Vanthali

 BY: ABDUR RAZZAQ THAPLAWALA

I spent the night in Hotel Paramount of Junagadh. Next morning, we started for visit to Bantva - my birth place. The road leading to Bantva was good and passed through Vanthali. There were farms on both the sides of the road. Within an hour, we reached Vanthali, our first stop in the journey to Bantva. On he main road of Vanthali, there is a JamiaTaaleem-ul-Quran which is run by Jamia Taaleemul-Quran Charitable Trust, Vanthali. The Jamia was established in September, 1996. Almost all the trustees are non-Memons but funds were coming from the Memon philanthropists from all over the Gujrat. It has a magnificent & beautiful building. More than 1000 students are studying at this Jamia and the Jamia is spending Rs. 42 lacs per year. The students are tought Arabic, Farsi, Hifz Quran, Nazira Quran and computer science. They have a very well stocked library, Masjid and residential quarters. I visited a class room where lessons in Hadees were being taught to the students. I also visited their computer room which contained 10 modern computers. The following are the statistics of the students studying at the Jamia.

The Jamia is also running Markatib or schools at the following places other than the main Jamia in Vanthali:

A Memon colony is situated very near the Jamia. I went to the Memon Colony. The colony has been built by World Memon Foundation with the help of Vanthali Memon Jamat. The buildings in the Memon colony were apparently in good condition but the ladies at the colony complained that they have the houses but their manfolk have no jobs. They were doing different labour work and hardly earning enough to meet both ends. They requested that the community elders should do something to provide some sort of jobs for their manfolk.

The population of Vanthali is about 20,000 people. This includes 4,000 Muslims and about 1,500 people belong into Memon community.

After Vanthali, we proceed to Manavadar which was only 22 KM from Vanthali. I did not see any place of interest at Manavadar. The distance between Bantva and Manavadar is only 8 KM.

22 Main gate of Madresha Jamia Talimul Quran Vanthali.jpg	23 The main gate of Jamia Talim ul Quran Vanthali.jpg
24 Memon colony Vanthali 1.jpg	25 Memon colony Vanthali 2.jpg
26 Road from Vanthali to Mananadar.jpg	27 A Vanthali bazar.jpg
30 Jamia Talimul Quran Vanthali.jpg	31 Library of Jamia Talim ul Quran Vanthali.jpg
32 Names of Board of Trusts Jamia Talimul Quran Vanthali

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