Aljamea-tus-Saifiyah: An Arabic academy with focus on religious & mainstream education

It exclusively caters to the education of young boys and girls from the Dawoodi Bohra community. The focus is primarily on spiritual and religious studies, along with mainstream education, provided to students in association with internationally-recognised school board curriculum.

The Mumbai campus of Jamea, spread around 850,000 sq ft, is a second such campus in India. The first unit was established in 1810 in Surat. Globally this will be the fourth campus of Jamea after Karachi (]1983) and Nairobi (2017) and Surat.

Aliasgar Najam, senior administrator of Jamea, said, “Mumbai is one of our important cultural centres. We have our very important mausoleum in south Mumbai. It is also home to the largest Bohra population in the world.”

The campus comprises separate hostels for boys and girls, faculty residences, a multi-storey administration and classroom building, library, dining hall, prayer hall and a building dedicated to teaching of the Quran.

Najam said, “Essentially, it was founded for the teaching of the literature and lore of Bohra faith… The Jamea aims at preparing young boys and girls from the Bohra community to take up leadership roles in the community.”

Students enter Jamea between the ages of 12 to 14 after having completed seven or eight of traditional schooling. The eleven-year programme covers secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

The curriculum is designed to ensure that students are studying curricula in line with local and international boards that administer certificate-granting examinations, such as IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) or South Asian SSC (Secondary School Certificate).

Huzefa Tawawala, a faculty member, said, “Apart from Cambridge curriculum, Islamic knowledge is essentially imparted in three subjects – law, literature and history. The younger students are taught the empirical sciences along with economics, sociology, business studies and home economics. In higher classes, you have an introduction to different disciplines such as linguistics, advanced 20th century history, introduction to architecture along with introduction to world religion.”

Students appear for local and international examinations concurrently with their studies at Jamea, whose credentials have been accepted at a number of reputed national and international universities.