Islamic Center Graduates Spiritual Leaders, Chaplains

By William B. Reinckens, Washington File Staff Writer

Leesburg, Va. -- The graduation ceremony at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (SISS) last week had all the trappings of any other American university conferring advanced degrees -- caps and gowns, a musical entrance march, a robed faculty and a guest list of joyful families and friends. The only difference with this graduation was that its focus was on Islam and its meaning in the modern world.

SISS presented for the first time graduate degrees in Islamic Sciences with concentrations in either Shari'ah Sciences, Political Science or Religious Practices.

According to school administrators, the three-year-old educational facility is filling a growing need for American Islamic spiritual leaders and making it possible for military chaplains to better assist Muslim men and women in the U.S. military.

"Our main goal is integration," said Dr. Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, SISS president, who pointed out that the curriculum is designed to teach students about Islamic civilization and culture while exposing them to Western civilization, culture and social sciences. He said many of the foreign students who attend the center come because of the Islamic faculty, to improve their English, and "to better understand the West."

"There is no country or society today that can close its door to the world and create barriers between people," Al-Alwani said, adding that he hopes the school will turn out students who are prepared to be "new citizens for the global world."

Dr. Al-Alwani has studied at Al Azhar University in Cairo, has taught at universities in Saudi Arabia and has written on different aspects of shari'ah. He has attracted a full-time faculty at the SISS and solicited support from a prominent part-time faculty to lecture on various aspects of Islam.

One is Dr. Ali Mazrui of Kenya, who serves as Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at the State University of New York. He has written and lectured on Islam in Africa. Other faculty include Dr. Mona Abul-Fadl, who taught at the University of Cairo; Dr. Nasr Muhammed Aref, a professor at Cairo University and a postgraduate fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University; and Dr. Yusuf Talal De Lorenzo, who translates books, monographs and theses from Arabic into English. The school utilizes other Muslim scholars from across the United States to conduct seminars, conferences and workshops.

The graduating class at the school included naturalized U.S. citizens from Iraq, Ghana, Bangladesh, Syria and Pakistan. Their foreign classmates came from Yemen, Algeria, Lebanon, Indonesia and Egypt. The class was rounded out with three Afro-American converts to Islam.

Besides family members attending the graduation, the ceremony attracted people from the Washington diplomatic community: Ambassador Clovis Maksoud, former Arab League Ambassador to the United States and Yahya Hendi, the 32-year-old Muslim chaplain hired last May by Georgetown University, one of the U.S.' leading Catholic universities.

Men and women attended classes together six days a week. All were older students with careers, jobs and families. Each student made the decision to take two-and-a-half years out of their lives to pursue degrees relating to the study of Islam. The center was started through a grant from the Government of Malaysia.

The rapid growth of Muslims in the United States, who are estimated at 6 million -- has created a need for religious clerics who are trained in both Islamic traditions and contemporary counseling skills. In the past 25 years, over 1,000 mosques have been built in the United States.

Currently, there are two Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military. With last week's graduation, however, the number of Islamic clergy in the armed services has increased to six. Their training has become one of the school's main focuses.

The U.S. Department of Defense requires that chaplains prove that they have trained at an appropriate institution. Al-Alwani mentioned at the graduation that he is in discussions now with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to train chaplains for the different institutions around the country.

Each of the students received their degrees dressed in traditional garb. The three women who were graduated wore their hijabs or scarves under their caps. The men, who were part of the chaplains program, wore their army or naval uniforms under their gowns.

In brief interviews following the ceremony, Abu Hena Saif-ul-Islam, who upon graduation became the second Muslim chaplain serving in the U.S. Navy, expressed pride in his officer's white uniform and the silver crescent lapel pin which indicates his religious affiliation. Another graduate, Saif-ul-Islam, who was born in Bangladesh, spoke of his new role as spiritual advisor as consistent with "God's wish."

The school is located in Leesburg, Virginia, about 50 miles west of Washington, D.C. Its library houses 50,000 English, Farsi and Arabic language texts, many of them donated from personal collections, and a modern computer network which allows for English and Arabic searches on the Internet. The system is linked with other U.S. universities and library systems that have Arabic-language materials on-line.

The classroom instruction is conducted in English but each of the students must be able to conduct research in English and Arabic and recite from the Koran. "We are able to transfer the Islamic legacy to this language (English)," said Al-Alwani.

At the graduation, Dr. Al-Alwani described the school's mission as a marriage of Western academic tradition and the Islamic faith, allowing Muslims from around the world to study in an atmosphere that is "free of political and radical versions of Islam" but stresses the universal appeal of the religion.

"American society is very open to receiving any culture and civilization," said Al-Awani, noting that people in the East only see negative images of the United States through films and television. He sees his school's curriculum as one that encourages students to find shared moral values with those of Islam.

Kalid Jahid Shabazz, who is one of the new Muslim chaplains, will return soon to active duty in Germany. Six years ago, he converted to Islam while serving there. He received permission to take a leave of absence from the U.S. Army and spent an estimated $5,000 of his own money for tuition to pursue his study of Islam. His wife and three children attended the ceremony. Shabazz, who is originally from Louisiana, will serve as morale officer and will also be responsible for conducting Islamic religious services. The other chaplains will serve at bases in the United States.

Another army chaplain graduate is Ibraheem Abdur Raheem, a Kansas native, who will soon travel to Korea to take up his chaplain duties. He said that he also converted to Islam while stationed in Germany in 1993, where he served as a medic. He said his military career allowed him for 12 years to "mend bodies and now I'll be able to mend souls."