54 ISLAMIC HORIZONS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019

SERVICE TO HUMANITY

You Are Welcome HereChicagoan Joohi Tahir and her team at Muhsen are dedicated to addressing the functional needs of Muslims with disabilities

BY HABEEBA HUSAIN

For nearly 10 years Joohi Tahir stayed far away from her local mosque. As the mother of three girls with one on the autism spectrum, she felt anything

but welcome there.“We tell mothers with children with spe-

cial needs, ‘You don’t belong here. Your kid is making too much noise. Go home,’” she says. “It happened to me.”

When her daughter was young, Tahir decided to take her for the Friday prayer. As was the norm, her daughter began to vocalize a little bit. Tahir decided to walk out of the prayer hall to calm her down and play with her, when she saw a woman running behind them.

“I thought she was going to help me calm her down,” Tahir says. “[Instead] she said, ‘Beta (daughter), it’s not fard for you to be here.’ That’s what I got told.”

This moment is all too familiar for functional-needs families, but Tahir wants to change that through Muhsen (https://muhsen.org), an organization dedicated to foster awareness, accommodation and acceptance of such individuals in our sacred spaces.

“It is a right of every Muslim to have a place in the house of God — end of story,” Tahir says. “As a society … we don’t even count these people as Muslims. We ignore the fact that these people have a right to be there. We park in their parking spaces because we are late for jumuah.”

In 2012, when she and her husband went on hajj with Shaykh Omar Suleiman’s group, she informed him of her concerns. As the son of a mother who struggled with cancer and multiple strokes, he empathized with her stories and challenges immediately.

“He listened very carefully and very patiently,” Tahir says, “[and] was very keen that we do something beyond awareness.”

Upon their return, he emailed the couple that he wanted to meet with them on his visit to Chicago to figure out what could be done.

Tahir prepared a presentation, listing everything that would help families like hers feel more cared for and accepted. At the 2014 annual ISNA Convention in Detroit, Shaykh Omar announced the launch of Muslims Understanding and Helping Special Education Needs (Muhsen). In Arabic, this word means “someone who helps others.”

“Shaykh Omar is a visionary. He said this organization is going to grow like you won’t believe,” says Tahir. “Here I am — this mother whose child has been very alienated at the masjid — and I’m like, really? This is going to grow in the community? I hope it does, but I don’t know.”

But the shaykh was right. This past September, Muhsen celebrated its fifth anni-versary at the 56th ISNA convention — the event at which it was launched. Working with ISNA to provide services for all of these families, a week before the convention it had to close registration because its available capacity had already been reached.

As of this writing, Muhsen has certified 42 Islamic centers nationwide as “friendly and accommodating.” At the end of November, it embarked on its third umrah trip for families that need an extra pair of hands to help out with their loved ones.

“Having that individual walk up to me at umrah saying, ‘We never dreamt this was possible,’ — that for me is ‘mission accom-plished’ for that family,” Tahir says. “That for me is the most favorite part of my job.”

Clearly, there is a need in the community for Muhsen’s services, whether that be guid-ing mosques to install accessibility features like elevators and ramps, offering respite care or providing signing and closed-captioning at lectures, among other things.

A Muhsen volunteer helps a ISNA Convention attendee

Pleasant View SchoolSeeks

Elementary Level Assistant Principal

Pleasant View School (PVS) is seeking an Elementary Level Assistant Principal to meet the needs of our rapidly growing school.

PVS is an AdvancEd accredited PreK-12th Grade Islamic School located in Memphis, Tennessee, with approximately 420 students. Founded in 1997, PVS is currently undertaking a large expansion project that will add 50% more space to its already beautiful campus, which is located on 14 acres of land in a centrally located part of the Memphis (Tenn.) metropolitan area. PVS has earned a reputation as an academically strong school whose students do well in numer-ous project-based competitions at the city, state, and national level.

The school has doubled the number of stu-dents it serves in the past few years and is now looking for an Assistant Principal that has the skills, initiative and drive to maintain the strong academic record of the school and establish more elementary level programs.

