Madrassa told female pupils to have children, not careers

A MADRASSA in which one lesson suggested that Muslim girls should have children rather than start careers has been ousted from a secondary school amid safeguarding concerns.

Langley Academy has terminated its contract with the Al-miftah Institute, which provided “Islamhood” Sunday school classes on the campus in Slough.

It followed complaints by a member of the public and the National Secular Society that the institute’s classes had hosted speakers with controversial views about homosexuality.

Another speaker complained about women in hijabs making social media videos and described non-muslims as “pigs”. A recording also emerged of an Islamhood class showing a lesson by Shaykh Shams Ad-duha Muhammad on why Muslim girls should have children instead of careers. In a video recently deleted from the Islamhood Youtube channel, he said: “Smart career women give it up to have children.”

In another lesson, at Slough and Eton School in January 2015, he said career women should “say sorry because you’re not a mum, because you’re delaying that one thing that you would actually take fulfilment from”.

A spokesman for Langley Academy said: “We fully support the Government’s Prevent strategy [against radicalisation] ... we take any allegations that extremist views or ideology might be being promoted on our premises extremely seriously. We have carried out an in-depth investigation and the lettings agreement with Islamhood has been terminated.”

Mohsin Ashraf, founder of Al-miftah Institute and Islamhood, said “by and large” it supported free speech and criticised Langley Academy for not fully investigating “the circumstances surrounding how the speakers in question were invited”. He said a number of “inconsistent and malicious” claims were made.

He added: “Aside from single statements sensationally pulled out of context, we ensure a balanced viewpoint is always presented.”