美国国家公共电台 NPR This Islamic School Helps Students Build Their American And Muslim Identity

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

People who are serious in their faith often want to send their children to a religious school - Muslim parents, no different. There are now nearly 300 Islamic schools across the United States, and the number is growing. NPR's Tom Gjelten visited a school in northern Virginia where the mission is to help the students understand what it means to be Muslim-American.

TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE 1: Like any good fifth-grade teacher, Mike Matthews wants his social studies unit on the American West to be as exciting as possible, so he's working with his students on a special Wild West evening at the school.

MIKE MATTHEWS: We're going to have good old cowboy-fashion hot dogs and beans, Texas Toast, beef jerky. We're going to have a mock campfire where I'll be doing traditional storytelling from the Southwest region.

GJELTEN: Part of the classroom will be set up like a desert scene. The students have been learning about cacti 2 in their science class. Teacher Matthews says the hallway outside the classroom will be set up like - get this - a saloon in a Muslim school.

MATTHEWS: They can't have pictures of, of course, alcohol or any of those things. And we had the discussion already about what is appropriate for our school setting according to our mission. So the students are going to create an indoor saloon, but we're going to make it kid-friendly.

GJELTEN: The Al Fatih Academy in the D.C. suburb of Reston, Va., has a lot in common with other elementary schools. The school curriculum, at all levels, follows state guidelines, though with some special twists. Across Virginia, eighth graders take civics. At Al Fatih Academy, a class includes an extra emphasis on social justice.

ANN RAHEEM: A command was given, and a blast of water struck the young protesters like a truck knocking them backward. Still holding onto each other, they tried to keep singing a song called "Freedom."

GJELTEN: Teacher Ann Raheem is reading the students a story about children in Birmingham, Ala., leading a civil rights demonstration 3 during the '60s.

RAHEEM: It's so amazing what they were able to do as such young kids, that they made the decision that they were going to risk going to jail.

GJELTEN: One lesson - if Muslim-Americans are to overcome the discrimination they may face, they should honor the struggles of other groups that have encountered similar obstacles. A related point from the co-founder of the school, Afeefa Syeed - if they want their religion respected, young Muslims need to learn to respect other faiths.

AFEEFA SYEED: And that is one of our goals. Bring in somebody just - talk about Christianity who is a Christian 4, a Jewish person who would come and talk about Judaism. And it helped the students, especially, understand if we treat people like that, with authenticity 5, then they will treat us in the same way.

GJELTEN: Increasingly, Islamic schools are gaining the same acceptance in American education that other religious schools have long enjoyed. Shad Imam, who has a daughter and a son at Al Fatih, knows that a public-school education might strengthen his kids' American identity. The problem, he says, is that public schools remove God from the equation.

SHAD IMAM: I have found, in my friends in other faith communities, that some of the challenges of raising children - religiously minded children, is the same. And I think you will find, you know, faith communities coming together on the sense of, well, we have a sense of God-consciousness and community. And we want to be able to impart that on our children without it being kind of removed from them.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Speaking Arabic).

GJELTEN: At Al Fatih Academy, of course, the program is grounded in Islam. Most of the female teachers and older girls - not all, but most - wear headscarves. The students are taught how to pray, and they all take Arabic, if only for a better understanding of the Quran, which they learn to recite.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Speaking Arabic).

GJELTEN: As the students here deepen their connection to their faith, they also need to face the reality that Islam has become associated, in some minds, with terrorism and hate. These young Muslims have had to struggle with the actions of extremists who share their religion, like the Pakistani-American and his wife who carried out the massacre 6 at San Bernardino. That was not an easy case for the students at Al Fatih.

SYEED: And they would say, well, this was a Muslim guy. This was a Muslim woman.

GJELTEN: The school co-founder, Afeefa Syeed.

SYEED: And as they're talking, they're saying, but that's not what a Muslim does. How could they even think to do that? You know, and they're clearly thinking through this without us just spooning them the answers because we've created a climate here where we have them think through what it means to be a person of faith and specifically what it is to be a Muslim.

GJELTEN: Such conversations may come more easily in an all-Muslim environment where the children dare to raise questions they'd keep to themselves in a more public setting. Some research suggests that Islamic schools actually promote more free thinking among Muslim-American youth than public schools can. They also give young Muslims a sense of their own heritage here. Parent Hoda Mojadidi (ph) tells the story of her middle school children going on a field trip to Mt. Vernon to learn about George Washington.

HODA MOJADIDI: When they went to the area designated as the slaves' cemetery 7, the teachers would talk about the role of the Muslim slaves that were brought to America. And it gave them a glimpse of Muslim history in America.

GJELTEN: At the same time, an Islamic school, just like a public school, teaches the rights and responsibilities of American citizens.

RAHEEM: When the responses come, we can identify them.

GJELTEN: Back in the eighth-grade civics class at Al Fatih, the students have been writing letters to their representatives about government issues that concern them. Ayra Aslam wants to see something done about the road congestion 8.

AYRA: I wrote to my state elected officials about the traffic on Route 7 and how maybe they could, like, fix it by adding an extra lane because it's, like, really bad in the morning. And, like, if they added an extra lane, I would get to school, like, on time.

GJELTEN: That could be any American teenager talking. Fateeha Syed, just finishing eighth grade, will attend a public high school next year. And she thinks her education at Al Fatih has prepared her for what comes next.

FATEEHA: Here we learn to be ourselves, and we go off to, like, public school where we can be ourselves with other people.

GJELTEN: So it maybe gives you more confidence.

FATEEHA: Yeah, it gives me the confidence. I make my identity here, and I go out, and I can go to schools - other schools with other people but be my identity, make new friends and things like that.

GJELTEN: Muslims are still a tiny fraction of the U.S. population, but they're estimated to be the fastest growing religious group in the country. Many Muslim youth will go through the public school system. But for those who want more about God in the classroom, private Islamic schools will play a key role alongside Christian, Jewish and other religious academies. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.

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