Was it ultimately beneficial for their diyn? In many ways, it was not, and in some ways, it was.

For many women, Western or not, a common hijrah experience is that the husband makes hijrah (or mijrah) to the US or another Western country to work, while the wife and kids stay at home. For women from that country, it might not be so bad, in the sense that they speak the language, have their own family nearby, and so forth. For Western women, it might be very difficult. I’ve done it twice. Before you go off to your husband’s home country with this sort of hijrah planned, keep in mind the things I told you about marriage, society, and the laws, alongside the fact that you’ll be alone or living with his family — who may have their own very firm ideas about your role and your position in the family and society.

Now, in the past, I knew brothers who planned to go to several given Muslim nations and marry women from there as a bridge to their hijrah. What they didn’t seem to know is that women may not have the same citizenship rights as men. If you make hijrah and marry a local woman, or you marry a local woman specifically to further your hijrah, you might be in for a surprise. The last time I checked, about a year ago, no Arab country gave women full citizenship rights. I would not be surprised if this was the case throughout many countries in Asia and Africa. This means that, at most, you are eligible for residency. Your residency may be at the whim of the authorities. Your children will not be eligible for citizenship in their mother’s country, since citizenship passes through males (husbands or fathers). While they can, of course, carry your nationality and passport, it can make schooling, health care, and other things difficult for them in their mom’s home country if they aren’t citizens. Sad stories abound of men and children living in legal limbo because the wife and mother is unable to bestow citizenship upon them.

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