Official translation:

‘He has no formal education, but in Zanzibar and Oman, he studied the Quran, religious sciences and Arabic under a number of Islamic scholars’.

Corrected translation:

‘He had no exposure to state doctrination, but in Zanzibar and Oman, he studied tafsir of the Quran, sciences of shariat, i.e. the laws governing all aspects of daily life, and fiqh, and Arabic – directly, face to face, i.e. not by mere reading, from a number of Islamic scholars’.

‘In my day the folks were caught up with the halaldom or not of chewing-gum’; ‘in my day’ said his younger companion, ‘it was the obsession with and the reduction of the deen to the head-scarf’; ‘Now its more subtle’ said his son – in his own language: ‘we’re not allowed to share our food in the kinder-garden’; and ‘why not?’, ‘cos the friend we share with might be allergic to what we give him.’