Al-Hira Educational Society Nepal: Schools and Madrasas
In short
Al-Hira Educational Society Nepal has been running schools and madrasas for Nepali Muslim children since 1994. It now manages fifteen institutions and an orphanage, teaching over five thousand students with a faculty of around 240. This page sets out what it does, why it was needed, and the educational gap it exists to close — along with current figures rather than the ones still circulating from a decade ago.
What's on this page
What Al-Hira is
Al-Hira Educational Society Nepal is a non-profit organisation that establishes and runs schools and madrasas for Muslim children across Nepal. It was founded in 1994 and is registered with the government, affiliated to the Social Welfare Council.
| Founded | 1994 |
| Registration | Registered with the Government of Nepal; affiliated to the Social Welfare Council |
| Institutions | 15 madrasas and schools, plus an orphanage |
| Students | Over 5,000 |
| Teaching faculty | Around 240 |
| Hifz students | Around 250 |
| Girls' institutions | 2 exclusively for girls |
| Hifz madrasas | 5 |
| President | Khursheed Alam Islahi |
| Journals | Payham and Madhur Sandesh |
Figures from the organisation's own current published account. Older material still circulating online cites 12 institutions and 134 teachers, which reflects the position roughly a decade ago rather than today.
The stated vision
To enable a new generation of Nepali Muslims to face contemporary challenges through a balanced curriculum — Islamic grounding combined with modern subjects, rather than a choice between them.
The problem it exists to solve
The case for an organisation like this rests on a single uncomfortable statistic.
Nepali Muslims have historically recorded among the lowest educational indicators of any community in the country, and the gap for Muslim women is wider still. Al-Hira's own materials cite a national literacy figure of about 66% against roughly 45% for Muslims — and while the national figure has since risen to 76.3% in the 2021 census, the gap itself has proved stubborn.
Geography
Most Nepali Muslims live in Terai districts along the southern border, where state school provision has historically been thinnest.
Poverty
Many families depend on daily wage labour. Schooling competes directly with income the household needs now.
Language
Instruction is in Nepali, which is not the mother tongue of most Terai Muslim children — Urdu, Bhojpuri, Awadhi and Maithili are.
Trust
Where families doubt that state schooling respects their faith, a religious institution offering both is more likely to keep children enrolled.
That last point is the one most often missed by outside observers. Madrasas in Nepal are not competing with a well-funded state alternative that families are rejecting. In many of these districts they are the education that exists — free, local, and trusted.
Founding and growth
Al-Hira was established in 1994 with the aim of meeting the educational needs of Nepal's Muslim community. It has now been running for more than thirty years.
| Measure | Roughly a decade ago | Current |
|---|---|---|
| Institutions | 12 | 15, plus an orphanage |
| Teachers | 134 | Around 240 |
| Students | About 5,000 | Over 5,000 |
| Sponsored orphans | 415 | Orphanage plus ongoing sponsorship |
| Hifz students | Not separately reported | Around 250 |
The pattern worth noticing is that student numbers have held roughly steady while teacher numbers have nearly doubled. That is not stagnation — it is a falling pupil-teacher ratio, which is what quality improvement actually looks like in practice.
| Islamic scholars produced | More than 215 |
| Graduates in modern education | More than 160 |
| Orphans and poor students sponsored | More than 4,450 |
| Teacher training camps | 11 |
| Education seminars | 3 |
| Islamic books published | 7 |
These are cumulative figures reported by the organisation since 1994 and drawn from its own account. Several date from an earlier published summary and the current totals are likely higher.
The society also reports that its graduates include doctors, engineers, Islamic scholars, and hifz graduates now serving as imams and community leaders across Nepal.
The institutions
The fifteen institutions are spread deliberately rather than concentrated, and the placement tells you something about the organisation's priorities.
Terai
Morang, Sunsari, Siraha, Kapilvastu and other southern districts where the Muslim population is concentrated.
Hills
Including Palpa, where one madrasa is reported to be five hours by bus from the highway, or a full day on foot.
Urban
Biratnagar among others, serving families working in nearby industry as labourers.
Boarding
Several institutions provide hostel facilities so that students from remote areas can attend at all.
