Baitul Mukarram khatib says involving students in politics is ‘oppression’

He says it is crucial to stop drawing students into party politics

Abdul Malek, the Khatib of the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, has described the use of students in party politics as an act of “injustice and oppression”.

On Saturday, he said emphasised the need to shut the path that drags students into party politics.

“I will say something that may sound surprising to you,” he said in a seminar at the Krishibid Institute.

“Students being used in politics -- this is oppression against them. Don’t political parties have student fronts? Why? It is oppression, nothing else.”

Malek said Islamic parties also exploit students, including madrasa students, in many cases. “It is wrong,” he said.

He added that teaching worldly science and knowledge in an “atheistic and un-Islamic way” in Muslim countries was another form of grave injustice. “That oppression must end to protect students,” he said.

Malek stressed that students’ rights were being undermined in many ways, alongside those of workers, owners and people from other professions.

The seminar, titled “Women’s dignity, security and awareness”, was part of a programme marking the launch of a new Islamic organisation, Insaf Foundation.

Abul Bashar Muhammad Saiful Islam, secretary general of Insaf Foundation, presented a paper.

He said, “For a woman, being under a man’s guardianship is not inferiority but a guarantee of security. Men must understand this, and women must also understand it. Too often, women feel inferior, thinking men dominate them and question their own social value. But being under male guardianship is not belittlement -- it is assurance of protection.”

From an Islamic perspective, Saiful Islam argued that men’s guardianship stems from responsibility, not authority.

“Male guardianship is not about exerting power but about carrying responsibility,” he said. “This awareness and perspective must spread widely, beginning in the family. The family must be a school, shaping children’s views from early on. Boys and girls should be given equal opportunities, equal dignity and equal love.”