Moulana Shihabul Islam: From Imam to Changemaker
Hafiz Moulana Shihabul Islam is the Khateeb (prayer leader) at Porabari Khanbari Jame Masjid in Jamalpur Sadar upazila. He is also the general secretary of Paboi Ulama Oikyo Parishad, and has been working incessantly to make the community aware of good nutrition and gender equality after receiving training from the BIeNGS project in 2021.
“Maternal and child nutrition and joint responsibility at home are not new concepts. Islam conveys the same message too. Still, people were reluctant to follow them. But World Vision has adopted a holistic approach involving different stakeholders, such as orientation programmes for religious leaders and group sessions for couples. Repeated sensitisation through different sources has actually worked to motivate the community,” said Moulana Shihabul.
Besides Khutbas (sermons during Friday Jumma prayers), the trained religious leaders discuss the topics during internal meetings as well as every gathering to create maximum awareness.
“More parents are getting their children vaccinated in my area while more pregnant women are opting for iron supplements and iron-rich foods to prevent anemia”, said the Khateeb, referring to his peers working in the relevant fields.
“As the founding principal of a kindergarten school, I also counsel many parents on gender equality. Recently, I counseled a couple who were very unhappy in their conjugal life. Now their family life is quite harmonious, and the husband helps the wife with daily chores and also values her decisions. This is all thanks to the well-designed orientation module which has helped me restructure my preaching in a more systematic way.”
The BIeNGS project conducted orientation programmes over multiple days on nutrition and MenCare for a total of 4,390 leaders from Muslim, Hindu and Christian backgrounds in all the 62 unions of Jamalpur and Sherpur districts to create community awareness as the opinions and judgments of religious figures hold much weight among their followers.