Darul Uloom Al-Madania is a private Islamic madrasah in Buffalo, New York and the largest Deobandi madrasa in North America,[1] that is devoted to producing Islamic scholars (ulama) and huffaz with academic study up to high school.
Mufti Masood Memon Makki, the eldest son of the school's founder, serves as the current president.
Both the founder and the current president were students of renowned 20th-century Hadith scholar Shaikh Zakariyya Kandhlawi.
The school and its related institution, Darul Uloom Canada, have long been accused of corruption and physical and sexual abuse,[2][3] including a 2008 sex scandal that ousted the co-founder and principal Ibrahim Memon.
The search for a suitable building that would serve as an institution began in 1986, when Ismail Memon and Shaikh Ibrahim were living in Waterloo, Canada.
Later that year, another property was obtained on Sycamore Street in downtown Buffalo, only to have the sale cancelled by the owners.
In 1993, Holy Mother of the Rosary Cathedral of the Polish National Catholic Church, relocated to Lancaster and was purchased and converted into a mosque and boarding school.
On March 3, the church across from the newly formed Masjid Zakariya, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, was also purchased and converted into a women's school.
Darul-Uloom Al-Madania Boys' campus covers an area of approximately six acres consisting of sixteen buildings with hundreds of dorm rooms.
[14] Darul-Uloom Al-Madania Girls' campus covers approximately one acre of land which is separated from the boys' school and is located on another street.
Included in the syllabus are math, English, social studies, science as well as Arabic, Quran, and Hadith.
Students are also offered a variety of activities including arts and crafts, physical education, and field trips.
[18] The Masjid Zakariya was built in 1904 as the Holy Mother of the Rosary Polish National Catholic Cathedral, and is a designated city landmark.
Darul Uloom Al Madania launched a distance learning program called eAlim in mid 2010.
The subjects taught included Arabic grammar, syntax, and morphology, Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence), Hadith, Uloom al-Hadith (Sciences of Hadith), Aqidah (Islamic Theology), and Seerah (Biography of the Prophet Muhammad).
These beatings were nearly daily and included items like extension cords, solid piping, hangers, and wood canes.
A former student, Abdullah Islamovic, living in Canada filed a lawsuit against Darul-Uloom Madania for not doing enough to protect him from sexual abuse in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Another former student, Usman Makhdoom, also living in Canada, filed a lawsuit and accused Dr. Ismail Memon of sexually abusing and assaulting him in the 1990s when he was 13 to 14 years old.
[12] A former female student alleges that a teacher at the school, Hafiz Sahib, sexually abused her starting from the age of 14.
[2] A senior teacher, who did not have requisite immigration documents, was allegedly required to perform duties beyond his teaching agreement.
Ibrahim Memon allegedly tried to blackmail a student accused of engaging in homosexual activities to malign the teacher's character.