Just the second of many more events and projects to come, the World of Deaf Conference presented by Global Deaf Muslim, Deaf Muslim Student Association of Gallaudet University, and Georgetown University Muslim Ministry was well attended and a resounding success.
The all day affair that was held on Saturday, February 21 at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. was the result of months of planning by Sisters Taqwa T. Mahdi and Sarah Kalim-ullah and a host of volunteers, deaf and hearing. They were dedicated to making the voices of our deaf siblings heard by our hearing brothers and sisters. "Everyone has the right to know the truth about Allah and Islam, and we as a community have to continue to increase our awareness and make this knowledge accessible to everyone. I pray that we will continue to gain more support for our deaf brothers and sisters from the Muslim community. This conference is another stepping stone toward more great things to come inshaAllah," said Sister Taqwa.
Two sign language interpreters alternated during the conference, standing next to the podium and translating speech into sign or sign into speech when the presenters were deaf. Sister Carmen Estrada-Polley, a Muslimah who flew in from California just for the program, and local resident Tina Hudzinski served as the interpreters. Organizers also arranged for captioning (speech into text on a screen) by NCC Media Solutions.
We received greetings from Kevin O'Brien, Executive Director of Campus Ministry of Georgetown University. He welcomed us on behalf of the university President and assured us that Georgetown hopes to continue to work with the Deaf Muslims and that they were thrilled to give support to such a noble effort.
Bader Alomary, President of the Deaf Muslim Students Association of Gallaudet University, and Vice President of Global Deaf Muslim gave the welcoming and reminded the audience that "deaf Muslims need access to Islamic education". He is now a junior at Gallaudet University majoring in Deaf Education and plans on returning to Saudi Arabia to improve the quality of education for deaf people there.
Appropriately, the first speaker, Sister Ishaa Vintinner, a deaf American Sign Language instructor at San Diego State University in California gave a very informative history of deaf culture, American Sign Language, and Deaf Education in the United States. Surprisingly 60% of American Sign Language is derived from French sign language and it is the third most commonly used language in the United States after English and Spanish. However, deaf people do use other forms of communication such as cued speech, oral speech, technical assisted devices, and voice and video relay services. The first school for the deaf in America was founded by Thomas Gallaudet in 1817 in Hartford, Connecticut. The first liberal arts college for the deaf was named after Mr. Gallaudet which eventually became known as Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. Sister Ishaa presented in sign.
A very energetic and charismatic Nashiru Abdulai, Founder and President of Global Deaf Muslim (GDM) who also presented in sign, loves to initiate conversations about Islam with deaf people and when he realized that many of them lack the proper and basic concepts of Islam, just as the people in his home country of Ghana, he decided to establish Global Deaf Muslim, a national organization that hopefully will become international to help deaf people with Islamic education and providing interpreters at masjids in the area. Nashiru stated, "deaf Muslims don't want pity, don't pity us, work with us, we need hearing Muslims to interact with deaf Muslims, learn sign language, become interpreters". One sister in the audience, Sarah Aslam from Orlando, Florida learned sign language in high school and is now considering becoming a sign language interpreter. She said, "the conference is well organized, the speakers are dynamic and very interesting", needless to say the impact of the conference has motivated her to consider interpreting, even while she is pursuing a college degree.
Global Deaf Muslim has generated a lot of response nationally and internationally, they are receiving a number of emails from deaf Muslims and Muslim parents of deaf children asking them how they can educate their deaf child about Islam. GDM has several projects and events to be initiated as soon as funding becomes available. InshaAllah, they hope to establish a visual Quran with signs that can be viewed on DVD for deaf Muslims, a sign language dictionary that will consolidate commonly held signs from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, provide interpreters at this years ISNA conference to be held in Washington, D.C., and plan for an international three day conference, timing and place yet to be decided. Brother Abdul Hakim Khan, a deaf community leader who works with GDM was instrumental in arranging for the sign language interpreter at Darul Hijra for jumah prayers and will also be instrumental in assisting GDM with their future projects and events.
One of the highlights of the morning program was a panel of four, each of whom had personal stories to share of their experiences growing up deaf or being a parent of a deaf child. Brother Del from Somalia comes from a family of 8, 4 of whom who are deaf. There weren't any schools in Somalia for the deaf, so his parents sent him and his other deaf siblings to Kuwait to go to school.
Unfortunately, they weren't given any Islamic education at this school thus prompting him to search for an understanding of Islam from other sources. The family left Somalia during the fighting and migrated to a refugee camp in Kenya. Later the family was able to repatriate to the United States where he began to learn more about Islam.
