{"id":2502,"date":"2022-09-12T15:53:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T15:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/zannah-mustapha-teaching-boko-harams-kids\/"},"modified":"2024-08-07T23:19:49","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T23:19:49","slug":"zannah-mustapha-teaching-boko-harams-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/zannah-mustapha-teaching-boko-harams-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Zannah Mustapha: Teaching Boko Haram’s kids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Zannah Mustapha: Teaching Boko Haram’s kids<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n
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\n\n \n Article\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n By<\/span>Innocent Eteng<\/strong>\n \n September 12, 2022<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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This article was originally published in The Christian Science Monitor<\/a>, with the support of CRCC’s global project on engaged spirituality<\/a>. <\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

MAIDUGURI, NIGERIA — One morning in May, Zina Mustapha stood before her 20 students and wrote two mathematical problems on the whiteboard. “To solve these, you can use the coordinate formula or the vector formula,” she said.<\/p>\n

As the teenagers chorused the formulas back at her, the scene could have been a typical high school in Nigeria. But the Future Prowess Islamic Foundation<\/a> is unlike any other in Africa’s most populous country.<\/p>\n

In the heartland of a war that has pitched the jihadist sect Boko Haram against the government, the private Quranic school has opened its doors to Muslim and Christian children of both insurgents and government soldiers, as well as those orphaned by both groups in the brutal conflict. Even as Boko Haram extremists raze and attack thousands of schools in the northeastern state of Borno, Zannah Mustapha, the school’s founder, preaches a different kind of radicalism: love for everyone.<\/p>\n

Since 2002, Boko Haram has gunned down some 35,000<\/a> people and displaced 2 million<\/a> in its battle to carve out an Islamic state in Nigeria, and to abolish perceived Western education and influence. In 2009, the group attracted global attention when it began attacking state symbols like military posts and public schools. Five years later, insurgents abducted 276 girls from their school dormitory in a remote village called Chibok.<\/p>\n

But some teachers continue to defy them.<\/p>\n

“Education is … the right of every human being,” says Ms. Mustapha, readjusting her hijab. “With the gun, we can kill terrorists, but with education, we can kill terrorism.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Zannah Mustapha with teachers of one of his primary schools. <\/em><\/p>\n

War on education<\/h2>\n

In 2009, around the time Boko Haram turned its sights on education, Fatima was due to start first grade. But her mother couldn’t afford it, and 6-year-old Fatima was wrestling with a crushing sense of guilt.<\/p>\n

She believed she was responsible for her father’s death at the hands of the extremists.<\/p>\n

Bukar, her father, left home every morning for the market where he was a trader and returned at night, never failing to bring some candy for Fatima. One evening, Fatima was disappointed he’d forgotten. “I ran to welcome him, only for him to remember that he had not bought me my favorite candy,” she recalls.<\/p>\n

Her father stepped back outside, but Boko Haram was trailing him. “They shot him in his head,” Fatima says. “That was the end of my joy – he never came back.”<\/p>\n

For years, Boko Haram had killed those who criticized its extremist views – including moderate Muslims like Bukar. When they targeted families, the insurgents sometimes killed the men and spared women and children, and sometimes murdered both parents. Today, thousands of orphaned and fatherless kids roam the streets of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, and refugee camps.<\/p>\n

The loss plunged Fatima, her five siblings, and her mother – now a single housewife – into grief and destitution.<\/p>\n