Deaf and Hard of Hearing Muslims

Striving for Participation in Islam

How many deaf people are Muslim? Or would a more accurate question be, how many deaf Muslims are able to participate in Islam? The answer seems to be that participation is limited, but growing.

Deaf Muslim Organizations

International

The Global Deaf Muslim (GDM) organization, since its inception in 2005, has worked to "advocate for and promote Islamic education for deaf Muslims around the world," according to its website. GDM's projects include an effort to develop an Islamic Sign Language. The organization also holds international conferences.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has deaf Muslim organizations. In September 2009 an About.com visitor wrote:

Muslim Deaf UK (MDUK) was the first organization in UK that aimed to make Islam accessible to Deaf and Hard of hearing community’s across United Kingdom, with several monthly seminars across various cities in UK including London.

MDUK became a registered organization in November 2008 Prior to this it was originally known as Muslim Deaf Group (Non-registered organization) MDG was established in 1994.

MDUK is the only organization representing Deaf and hard of hearing Muslims across UK. We aim for the unification of all Muslim organization on grounds of one common goal: "Accessible Islam through deaf peoples' preferred language Sign language".

There website is under-construction and has not yet been released!

Muslim Deaf Uk: Registered Charity 1126874

Deaf Muslim Social Networking

Yahoo Groups has The Deaf Muslim Club. Deaf Muslim Club is another similar Yahoo group.

Accessible Mosques

Some mosques provide interpreters. At least three mosques in Cairo, Egypt had interpreters as of the year 2000. More efforts to increase accessibility for deaf Muslims can be read in the first (December 2000) issue of Azizah Magazine, which had an article, "How Inclusive of the Disabled is the Muslim Community?" This article notes that there is a shortage of Muslim interpreters, and makes the point that deaf Muslims need Muslim interpreters in order to get the proper understanding of their faith.

In addition, efforts to make Islam accessible to the deaf are increasing around the world. In early 2004, the Risala charity of Cairo, Egypt began offering training to deaf students after the organization discovered that deaf students could not say their prayers or read the Koran. Jordan already provides interpreters at mosques.

In the United States, some mosques offer interpreting services. For example, according to Global Deaf Muslim's news page, a mosque in the Washington, DC metro area, the Northern Virginia’s Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, hired an American Sign Language interpreter to interpret the center's Friday prayers.

Deaf Muslims' Experiences

Another personal insight can be found in the World Around You (Winter 2001-2002) article "Muslim in the USA: Double Pain." In this article, Gallaudet University professor Dr. Mohammad Obiedat describes being deaf and Muslim in Jordan.

Deaf and Hearing Muslim Children

The Adam's World series from Soundvision.com has an episode (episode 7), "Born to Learn" that includes a character using sign language to teach deaf Muslims about Islam. Although the program is aimed at hearing children, it may benefit deaf children too.