The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "There is no (good) envy except in two cases: a man whom Allah has given wealth and he spends it according to its right; and a man whom Allah has given wisdom, and he judges by it and teaches it." - Sahih Bukhari 73
After completing my education abroad, I decided to visit my country, Bangladesh. After spending some time there, I noticed a lot of problems the muslims were facing on a daily basis. I felt it was important to help them and do something for the Ummah. That is when I decided to set up Muin Welfare Trust. The meaning of Muin is helper, patron, supporter and aide.
I identified three broad areas to concentrate on:
The Qur’an, it should be noted repeatedly asks us to observe the earth and heavens. This instills in man the desire to learn natural science. When the Qur’an was revealed, the first word of its first verse was ‘Iqra!’ that is, ‘Read.’ Education is thus the starting point of every successful human activity.
To seek knowledge is a sacred duty; it is obligatory on every Muslim, male and female to do so. It was important for me to understand how to educate children. Most children who needed help were orphans and runaways who had left families. Many are those whose families do not care for their health and education. They have left them on streets on their own. Spending on them for food/clothes and materialistic things, would be temporary. It would eventually come to a point of exhaustion. There is no future benefit in this nor will the poverty cycle be broken. It will only benefit them day to day. However, I wanted a permanent solution to help the children. Providing children with good education would enable them to benefit for the rest of their lives.
There is also another section of youth who have already gone past their time of learning. They are at a stage were they need to earn a living to generate income for their dependent family members. It is important to earn and more important to earn halal money. For poor men and women, we want to setup a small scale work/business or an income generating project. For example, people who have ability for day to day work, but dont have the means/capital or work material to proceed. We have provided rickshaws/carts, sewing machines, and other supplies which allow them to generate some sort of income. We have also provided animal livestock like cows, goats, sheep and chicken. The income generated is enough for them to live on. They are able to reinvest in their business if they have to. The breeding of animals allows them to scale their business further. The need for fresh meat, milk and eggs is always present. They can supply to wholesellers or sell to customers of towns and localities. This way they do not have to resort to begging or any other unlawful means of earning income.
There are a large number of boys and girls who have reached the age of marriage. Due to financial constraints, they are not able to get married. Here in Netrokona, arranging a sunnah compliant Nikah is not very expensive. Due to delays in Nikah many problems arise in towns which leads to immorality in the society.
Many Ulema do not have houses or do not earn enough to run costs of the house. Some of them are in extreme poverty and manage to scrape through the days with hardly any food. We try to support them with houses and sufficent wages so that they are able to provide for their families. This is such an important part of our deen, to serve the Ulema and unfortunately the most forgotten and ignored. What will happen if the society stops producing Ulema? Who will perform the Nikahs and Janazahs of the Ummah? Most of them are so self reliant that no matter what the difficulty, they will not ask anybody but Allah. We identify them because we are from that background and know their struggles.
The situation of Netrokona in 2001 was such that it had no Masjids and no qualified scholar of deen (Aalim). There were no signs of any Deeni activities and Islam was missing from that area. Not a single person had the ability to recite the Holy Quran properly. My only worry was how to get rid of this ignorance or jahiliyyah from my community. There was only one Imam who would have to lead salaah in two places for Eid because no other Imam was available. The people did not understand the masaail. With this concern, I arranged a gathering in Atpara Thana Netrokona, Bangladesh. During this event I delivered a small talk. I requested people to contribute to establish a Madrasa. I then encouraged them to give their children to this Madrasa. Some parents came forward and we started with around 20 children and 1 teacher. As of today we have 1200+ students and 58 teachers.
After visiting educational establishments, I realised, there were many school children neglecting Islam. They had no time to learn the deen or no intention to learn and understand Islam. We are planning to start some classes to teach Islam basics and activities in 24 hours in future inshaAllah. This will sow the seed of Islam in their hearts. We are trying to build small Masjids. We hope to reach a point were there is a Masjid in every lane. With the help of generous donors like you, we have built small mosques that have one water pump and a whudu khana. It can accomodate upto 50 worshippers. This is Sadaqa-e-Jariya for all donors who contribute towards this project. The rewards for this reach the donor even in his grave.
The situation of Netrokona, Bangladesh today has completely changed. The efforts we made via Muin Welfare Trust with the will and help of Allah; Islam has finally reached houses. We now have 30 mosques with Imams that are our staff and also leading the salaah. In whole of Bangladesh, this village has the most Hafiz and Hafizas in the same area. There are at least 2-3 Hafiz/Hafizas in every household. There are women now covered on the roads. Providing high quality education to our students has resulted in them in high demand. They happen to be the highest paid teachers across different cities in Bangladesh. Many of the girls that got married continued from were they left as qualified students. They have gone ahead and established their own Madrasas. We are aware of over 500 girls who have continued to do this.
In the past 20 odd years, I have never done a Masjid collection/donation. Alhamdulillah. Everything happens by the Will of Allah. All my donors have been personal contacts, friends and people who come and meet me face to face. As we dont have many workers all our donations go 100% to the charity without any charity administration costs. The people who work for us, do it for Allah and charge no fees. The money we receive from you is an amanat for us. We make sure it reaches the most needy people. Our trustees look and decide on the type of help required, plan and organize, and then initate the work on it.