Ghulam Sarwar, 44, was told by magistrates that he had abused his position of trust.
Sarwar, who has no previous convictions, was found guilty after a trial last month of three counts of common assault by beating.
Slapped
Manchester magistrates court heard he slapped two of the boys about the head with a flat hand and the other in the ear.
Tess Kenyon, prosecuting, said a leaf had blown on to a copy of the Koran all three were supposed to be reading. One boy tried to smell it but it stuck to his nose, causing them to laugh.
Sarwar, of Avondale Street, Cheetham Hill, was ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work and pay court costs of £930.
Henry Fenton chairman of the bench, said: "These were young victims, children. We see this as an abuse of a position of trust."
Ms Kenyon told the court that the mother of one of the boys complained to police in March after her son told her what happened.
Her husband had complained previously to another mosque about a similar allegation, the court heard.
Ms Kenyon said: "Both boys were video interviewed and both boys gave very similar accounts about what had occurred.
"They detailed that a leaf had blown onto a copy of the Koran. They started to laugh.
(Sarwar) came over to them and another child sat next to them. They were hit by a flat palm to the head. One was hit to the ear and the other two to the head."
The court heard Sarwar denied the allegations on arrest and told police he was aware of the law.
A victim impact statement from one mother was read out to the court.
Disgusted
In it she said: "I am disgusted.... the law in this country states that you cannot hit or injure a child.
"I was, and still am, frightened about getting the police involved but what sort of message would I be sending my children. I have to show them that they can trust their mother."
An appeal against Sarwar's convictions has been lodged.
Barry Cuttle, defending, said: "This is a man of absolutely excellent character.
"He reacted wrongly. He lost his temper, which he cannot do."
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3 slapped heads and 250hr community service for the bloke who did it. All for what....because a leaf dropped on a book.
In a mosque is sharia law the only law and if so would a slap be acceptable? I am curious to know because the man may have not realised that he was committing an offence.
Maybe our children would be better people if they get a slap from the teachers instead of a social worker telling them their rights?.I think that this teacher deserves a medal,We have teachers cowering because they are under seige in some of our schools we have teachers having mental breakdowns because the kids are running the schools.Im sorry but i think we in britain have lost the plot.We really need corporal punishment back in our schools to maintain some form of order.Taking this out of schools has created these generations of morons we have.No control.
Priests should be made to wear a glove with a pressure gauge fitted to it so they can monitor wether the slap was a happy slap or a hurtful slap.
I take it from the comments you make regularly wanting to bring back corporal punishment that you recieved this sort of dicipline yourself and administered similar to your own children.Now it is illigal how do you manage to control your children or grandchildren?
No jail term, suppose if earned £180,000 a year and hit a woman(surely more vunerable than a child), he would have had to go to jail.
Redberry - ignorance is not a defence.
Local lad - I agree. Got same at our school and it made you behave.
Angie33 - I would slap my kids if they over stepped the mark. Legal or illegal. They know this and guess what? They behave.
Lovinthebanter - If he was a smug snobbish man who 'punched' someone in the head, then, yes!
Redberry - as he didn't use Sharia Law as a defence or mitigating circumstance I can only assume that he did know. It's not unknown for teachers to hit pupils, even though it's illegal. I think you're just poo stirring to be honest.
Angie33 , Manchester
The only control (legally)is to ask the kids to behave and we all know they do exactly as they are told,or just shout but you have to watch about shouting at the kids incase there is a law to stop you doing that? (mental cruelty etc).PC britain or how the children control the adults.
A couple of days ago a judge told a 'youth' that he deserved the good kicking he received from the two grown up sons of a police officer after he punched the mothers car.
i wonder if this man had been a police officer and not a muslim preacher he would have been held up as a responsible, even heroic, adult in a world ruled by 'feral' kids.
CorneredAllTheLuck, Tameside
19/10/2009 at 19:08
He is not a teacher but a preacher and my point was if he was following another set of rules could he be excused.
I don't think he could have used sharia law in a UK court. You have completely lost me with your accusation that I am stirring.
Maybe you're seeing something in my original post that is not there, this is a problem with our society today people are always looking at things from the negative. There is an old proverb "when a man looks for problems, that is what he will find"
Redberry, the law is the same matter regardless of being inside or outside a Mosque, and the article states that the man was aware of the law.
I am a bit suprised that a family which sends children to a Mosque for education would do so in order to obtain a more traditional on than provided in schools, including punishment of this nature, shows we shouldn't make assumptions I suppose.
