THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

48 Memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
down. He too became a soccer addict. Our Qur’an School tradition lived
on. No matter how minor the game, we were let out early to attend it.
After completing Standard IV at the Matang Malay School, I was sent
to an English school, the King Edward VII School, for a Special Malay
Class scheme introduced by the British for Malay pupils. My religious
classes were affected as I was only free on weekends. My mother, who
strongly believed that every good Muslim must complete reading the
Qur’an at least once in his lifetime, sent me to continue my lessons with
a Matang mosque official, Haji Mohd Ali, at his house in Tebing Tinggi.
He was the one who had bailed me out of the Matang Police Station after
I was caught taking a bath at a public tap.
As his house was a quarter of a mile from a road, he had to walk
through a small snaking path that barely existed. After a downpour, it had
hundreds of muddy pot-holes. No bicycle could get through. Even on foot,
one could very easily slip and fall on the uneven track. I often wondered
how he made his way in and out to attend to his duties in unblemished
starched clothes. No one in Matang, except for Headmaster Hashim, was
comparable. The only difference was that he wore a starched white coat
while Headmaster Hashim wore a khaki coat.
With mixed feelings, both of love for my mother, and of fear for not
fulfilling one of Allah’s commands, I plodded on until I completed the
thirty chapters of the Qur’an. At a special feast to mark the completion
of the reading of the Qur’an, my mother beamed as she witnessed yet
another of her ten children complete one of the innumerable tasks expected
of a God-fearing Muslim.
Note
1. By 2004, however, the school was reduced to a dilapidated shell of a building
overtaken by wild vegetation.