The society describes its institutions as located across hill areas, plains and urban settings specifically to ensure accessibility for all communities. The Palpa madrasa is the clearest illustration — a day's walk from a road is not a location anyone chooses for convenience.
Two of the fifteen are secondary-level schools. Five are dedicated hifz madrasas, where students memorise the Qur'an in full. Two are exclusively for girls. One of the girls' institutions, in Siraha district, is described as among the oldest institutions for girls' education in Nepal.
The curriculum question
The phrase Al-Hira uses repeatedly is balanced curriculum, and it is worth unpacking because it is the organisation's central claim.
The old model
A madrasa teaching Qur'an, Arabic, Urdu and Islamic law alone. Produces scholars, but graduates with limited access to further education or the job market.
The state model
Government schooling in Nepali with no religious component. Better recognised, but families in some districts have been reluctant to use it.
What is attempted
Both in one institution — religious grounding alongside the government curriculum, some of it in English medium, so that a graduate has real options.
This is not a settled question in Nepal, and Al-Hira is working inside a wider effort. A Madrasa Islamic Association Board was set up in 2007 to regulate madrasas but had little practical effect. A national madrasa curriculum up to grade 10 has been developed under the Ministry of Education, with input from figures connected to Al-Hira, aimed at bringing consistency across institutions that currently vary enormously.
Why it matters practically
A student who completes a purely religious education has a narrow set of paths open. A student who completes both can become an imam or a doctor. The whole argument for the balanced curriculum is that it does not force a fourteen-year-old to choose.
Orphans and sponsored students
A substantial part of the society's work is not teaching but making attendance possible at all.
| Orphanage | One, operated directly by the society |
| Sponsored orphans | Reported at 415 in an earlier published summary |
| Poor students supported | Reported at 300 in the same summary |
| Cumulative since 1994 | More than 4,450 orphans and poor students sponsored |
| Material provision | Books, computers and sewing machines supplied to most institutions |
| Boarding | Hostel facilities at several institutions for students from remote areas |
The sewing machines are worth a second look. They are not incidental — vocational provision alongside academic teaching is what makes education viable for a family weighing schooling against the income a working child could bring in. It is a practical answer to the poverty constraint rather than an appeal to principle.
Girls' education
Two of the fifteen institutions are exclusively for girls, and this is the part of the work with the largest measurable gap behind it.
Female literacy in Nepal was 34.9% at the 2001 census and had roughly doubled to about 69% by 2021. Among Muslim women the figures have consistently trailed the national rate for women, which in turn trails the rate for men. Whatever the precise current number, the compounding disadvantage is not in dispute.
The girls' madrasa in Balkawa, Siraha, is described as one of the oldest institutions for girls' education in Nepal and provides hostel facilities for students travelling from distant areas. A boarding place is often the difference between a girl from a remote village attending school and not attending at all.
Beyond the classroom
The society reports work that sits outside direct teaching, and this is where an educational organisation either becomes durable or does not.
Teacher training
Eleven training camps reported. A madrasa network is only as good as the people in front of the classes, and trained teachers are the constraint.
Seminars
Three education seminars, bringing the question of Muslim schooling into open discussion rather than leaving it to individual institutions.
Community campaigning
Work to persuade the community itself to invest in the next generation's education — arguably the hardest and most important item on the list.
Infrastructure
Classrooms built at every institution; books, computers and equipment supplied to most.
The item that outlasts the rest
Buildings decay and funding fluctuates. A community persuaded that its daughters should finish school does not un-persuade itself. The campaigning work is slower than construction and worth more.
Publications
The society publishes two journals, Payham and Madhur Sandesh, and reports seven published Islamic books.
The two titles are themselves informative. Payham is Urdu; Madhur Sandesh is Nepali. An organisation publishing in both languages is addressing two audiences at once — the Urdu-speaking Muslim community of the Terai, and Nepali-speaking readers including the wider public. For a minority organisation, publishing in the national language is a decision about whether to speak only inwards.
The wider madrasa picture
Some context, because madrasa education in Nepal is frequently discussed by people who have not looked at it closely.
Largely unregulated
The 2007 regulatory board achieved little. Standards, curricula and record-keeping vary enormously between institutions.