"I would slap my kids if they over stepped the mark. Legal or illegal. They know this and guess what? They behave"
But do they behave because they believe it is right an proper to do so, or out of fear of violence?
Oh, dear! As we all know (or should, by now), Sharia in the UK is only a dispute resolution mechanism, which people can choose to take civil disputes to, rather than clog up the courts. No one is forced to participate if they don't want to. And Sharia has no part in our criminal justice system, nor should it. Mind you, it has been claimed that non-Muslims are increasingly using Sharia courts to resolve issues. Realise this may not satisfy some punters...but the fact that the 'bloke who did it' was Muslim will get even the 'mature' acting like vexed upon the chair of ill
This man should know better, but sadly he is probably one of the religious dinosaurs that have a 'All work no play' ehthic about there religion, which is quite frankly taking any religion too far!!
These were kids who were laughing at something that any child would laugh at in life, so to hit the kids is taking it too far and I think persnally he should be given community service to assist a children's home with challenging children (This is the only way he will learn for future ref)
I was an occasionally badly behaved boy and was duly clattered by both my parents - as were my brother and sister. We have all duly clattered our own children for bad behaviour and I hope they will, when the time comes, clatter their children. I was clattered by school teachers, sunday school teachers, scout leaders and various other adulkts who found my behaviour unacceptable.
We are a respectful and respected family. We have all been fairly successful, have always worked and all own our own houses. We all have full and active social lives. There is no mental illness, drug-taking or alcoholism. We have no criminal convictions, we get on with the neighbours, do unpaid community work and donate to charity. Above all, we all have an absolute sense of right and wrong and knowledge of the consequences of straying from the path. So how were we damaged by corporal punishment???????
Can the idiot liberals not see the connection between this obsession with personal 'rights' and the rapid downward spiral of this country.
Spare the rod - spoil the child. Oh, and don't bother telling me that the only reason I am in favour of corporal punishment is because my parents were as that is just stating the bleedin obvious.
What might he do if they were actually naughty.
i think all teachers should start whacking some unruly students. then maybe a little discipline would follow. but not here in uk! you cant even talk back to a child these days without the child running to the police and crying (false) abuse .
Makes a change to find that a Mosque preacher has been prosecuted as the hitting of children at the Madrassers is common practice. This wasn't a simple slap no one gets a sentence as severe as this for that, it was an attack which resulted in a minor injury.
I know of a child with Dyspraxia beaten black & blue at the mosque / madrasser by adults, it's been reported to the Police and the NSPCC but because of the fear surrounding accusations of racism no one is willing to act. The onlt reason that this case got to court is that the complainant is Moslem and there can be no suspicion of racism.
CITYCENTRE - But do they behave because they believe it is right an proper to do so, or out of fear of violence?
They behave, because they know right from wrong, because I educate them. I dont condone slapping your kids here, there and everywhere, like some parents seem to do. But if a line is over stepped and behaviour is out of control, then I do advocate discipline in the form of a slap on the legs. I wouldnt call that violence. Ive seen the police do alot worse to 'discipline' unruly people.
CITYCENTRE - But do they behave because they believe it is right an proper to do so, or out of fear of violence?
Combination: fear of violence make them realise that behaving is better all round.
mariam akbar
How true your words are.Its time we started to bring control back into our society.Start at the bottom and work upwards.
We know that most of the crime we have is because The idiots we have, dont realise that we have to all comply to rules and regulations and controls that keep us all safe,or that was the case until around forty years ago.Since then weve had the bleeding heart liberals running the country (sorry your way dosnt work).We need to get control back within our communities.
Local lad: "Start at the bottom and work upwards."
Well, credit where it's due, at least you volunteered to go first.
Local Lad: "The idiots we have, dont realise that we have to all comply to rules and regulations and controls that keep us all safe,or that was the case until around forty years ago.Since then weve had the bleeding heart liberals running the country (sorry your way dosnt work)."
No, the problem is idiotic busy bodies like you who have turned the law into a joke. At one time we had a fairly restricted set of laws that focused on things that were seriously important. Then nanny-statist clowns like you started demanding that the law intrude in progressively greater depth in areas that it doesn't have any legitimate business intruding in.
Unfortunately, you aren't bright enough to realise that when you do that, people start to view the law as a nuisance and lose respect for it.
It said here an appeal has been lodged does that mean he is on legal aid?
He has been found guilty by a judicial system that is fairer than most Muslim countries so he should accept the decision. There is only one winner here and that is his legal team.