Al-Qalam 
By Al-Qalam reporter
Mymona Galant was born in Durban in 1939, the youngest of five children, to Rashaad and Kubrah (nee Salie) Domingo. Her childhood home was No 37 Maud Lane in Central Durban, an address she repeated frequently in her last years. Both her parents were prominent community members in the small Durban ‘Malay’ community at the time. Her father was a manager in his brother’s textile factory and also a much consulted khatib in the community. Her mother was a well-known and sought-after dressmaker and also served as a ‘toekamandie’ (person responsible for washing and shrouding the deceased) in the community.
Mymona attended Albert Street Primary School and Umbilo Road High School up to Standard 8. During the Apartheid forced removals in the 1960s, the family moved to Havelock Road, Greenwood Park. She learnt how to recite the Qur’an from her parents. Her love for the Qur’an inspired her to join the Arabic Study Circle in Durban as one of its first students in the early sixties.
She married Sedick Galant in 1964, a teacher from Draper Street, Claremont and relocated to Cape Town. Her parents joined them in Cape Town in the early seventies and lived with them, in Vanguard Estate, Athlone, until they passed on.
In Cape Town, Mymona initially followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a dressmaker working from home. In 1973, she started volunteering as a teacher at the Vanguard Madrasah near her home. Inspired by her teaching at the madrasa, despite having no formal teaching experience, she started attending tajwid classes taught by the late Hafiz Yusuf Booley in order to improve her recitation. She also enrolled for short courses offered by Vista University on child psychology. These studies inspired her to apply to the University of the Western Cape (UWC) for degree studies despite having no matric. In 1997, two years after her husband had passed away, she was granted an age exemption at the age of 58 and started studying towards her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of the Western Cape. In 2002, she completed her Honours degree in Arabic and Linguistics at UWC.
For twenty years, Mymona taught at the Vanguard Madrasa, later becoming the principal. During this time, she developed a pioneering phonetic method of teaching Qur’an reading. She developed a comprehensive madrasah teaching syllabus accompanied by colourful wall charts, flash cards and other visual aids. She proceeded to share her knowledge and experience of teaching this method for Qur’an reading in numerous workshops with madrasa teachers from various madaris in the Western Cape, as well as teachers in Zimbabwe. Her method of teaching Qur’an reading has been published in a series of eight Qur’an Readers currently used in all grades at the Claremont Main Road Mosque Saturday Morning Madrasa. During her active years, she also taught regular hajj classes and toekamandie classes to groups of women at home and other locations.
Mymona’s life personifies lifelong learning and teaching. She touched many people’s lives through her teaching and leaves a lasting legacy of a method for Qur’an reading that will benefit generations to come. Mymona Galant is survived by her three children, Jaamia, Khalid and Raashied and one grandchild, Zidane.