Responsibilities of the Assistant Principal:➊ Lead a rigorous elementary level instruc-

tional program focused on developing crit-ical thinking and problem-solving skills.

➋ Develop curricular and extracurricular ele-mentary level schedules, activities, events, and programs that develop student aca-demic, athletic, religious and other interests.

➌ Manage elementary level personnel opera-tions to ensure that all elementary teachers abide by school procedures and participate in promoting the school vision.

➍ Maintain a high level of personal communi-cation and manage school communication tools with all school stakeholders.

➎ Oversee the accreditation, expansion, and professional development of the Preschool Program.

Academic qualifications:➊ A minimum of a master’s degree in education

from an accredited institution.➋ Has a minimum experience of 4 years in an

administrative role at an Islamic school in the US/Canada or applicable experience.

If interested, please email your cover letter, resume, and your future academic plans to Careers@pleasantviewschool.com

Selected applicants will be contacted by phone and invited for an onsite interview. A background check will be conducted on the selected applicant.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 55

Despite these strides, Tahir says there is still a long way to go. The hardest thing she has to deal with are the naysayers, those who think their community has no function-al-needs families. But Tahir knows they exist — they are just not visible in those mosques that have yet to accommodate them.

The Needs Assessment Survey on Muhsen’s website provides an insight into the specifics for which people look. The survey

pinpoints the families’ locations, and Tahir takes note. When board members tell her that their congregation has no such indi-viduals, she pulls out her map that proves otherwise.

“If you have one brother who wants to come to the mosque and you’re not accom-modating — that’s a problem!” Tahir pro-claims. “Who knows what act that you commit in a good way, Allah doesn’t see it as the most beautiful thing that you ever did? We need these people.”

And these people need us. Not only in the present, but also in the future. The future is a scary thought for many parents whose func-tional-needs children are entering adult-hood. They can care for their kids as long as they are alive and healthy, but what happens when the parent can no longer do so?

“This is a question on all of our minds. It keeps me up at night,” Tahir states. “I know there’s got to be something we can do.”

She remarks that her functional-needs daughter, now 19, will likely neither go to college in the traditional sense nor get mar-ried or have children. What is textbook for so many is simply not in the picture for these individuals.

To help with this looming uncertainty,

Muhsen has what Tahir has dubbed “a dream project” — establishing a day program for adults with disabilities and, eventually, a residential facility for functional-needs Muslims.

“We have to think big. We have to believe in it in order to make it happen, because it’s a need a lot of families are thinking about already,” Tahir notes. “That’s why we plant the seeds today that these people are bless-

ings in your community … You should want to support them and empower them and help them.”

Even Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) understood this truth. When a sight-impaired Companion like Abdullah Ibn Umm Maktum couldn’t join the battle, the Prophet entrusted him with carrying the flag. This is an example of caring and including everyone.

“Care about it. Do something about it, even if it doesn’t impact your life today,” Tahir says. “I want to ride on their coat-tails. I want to help them. I want to serve them. I want to include them because they may intercede on my behalf on the Day of Judgment. At the end of the day, who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t need that?”

Just as we do not want to be left behind when God welcomes these chosen individuals into His Paradise, they do not want to be left out of their communities today. Let’s tell all of them together — loudly and clearly — that they most definitely are welcome here! ih

Habeeba Husain, a freelance journalist based in New York/New Jersey, contributes to SLAM Magazine, blogs for Why-Islam and is social media manager for WuduGear. Her work has also appeared in Narrative.ly and MuslimGirl.com, among other online and print publications.

CARE ABOUT IT. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, EVEN IF IT DOESN’T IMPACT YOUR LIFE TODAY,” TAHIR

SAYS. “I WANT TO RIDE ON THEIR COATTAILS. I WANT TO HELP THEM. I WANT TO SERVE THEM. I WANT TO INCLUDE THEM BECAUSE THEY MAY INTERCEDE ON MY BEHALF ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. AT THE END OF THE DAY, WHO DOESN’T WANT THAT? WHO DOESN’T NEED THAT?”