Donation-funded
Most run on community donations and provide education free. That is why they reach children the state does not.
Pandemic damage
Reporting from 2021 documented madrasas losing the large majority of their students during Covid closures, with children returning to home villages in the Terai.
Reform in progress
A national curriculum to grade 10 has been developed to bring consistency. Al-Hira sits on the reform side of this argument, not the resistant side.
That last point is the fair summary of where this organisation sits. It is not defending an unreformed system against outside scrutiny — it runs English-medium schools, combines the government curriculum with religious teaching, trains its teachers, and has people involved in national curriculum development. The argument it is making is that Muslim children should get both, and that neither half should be sacrificed.
The short version: Al-Hira Educational Society Nepal has spent thirty years on a problem the state left largely unaddressed — that Nepali Muslim children, concentrated in the poorest districts and speaking languages the school system does not use, fell far behind everyone else. Fifteen institutions, around 240 teachers, over five thousand students, an orphanage, two girls' schools, and a madrasa a day's walk from the nearest road. Whether the balanced-curriculum model works at scale is a question that will take another generation to answer properly. But the graduates now practising as doctors and engineers, alongside those serving as imams, suggest the basic proposition — that a child should not have to choose between the two — is sound.
Common questions
What is Al-Hira Educational Society Nepal?
A non-profit organisation founded in 1994 that establishes and runs schools and madrasas for Muslim children across Nepal. It is registered with the Government of Nepal and affiliated to the Social Welfare Council. It currently manages fifteen institutions and an orphanage, teaching over 5,000 students with a faculty of around 240.
When was Al-Hira founded?
In 1994, with the stated aim of meeting the educational needs of Nepal's Muslim community. It has been operating for more than thirty years.
How many schools does Al-Hira run?
Fifteen madrasas and schools plus an orphanage. Of these, five are dedicated hifz madrasas where students memorise the Qur'an, two are exclusively for girls, and two are secondary-level schools. They are located across the Terai plains, hill districts and urban areas. Note that older material online still cites twelve institutions, which reflects the position roughly a decade ago.
Why is Muslim education a particular concern in Nepal?
Nepali Muslims have historically recorded among the lowest educational indicators of any community. Against a national adult literacy rate of 76.3% in the 2021 census, literacy among Muslims has been reported at around 45%, with a wider gap for women. Contributing factors include concentration in Terai districts with thin state provision, dependence on daily wage labour, and instruction in Nepali rather than the Urdu, Bhojpuri, Awadhi or Maithili spoken at home.
What is a "balanced curriculum"?
The society's term for combining Islamic education with the modern or government curriculum in the same institution, some of it in English medium, rather than requiring students to choose between religious and secular schooling. The practical argument is that a graduate should be able to become an imam or a doctor, and that a purely religious education narrows options too early.
Does Al-Hira educate girls?
Yes. Two of its institutions are exclusively for girls, including one in Balkawa, Siraha, described as among the oldest institutions for girls' education in Nepal, which provides hostel facilities for students from distant areas. Female literacy in Nepal rose from 34.9% in 2001 to about 69% in 2021, but Muslim women have consistently trailed both figures.
Does Al-Hira support orphans?
Yes. It operates an orphanage directly and sponsors orphans and students from poor families. An earlier published summary reported 415 sponsored orphans and 300 poor students at that time, with more than 4,450 supported cumulatively since 1994. Support includes books, computers and sewing machines supplied to most institutions, and hostel places for students from remote areas.
What does Al-Hira publish?
Two journals — Payham in Urdu and Madhur Sandesh in Nepali — along with seven published Islamic books. Publishing in both languages addresses the Urdu-speaking Muslim community of the Terai and Nepali-speaking readers including the wider public.
Are madrasas regulated in Nepal?
Only loosely. A Madrasa Islamic Association Board was established in 2007 to monitor and regulate madrasas but had little practical effect. Standards and curricula vary widely between institutions. A national madrasa curriculum up to grade 10 has since been developed under the Ministry of Education, with involvement from figures connected to Al-Hira, intended to bring greater consistency.
MashaAllah may Allah SWT reward you all and allow me to work with you one day in sha Allah in Nepal ameen
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