‘Garden of Knowledge’ cultivates lifelong learning

I felt very privileged to be at Alfirdaus College in Bankstown on Sunday 21 June 2026, for the very intimate opening of the Garden of Knowledge, a new Arabic library nestled within the college premises.

The launch was the culmination of many years of planning by the Alfirdaus team – a beautiful, purpose-built  space where the community can read, learn and enjoy.

It’s a small room for a college library, but deliberately so – intimate enough that twenty people in there will make it feel like a full house  and warm enough that you understand immediately why that was the point.

Brother Mazen Fahme, a prominent Sydney Quran educator and Principal of Alfirdaus College, opened the evening by welcoming the 50-strong gathering and then taking us back to where it all began. 

He spoke about the early 2000s, the period after 9/11, and how he and a handful of others saw the writing on the wall early, that Muslims growing up in the west would face challenges. 

Their response wasn’t protest or political organising, it was based on education.

“We chose the fight of tarbiyyah through the Qur’an….the nurturing of faith, impact, manners and building good character – alongside knowledge, of course,” he told the room. 

“There are many ways of fighting back, many ways of bringing goodness.”

“We chose the fight of education, more specifically Islamic education, more specifically Qur’an education.”

That choice became Alfirdaus College, founded in Bankstown in 2005 as a not-for-profit, part-time Qur’an college. 

From humble beginnings, Alfirdaus has grown into one of Australia’s leading providers of Quran, Arabic and Islamic Studies education, today serving thousands of students through a network of campuses across Sydney as well as a centre in Melbourne.

Br Mazen was upfront that the organisation has never chased visibility  – no major marketing campaigns and no fundraising drives – just working on relationships built one at a time while remaining self-sustainable.

“We’ve never been interested in spending money to look good, we spend it on being good and doing the right thing,” he said. “It’s very, very grassroots.”

While the growth of Alfidaus over the past 21 years has been significant, the organisation isn’t about the numbers, moreso  the responsibility that comes with them.

When it comes to recruitment, he explained, character matters more than qualifications.

“We actually recruit people on how nice they are, then we look at their tajweed, then we look at other skills,” he said. 

“We focus on people who can build relationships, people who care, people who follow up.”

From there, the evening moved to another of the library’s other major driving forces, Ustadh Muklis Mah, who oversees Alfirdaus’s Arabic program. 

He told a story from his own student days in Madinah, watching some classmates forge ahead while others struggled – and discovering the difference almost always came down to one thing.

“Those who read did really, really well,” he said. 

“It was easy for them to learn, easy for them to memorise.”

“I also look back on being in high school, in English class, and our teacher would give us time just to read…..that’s actually best practice.”

This observation, coupled with linguist Stephen Krashen’s research on self-selected reading, became the philosophy behind everything that followed.

The plans for the Garden of Knowledge are ambitious but certainly achievable. 

A fortnightly book club is already running across multiple levels, while read-aloud sessions, movie nights, games nights and bilingual parenting workshops are all planned.

Ustadt Muklis noted that while several activities will be held in the space during July, the library is expected to become fully operational in August as its collection, volunteer base and programming continue to be expanded.

“The classroom can only be one part of this journey,” he pointed out.

“It’s not theoretical, it’s not grammar-based, because that’s how you kill a language….but Arabic is alive!”

Perhaps the most innovative idea is the proposed “Human Library”, where respected community figures will sit with small groups of students and simply tell their life stories in Arabic or English.

By the end of the evening, the message was simple. 

The Garden of Knowledge needs books, volunteers and, above all, people….parents and their kids will play a huge part.

“It needs a community,” Ustadh Muklis said. “Otherwise it’s an empty room.”

• Library area photos including feature image courtesy of Brother Faraz Nomani.