Most alarming to Al-Huda’s critics is the growing influence of the education movement on an international scale. They cite growth in the selling and wearing of ‘abayahs in Pakistan after the school’s establishment as an example of Al-Huda’s “talibinisation” of women. “As a student of Al-Huda I don’t know which of the teachings could be interpreted without considerable use of one’s imagination.”Įven so, Al-Huda’s teachings are repeatedly being used in the media in connection to extremism, in recent controversial coverage by major news sources such as NPR, Globe, Newsline, and Dawn. “I think it’s a baseless allegation as are most of the allegations we keep hearing and reading about,” opined Um-e-Abdullah, a Pakistani sister who did her Diploma Course in Islamic Education from Al-Huda. The “sorority of Al-Huda”, as one sister in Saudi Arabia puts it, were dismayed to hear the institute being accused of breeding terrorism. She relocated to Canada after demand for her classes grew in the country.

Farhat Hashmi’s own house, when the sister with a PhD in Hadith Sciences from the University in Glasgow begun to teach Islam full-time in 1994. The classes-taught both in Urdu and English- started in Dr. The sister is a second-generation Indian-Muslim, and her mother has been living in the United States since her high school years.Īl-Huda’s students have grown into a vast network of millions of women worldwide, often organized into local groups that meet at houses.

Hashmi? My mother listens to her lectures like a drug!” says one teenage Muslimah in Montgomery. Many of the school’s ‘students’ are under-the-radar, as they listen to Dr. The Muslim Link found similar responses from women taking Al-Huda’s summer courses in Pakistan, evening courses (for working women), and online courses.

She took an Al-Huda International Foundation course in January 2009 and finished it one month ago.

“I don’t see how those allegations could fit”, said Samiyah Mustafa from Rockville, 18, in an interview with the Muslim Link. Farhat Hashmi’s Al-Huda International Welfare Foundation, an Islamic, educational institute that gives to the needy and also provides Islamic learning to women of all ages around the world through online lectures, was accused of promoting an “orthodoxy” that “echoes the Taliban’s vision for Pakistan” in an ApNational Public Radio (NPR) segment. Area Muslim women responded to recent allegations that a famous female Islamic lecturer was promoting extremism, calling the media reports baseless.ĭr.

Dr farhat hashmi lectures ahsan