A special desk has been set at the Immigration Department for Muslim pilgrims going to Hajj this year to avoid
inconveniences.
Speaking during the closing ceremony of the annual Quran Memorization Competition among students from various Madarasa and Quran Centres held at Masjid Ibn Qayim mosque in Garissa Town, National Assembly Majority Leader, Aden Duale urged the Muslim community to fully cooperate with those charged with the responsibility of issuance of the vital travel documents, in order to ensure a smooth exercise.
Muslim faithful will go for Hajj immediately after observing the holy month of Ramadan.
Going to Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islamic faith. One is required to visit the pilgrimage at least once in a
lifetime.
Over the years, hundreds of Muslims have been inconvenienced whenever they wanted to travel to Mecca.
But, Duale speaking in Garissa on Wednesday said that all Muslims planning to travel have now no reason to worry, as all necessary measures had been put in place.
“This time round there will be proper coordination from those charged with the responsibility of ensuring that things go on smoothly,” he said.
At the same time, the majority leader lauded integration of the Madarasa/Duksi curriculum that is being developed with the help of Muslim institutions at Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development.
Muslim clerics have consistently urged the state to involve them in the integration of the Madarasa curriculum into the national education system.
However, the Garissa SUPKEM Chairman, Abdullahi Salat said that failure to involve them will affect the whole process of integration.
“As much as we support the integration, we don’t want a situation where the Muslim clerics are not involved. The whole process should be driven by the Muslim religious faith based groups,” Salat said.
Meanwhile, Duale has hit out at some parents whom he accused of abandoning their cardinal responsibility of bringing up morally upright children.
He said that role modeling of children with a view to ensuring that they do not go off track has largely been left to the
teachers.
“My understanding is that the child first belongs to the parents, the teacher is only supposed to do very little in that
regard,” Duale said.
By Jacob Songok
