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Yogyakarta's Islamic boarding school offers Quranic lesson for deaf children
This is a religious school for deaf children, and here the students gesture rapidly with their hands, learning to recite the Quran in Arabic sign language.
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This picture taken on June 22, 2022 shows a student reciting the Koran using sign language at an Islamic boarding school for deaf children in Sleman. At an Islamic boarding school in a sleepy neighbourhood on the outskirts of Indonesian city Yogyakarta, the evocative sound of Koranic recitation is nowhere to be heard. (AFP/Juni Kriswanto)
A
t an Islamic boarding school in a sleepy neighbourhood on the outskirts of Yogyakarta, the sound of Quranic recitation is nowhere to be heard.
This is a religious school for deaf children, and here the students gesture rapidly with their hands, learning to recite the Quran in Arabic sign language.
Islamic boarding schools are an integral part of life in Indonesia, with about four million students residing in 27,000 institutions across the country, according to the religious affairs ministry.
But this Islamic boarding school is one of a handful that offer religious education for deaf students in the world's largest Muslim-majority country.
"It all came from my restlessness when I found out deaf children in Indonesia did not know their religion," school founder Abu Kahfi told AFP.
The 48-year-old set up the school in late 2019 after befriending several deaf people and realising they had no access to Islamic education.
It now hosts 115 deaf boys and girls from across the archipelago who share the dream of becoming a hafiz, a person who can memorise the Quran by heart.
