A Religious Experience: Richardson School Follows, Preserves Muslim Tradition

By David Flick

Reprinted with permission of the Dallas Morning News.

Richardson -- No visitor arrives unwelcomed in Sister Majida Salem's third-grade religion class.

"Assalam-alaikum," Kamal SeSalem, principal of Brighter Horizons School, greeted the children one day last week. Peace be upon you.

"Wa'alaikum assalam warahmatullahi-wa-barakatuh," 20 young voices rejoined in unison. And on you may be the peace of Allah and His blessings.

This follows the Muslim tradition, Sister Majida explained.

"When someone greets you with a blessing, you respond in your turn with a greater blessing," she said.

In the days before Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that begins this weekend, tradition and blessings are very much in order.

There are 330 students at Brighter Horizons, a pre-kindergarten to ninth-grade institution, which claims to be the oldest and largest Muslim school in Texas.

"Oldest" in a relative sense. The school was founded in 1989 and is housed -- for the remainder of this academic year -- in three buildings near Richardson's old downtown.

Its facilities are spare, but they represent an exponentially growing interest in Islamic education in the United States. Thirty years ago such schools were virtually unknown in this country.

There are now more than 200, according to Muhamed Nimer, director of research for the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C. The number has increased five-fold since the 1980s and has doubled since the early 1990s, he said.

Growth of Islam

That increase coincides with the steady growth of Islam, considered by many to be the country's fastest-growing faith. American Muslims currently number about 6 million.

Brighter Horizons, one of a handful of Muslim schools of varying size in Texas, educates children representing a rainbow of Muslim ethnicities across Dallas and its northern suburbs.

Most of their parents work in high-tech industries and enjoy a higher income than many other clusters of Muslims in the United States, according to Mr. SeSalem.

The local families are returning the blessings of that affluence by financing construction of new facilities near Jupiter and Belt Line roads. The $ 2.2 million first phase of the new Brighter Horizons school is expected to be completed in February and will house 20 classrooms, plus computer, science and language laboratories and a library, he said. Eventually, they plan to have 1,000 students up to grade 12.

For now, the largest group of students meets on the second floor of the Taiwanese Bible Church near Greenville Avenue.

In a sunny, narrow classroom there, Sister Majida prepares her charges for the opening of Ramadan, a time of prayer, fasting and good works to commemorate the revelation of the Koran to Mohammed 1,400 years ago.

The holy period begins when the crescent moon is sighted above the horizon after sunset Saturday.

"At the beginning of the month, we have forgiveness," she told the children. "At the middle of the month, there is mercy; and toward the end of the month, freedom from hellfire. But only if we fast."

At the same moment, in a room nearby, Sandra Gray's topic for her ninth-grade history class was "Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth."

The contrast illustrates the school's double role, which is to preserve the virtues of Islamic culture while preparing the students for success in American society.

"These kids usually have at least one immigrant parent, and they have the Muslim values at home, but most of them were born here. You always have to remember: These are American kids," Ms. Gray said.

Culture Clash

Classes at Brighter Horizons are much more interactive than a similar class would be in a Muslim country, and students are more likely to challenge a teacher, she said.

Yet the confluence of the two cultures causes tensions, never more so than this week when U.S. forces attacked Iraq.

Mr. SeSalem said school officials play down such incidents, especially among the younger children.

"We are not political here," he said.

Older students are not so easily restrained.

"My ninth-graders came in buzzing about it today," Ms. Gray said on the morning after the bombing began. "It's tough for them. They are being tugged two ways within themselves."

Discussions with some of the older students found that most said they disliked Saddam Hussein but felt that U.S. attacks unduly hurt the Iraqi people. And some said that other children in their neighborhoods often misunderstood and mistrusted their Muslim heritage.

"I remember somebody asked me if Saddam Hussein was my uncle," said Zaira Abu Baker, 15.

Students said they depended on fellow students at Brighter Horizons for support at such times.

"These are the same people you are," said Zaiba Jetpuri, 15. "They go through the same things you do."

The school teaches the standard curriculum for Texas schools, using the same textbooks as in the surrounding Richardson school district.

But the religious component is everywhere.

The students receive one lesson a day in Islamic studies, and one in Arabic. All students wear uniforms and, beginning in fifth grade, girls must cover their heads with the distinctive hijab.

Each day at a prescribed time, the older students assemble in the cafeteria and pray to God ("Allah" in Arabic) while facing Mecca, Mohammed's birthplace.

"Behavior and Education"

Always, there is discipline.

"Our concern is behavior and education, not just education," Mr. SeSalem said.

A misbehaving student is first given an oral warning by the teacher. A second offense results in a written note to parents. A third offense requires the parents to come to the school for a conference.

The offenses are usually not large.

"We don't tolerate one student telling another to shut up," Mr. SeSalem said. "If a teacher heard that, the student would be disciplined."

As Ramadan approached last week, discipline was on everyone's mind.

"Do you know what fasting means?" Sister Majida asked her third-graders.

"Not eating, not drinking, not lying, not cheating," answered Nabilah Elheet, 8.

Although children so young are not required to participate in the dawn-to-dusk fast, many do so for practice, Sister Majida said. In any case, the children of American Muslims must practice the rigors of Ramadan at the same time Christian children around them indulge in the bounty of the Christmas season.

"Being here helps them a lot," she said.

The students can depend upon each other for support -- and on a reminder from teachers that the holy month ends in January with eidul-fitr, a celebration of the end of fasting, marked by feasting and gifts.

"Many children who are in public schools don't do so well at this time of year, but here they are among friends," she said. "Besides, they know they have their own celebration coming."

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