Sreelatha M

Ashraf Khan teaches Tamil at a private college in Chennai. Blind since childhood, he learnt Braille at a small madrassa for the visually impaired in Melvisharam near Ranipet in Tamil Nadu. Born to poor parents, he once had little hope of formal education. Today, he earns around ₹50,000 a month.

Khan attributes his journey to Mohammad Usman, founder of Madrassa Imdadiya, a trust that supports blind and disabled students from some of the most deprived backgrounds. “Education saved my life,” Khan says.

Unlike Khan’s story of upward mobility, Usman recalls seeing blind children begging alongside their parents outside temples and mosques. “That is what happens to the poorest among Muslims,” he says. “When parents are blind and poor, the children end up on the streets.”

Madrassa Imdadiya intervenes at precisely this point. The trust takes such children off the streets and introduces them to Braille-based learning. While some parents continue to receive financial support from the trust, many are now supported by their educated children. “That is the real success,” Usman says.

Students at Madrassa Imdadiya

The madrassa is semi-residential and operates from a 5,000-square-foot facility that offers boarding for students who come from distant districts. Currently, 50 blind students are put up in the Madrassa, the youngest just seven years old. Only ten of them are girls. Hostel staff take care of the children, ensuring their safety and daily needs.

The diversity of students at Madrassa Imdadiya reflects the unavailability of disability support in India. Many arrive from districts where government special schools exist only on paper, or where families are unaware of disability certification, scholarships or assistive technology. For parents struggling with poverty, blindness often becomes an inherited condition — not biological, but social — passed from one generation to the next through lack of opportunity.

By combining religious instruction with formal schooling, the madrassa fills a gap that neither the state nor mainstream educational institutions has adequately addressed. It has earned the trust of parents while enabling students to move into higher education and employment. For many, it is the first time learning is not treated as charity, but as an entitlement.

Students study the Quran, Hadith and other religious texts in Braille while simultaneously pursuing general school and college education using audio tools. The madrassa also admits students with other disabilities, though Braille instruction is conducted separately.

Madrassa Imdadiya

Usman says the idea came to him after learning about a madrassa for the blind set up in Johannesburg in 2010 by Maulana Hasan Marchi. Inspired by a talk Marchi delivered in Mumbai, Usman established two centres in Tamil Nadu — in Ranipet and Chennai.

Similar madrassas now function across India, including in Kashmir. “The best ones are in Tamil Nadu, Pune, Ahmedabad and Aurangabad,” Usman says. The Tamil Nadu centre is the largest and also prints and supplies Braille textbooks and religious material to other madrassas for the blind. Printing a single copy of the Braille Quran costs ₹3,500, but it is distributed free of cost across India and abroad.

“All our students become Hafiz and complete Class 12 and degree education,” Usman says. Many go on to pursue B.Ed degrees, learn to use computers, or acquire manual skills such as chair weaving. Around 500 blind students benefit from these madrassas across India.

Usman’s ambition is expansive: a school for the blind in every district and a tuition centre for the blind in every village. He is critical of the Muslim community’s engagement with education. “Other communities invest in education. We don’t,” he says bluntly.

Students of Madrassa Imdadiya

Yet he takes pride in his students’ achievements. One of them, Mobina (name changed), was blind and destitute, left vulnerable after her father’s death. The madrassa supported her education, and today she teaches at a government school, earning about ₹75,000 a month.

Asked about the saddest story he has witnessed over the past decade, Usman pauses. “Every story here is a sad story,” he says. “The happy stories go to cities and private schools. They don’t come to my trust-run madrassa.”

The institution is open to people of all ages and does not follow conventional school structures. Those who come late to education are not turned away. Several former students have gone on to work in government services, including one who joined the Railways after enrolling at the madrassa later in life.

Students learning the holy Quran at Madrassa Imdadiya

The low number of girls at the madrassa also points to a deeper social barrier. Concerns around safety, mobility and marriage prospects often result in girls being kept indoors, invisible even within their own communities.

Usman acknowledges this imbalance but says persuasion takes time. “Families don’t refuse education outright,” he explains. “They hesitate.” For institutions like Madrassa Imdadiya, inclusion is therefore not just about admission, but about shifting attitudes around gender, disability and worth.

According to disability activists, access to education remains one of the biggest challenges faced by visually impaired children in India, particularly among economically weaker communities. While government schools and special educators are in urban centres, families in small towns and rural areas often lack information or support.

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For blind children born into poverty, the absence of early intervention can push entire families into begging or informal labour. In this landscape, community-run institutions like Madrassa Imdadiya function as rare entry points into formal learning — offering not just literacy, but a pathway out of inherited destitution