Glorifying Uselessness

Michael van der Galien asks in the comments:

... why the heck do they teach the children this [the Quran] if they don't even understand it? We can't call it indoctrination really, if they don't have a clue what they're reading...

It's considered a great honor for a Muslim kid to quote any part of the Quran within seconds. The quotation is always in Arabic. The vast majority of Muslims don't speak Arabic; for them it's not indoctrination but utter tedium.

The indoctrination comes in when "teachers" in madrassas feed the children the rulings of Islam--Sharia--in their own language. So, it's memorizing the Quran + force-feeding hatred.

From what I've read of this particular story, they're only stuffing the Quran in tiny heads. No hatred involved but still, nine hours of that everyday is definitely abuse. The kids "learn" nothing but the parents accrue prestige within the Muslim community for having such "good" kids.

I went to a Pakistani school in Arabia. There, a few kids in my class knew the Quran by heart. These kids were utter jerks but they always got some respect from the teachers and the community for just that useless skill.

Competitions are held within the Muslim community on reciting the Quran and religious poems etc. where these kids show off their impressive Arabic and Urdu pronunciations and win awards and recognition.

Very few care if the kids actually comprehend the material. It's a hollow show.

Update
Muslihoon comments on the whole situation. I always found it amusing that reciting the Quran earns one sawaab (bonus points towards heaven).

Comments

[Michael van der Galien]

LOL!

[Tambi Dude]

In Pakistan if you can vomit quran by heart than you are called Hafeez-E-Quran and get additional
20 marks in engg/medical enterance test.

[Isaac Schrödinger]

That makes perfect sense, Tambi Dude.