By Kemo Cham
“We did not leave anything out of this book” (Quran 6:38).
Islamic scholar and Imam, Dr Ramadan Jalloh, repeatedly read the above verse throughout his decades of scholarly adventure, both in and out of Sierra Leone, but hardly did he fully appreciate its meaning, until he began researching scientific connections to the Muslim holy book.
Jalloh’s research was part of an inter-religious campaign against Malaria. His team was one of two groups of scholars from both the Islamic and Christian communities who were tasked to look for verses in their scriptures that match public health messages geared towards prevention and control of the parasitic disease.
The groups, representing the Islamic Action Group (ISLAG) and Christian Action Group (CRISTAG), are part of the Kombra Network (KN), a community engagement outfit that seeks to promote recommended health seeking behaviors.
KN comprises five pillars – the religious arm, which comprises CRISTAG and ISLAG; market women; traditional healers; civil society; and the media.
Within two weeks, the scholars came up with about a dozen verses.
Dr Jalloh says he came across a lot of interesting connections between relgion and science in the Quran during his research, and one of the most fascinating among them was the mention of the mosquito, which is the vector of the malaria causing parasite. “Surely Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable even of a mosquito or anything above that,” reads the verse.
“Not just the mosquito was mentioned in the Quran, but the female mosquito at that,” says Dr Jalloh at a training of trainers session for religious leaders.
The scholarly interpretation of the verse goes that it was a response to people, at the time it was revealed to the Holy Prophet Mohammad of Islam, who were in denial and raised a lot of questions about previous revelations referencing other animals.
“There is a lot of wisdom behind this verse … that this small animal is so dangerous to human beings,” Jalloh explains to the participants.
The training of trainers session, held on September 30th, brought together over 20 Imams and Pastors, drawn from within the Western Area. They were taken through communication skills, in respect to malaria prevention and control.
This is all part of a project being implemented by FOCUS 1000, with support from the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Sierra Leone, titled ‘Engagement of religious stakeholders on malaria social behavior change communication. The goal of the project is to effect positive behavioral change to minimize susceptibility to mosquito bites.
The idea was that the trainees would be deployed across six districts - Port Loko, Kambia, Tonkolili, Koinadugu, Kailahun and Pujehun - to train more religious leaders, who would in turn be tasked with cascading the knowledge gained to chiefdom and village levels. This is in line with KN’s mission.
‘Kombra’ is a local term referring to a suckling mother. But the term entails far more than the act of suckling; it encompasses all the caregiving required to ensure a proper growth and development of a child, from conception, through birth to the moment they are weaned.
A major goal of the KN is to get the men folks involved in this process. And the involvement of religious leaders is strategic in this.
The general perception has been that the role of caring for the children is exclusively that of the women, says Dr Jalloh.
“This network has changed that perception. Kombra means to love and care for one another, which is what God requires of us,” he says.
Dr Jalloh and his team blends their messages with Quranic verses and the teachings and actions of the Prophet – Hadith and Sunnah – which are the two main sources of the Islamic law.
“Everyone agrees that children and pregnant women are mostly susceptible to malaria. Quran teaches that pregnant women needs special care and attention, as are children,” the Imam says, emphasizing on the correlations between the Quran and science.
Like Dr Jalloh, Rev. Christiana Sutton Koroma too was fascinated by the mention of the mosquito in the Holy Bible as a result of this “challenging” task.
Rev. Koroma, who heads the CRISTAG, headed the Christian team in their research for corresponding verses in the Bible that speak to the experts health messages. And they found a lot of them, even if it didn’t come easily, she says.
“The Bible says my people perish because of lack of knowledge,” she notes, while underscoring the importance of education to man to not just serve God but also to do so by preserving oneself.
It was the ISLAG team that first discovered the mosquito reference in the Quran. The work of their Muslim colleagues forced the Christian team to work harder.
“I said I don’t think mosquito is mentioned in the Bible, Rev. Koroma recalls thinking to herself.
“But we kept searching back and forth. And when we found it, it was like bingo!”
Rev. Koroma says when they began putting together the information, more questions began popping up, forcing them to look for more answers in the Bible. She says the assignment made them dug deeper than they used to do when they just researched to deliver sermons to their congregations.
In all this, the one thing that stands out for Rev. Koroma is the exposure of the network members to the teachings of the two faiths.
“The beauty about the Kombra Network and such sessions is that they make us learn about each other’s faith and teachings, so that when someone is not available, the other person can stand in for them and speak to both Muslims and Christians,” she says.
Despite decades of public sensitization, Malaria continues to be the top cause of morbidity, especially among children and pregnant women in Sierra Leone. The disease is therefore a priority public health concern for the government, and it is ranked among the top three of the 27 diseases of interest for the Ministry of Health and its partners, alongside respiratory diseases.
Malaria is a major fueling factor of Sierra Leone’s twin public health crisis - maternal and infant mortality.
Experts say mosquitoes thrive in wide range of environmental conditions that require people to adjust their lifestyles to keep the insects at bay. These include ensuring a clean environment and, crucially, to sleep under a mosquito net.
According to the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS), social and behavioral change is crucial for Sierra Leone to reach its target for malaria elimination.
FOCUS 1000 hopes to use the voices of religious leaders to get the required change in the communities.
Mohammed Bailor Jalloh, CEO of FOCUS 1000, says religious leaders are such an important group of authorities in society that they command huge influence, hence the idea of capacitating them so that they could use their various platforms to help propagate awareness raising messages.
Jalloh says while in communication the emphasis is on the message, the Sierra Leone experience has shown that the messenger too counts.
“You may have a good message but bad messenger and they can spoil it,” he says.
“No group of people are more credible than religious leaders,” he adds.
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