Brianne Weber, a student at Gallaudet, the Vice President of the Muslim Students Association of Gallaudet University, and a recent revert to Islam became deaf at 9 months old. After meeting several deaf Muslim students on campus she wanted to learn more about Islam, so she began going to the Jumah prayer at Darul Hijra even before she became Muslim. It was during this time that she decided to become Muslim. She aspires to work with deaf children in mainstream environments. Brianne is working toward integrating deaf and hearing Muslims together, instead of continuing to leave deaf Muslims in isolation.
To this author, also a revert to Islam and the mother of a deaf child who is now an adult, believes that some of the greatest challenges for her daughter growing up was a lack of communication within the Muslim community and the feelings of isolation that her daughter felt even within her extended family because everyone did not know sign language. I did attempt to establish a class for family members, however the class did not continue long enough to be beneficial. As a result of peer pressure in high school and a lack of clear understanding of Islam, her daughter eventually left Islam.
Imam Saeed Uddin from New Jersey is the parent of a deaf child who benefited from a surgery available to deaf people called a Cochlear Implant. Through this surgery an implant is placed in such a way that signals are sent to the brain from the cochlear in the ear which stimulates the nerves so that the person can pick up enough signals to be able t o hear sounds for speech etc. This surgery doesn't work the same for every person, however Imam Saeed's son is doing very well with the implant. He is 7 years old and attends regular school. Though the family does not need to use sign language with their son, Imam Saeed realizes the importance of sign language within the deaf community.
Conference participants broke for salat, lunch, and networking. The hearing and deaf Muslims were encouraged to intermingle and talk to each other using sign, lip reading, and gestures. After lunch we were entertained by two deaf poets, Zohaib Qureshi and Renato Souza. They did a great job of presenting their own original poetry in sign language. It was an enjoyable experience watching poetry being signed.
Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim Chaplain at Georgetown University and Imam of the Islamic Society of Frederick in Maryland was the keynote speaker. His speech was quite interesting and thought provoking. Imam Hendi, a dedicated advocate for the deaf Muslim community stated that 3 events have changed the course of his agenda and his future agenda as an Imam and a Muslim. The events of Gaza, the death of Aasiya Z. Hassan, and the needs of the deaf Muslims have prompted him to speak up for those who are voiceless, those who have traditionally been marginalized and overlooked by the larger community, the poor (refugees), women, and the deaf.
According to Imam Hendi there are 3 ethical foundations of Islam that should be inclusive of these people, political justice which must serve every member with fairness, economic equity which should provides every member with access to wealth and education, and covenant of community which functions to help each other, to care for each other. The Imam was quite adamant and exact in his recommendations for our deaf siblings based on the ethical foundations of Islam; Muslims should provide deaf friendly events and masjids--assume deaf Muslims are in the audience and provide interpreters, learn sign language, this being fard kifayyah (at least some of the people in the community should do this), make deaf Muslims feel welcome, provide financial support, establish a conference at Georgetown University annually. In conclusion Imam Hendi said, "support for deaf Muslims is a necessity, a religious responsibility, and a social requirement" he also stated, "do not feel sad for deaf Muslims, they are not sick, just work with them".
A unique addition to the program due to his early involvement (1996) with the deaf Muslims on the Gallaudet University campus, Imam Raqeeb Abdul Jabbar, Community Organizer of Washington, D.C., also the parent of a deaf child established Jumah prayer on campus, and a few Islamic study classes.
Imam Raqeeb gave a very moving and informative lecture on community revitalization and inclusiveness. He strongly emphasized that revitalization (to ignite, to stimulate), and inclusiveness has to be married to absolute trust and fear of Allah, and very strong adherence to Quran and sunnah in its purity. He said we have to depend on each other. We really have to live the hadith, want for your brother what you want for yourself. Imam Raqeeb took his work with the deaf to Nigeria, West Africa. Using a Mac computer captioning program he took the speeches of Imams such as Siraj Wahaj and others, captioned their speeches, put them on DVD and distributed them freely to deaf Muslims in Nigeria. He suggested that the captioning project could be extended locally and nationally to Muslim conferences by providing captioned DVDs of the various speeches given at the conferences. His motivation is to provide Islamic education to deaf Muslims.
Overall the conference, the first of its kind in our area was quite enjoyable and a great learning experience. We even had the additional treat of learning some basic signs. Just before the closing we had a very interactive dialogue with questions and answers, with discussions ranging from sign interpreting to educating deaf Muslims to volunteering with deaf organizations.
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For further information feel free to visit Global Deaf Muslim website, www.globaldeafmuslim.org.
free online ASL, American Sign Language course, www.lifeprint.com/asl101/
For donations, make checks payable to Global Deaf Muslim and mail to: Abdul M. Ashraf, Treasurer 591 Ashburn Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45240.
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