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The Model School, Islamic Style
As they learn about the American Dream, these kids
wonder if it's theirs to pursue
By MARGUERITE MICHAELS/BRIDGEVIEW
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Photo Essay: Islamic Learning
Posted Saturday, Jun. 11, 2005
The boys, with some affection, call their school "the
box." It is an acknowledgment that their modern, gray
concrete building with 36 classrooms and a basketball
court is both protection and containment. Outside the
box, says senior Ali Fadhli, there are "problems." He
means temptation � and bigotry. The temptation is sex
and the way the culture outside the box is saturated
with it. "That's why Islam has repentance," he says
with a laugh. The bigotry is from fellow American
citizens who the students believe are watching them
with suspicion. Since 9/11, "there's been extra
pressure on them," says Hanan Abdallah, their
assistant principal. "Anytime they're out, whatever
they say counts 110%. They are young adults at an
earlier age."
The place that's preparing these young Americans for
life in their own country, "from crayons to college,"
as its slogan promises, is the Universal School, an
Islamic institution teaching 638 students in pre-K
through 12th grades in Bridgeview, Ill. The suburb, 16
miles southwest of Chicago's downtown Loop, lies in
the heart of one of the U.S.'s largest Arab
communities, where an estimated 25,000 Islamic
residents pursue an uneasy assimilation into secular,
suburban life. The school's goal is to give its
students such a solid grounding in their religion and
education that they will be able to go forth and
succeed in mainstream American life without
compromising their values. "Proud to be Muslim, proud
to be American," says Safaa Zarzour, vice chairman of
the school's board and its former principal.
Universal takes pride in the fact that it is a model
Islamic school. "Being a Muslim is synonymous with
excellence in every area," its parent-and-student
handbook says. Day-to-day life as a model student,
however, has been an "edgier" balancing act ever since
9/11, says Zarzour. "Our acceptance as Americans is on
far shakier ground." Last year, after a student's
picture appeared in a local newspaper as the winner of
a regional spelling bee, the school received a series
of bomb threats. Meanwhile, from inside the box
looking out, fear and anger have grown among many
students, teachers and parents as the Iraq war and the
mistreatment of Muslim prisoners have provided further
reminders of the conflict between cultures. "We never
looked at it as Americans doing something to Muslims,
but rather, how can Americans do something like that
to anybody?" says Abdallah. While the moderate Islamic
community's typical response is to take a low profile,
the Universal School gave Time an unusual degree of
access for a look inside a community searching for its
identity. "We're telling our kids they're American,"
says Farhat Siddiqui, Universal's principal. "But the
doors of opportunity have been shut since 9/11. What's
the password to open them?"
The roots of Universal School go back to the arrival
of a wave of new Muslim residents in the southwest
Chicago suburbs during the 1970s and '80s. Many were
Palestinian immigrants who had fled the violence and
lack of economic opportunity in their homeland. Busy
pursuing the American Dream, they assumed Islam could
be passed on to their children around the dinner
table. What began to show up at mealtime instead was
dyed-green hair and requests to start dating, like the
other kids in the public schools. The Islamic students
faced discrimination as well, to which they responded
with a different but just as American idea: forming
gangs. "Tap boys," they were called, which stood for
Tall Arab Posses. "The parents realized their children
were drifting from what was holy and valuable to
them," says Zarzour. "They were getting involved with
everything from drugs to Halloween."
Organized by community leaders and built with
donations from Muslims across the U.S. and a loan from
the Islamic Development Bank, Universal opened its
doors in 1990. Since then it has become a fully
accredited institution, with 95% of its graduates
going on to college. The growing sense of harmony was
abruptly reversed on the morning of 9/11. After a
frightened parent called the school, a classroom TV
was wheeled into vice chairman Zarzour's office, where
he watched the second plane hit the World Trade
Center. "As soon as the terrorism speculation
started," says Zarzour, "the parents came and took
their kids home. The head of the FBI came out from
Chicago. The mayor and police chief of Bridgeview
stopped by. After all the kids had gone, I sent the
staff home."
Prompted by anti-Muslim demonstrators marching toward
Bridgeview from a neighboring suburb, local police
secured the area around the school and the mosque next
door, manning the barricades for three days. "That day
changed my life," says Zarzour, an immigrant from
Syria. "Up until that time, Arab-American Muslims were
the new kids on the block, going through the same
adjustment as the Jews, the Irish and the Hispanics
before us. A little discrimination was part of the
process of integration. Now people don't think there
is any such thing as a good Muslim."
What's being taught to children inside the Universal
School, however, is based on a moderate philosophy
that puts an emphasis on assimilation "to prepare them
for their future roles in society as responsible
citizens," says the handbook. (Tuition ranges from
$4,500 to $4,900.) The school has a mainstream
curriculum and a wholesome range of activities: school
newspaper, science-fair club, volleyball, math league,
spelling bees. The boys'varsity basketball team won
the championship trophy in the Chicago Unity league,
an interfaith conference. Students take part in
community-service outings with other private schools,
bag food twice a month for two homeless shelters in
Chicago's inner city and work as volunteer nurse's
aides at the local hospital.
Principal Siddiqui, 35, a mother of three whose
parents came from India, contends that the strain of
Islam taught at Universal is one that is free of
provincial baggage. Certain features of regional Islam
� arranged marriages, a ban on women driving � are not
part of the program here. "It's a constant battle,
separating cultural issues from religious values,"
says Siddiqui. The school does teach how to avoid
being seduced by those parts of American culture many
parents consider un-Islamic. "What we're up against in
movies, television and music," she says, "is
profanity, sex and violence. The whole teenage
phenomenon in the U.S. is one of personal power �
claiming their own voice, their own soul, their own
spirit. We don't want to crush that. We want to guide
it."
The first order of business is removing temptation.
The codes of dress and behavior are strict. Students
must have regular haircuts ("no bleaching or 'off'
colors are allowed"). Students must wear socks and
closed-toe shoes. Boys cannot wear earrings or have
any body piercing. Students may not wear makeup during
school. Through Grade 5, the girls wear plaid jumpers
and leggings, but the head scarf called a hijab is
optional; the boys wear navy dress pants and light
blue shirts. Older girls must wear the hijab (light
blue for middle schoolers, gray or white for high
schoolers) and a calf-length navy top that resembles a
raincoat. Wearing the hijab full-time is a big
commitment, so some girls take it off as soon as they
leave the building. Freshman Sarah Martini says, "I'm
not ready to wear it yet. It has to come from the
heart." Girls are separated from boys from sixth grade
through tenth grade. As juniors and seniors, they mix
again, although the sexes sit separately in the
classroom. Casual conversation between girls and boys
is discouraged at all times. Cell phones and iPods are
banned, but the principal is realistic about it. "If I
did a locker check," says Siddiqui, "I know what I'd
find. So I don't. Better cell phones than drugs."
The second order of business is creating what
Universal calls an "Islamic environment." The Koran
and the sayings of Muhammad are taught two days a
week, Arabic three days a week. Grades 2 to 12 break
for prayer once a day. Beyond Scripture, a Muslim
approach influences the traditional curriculum as
well. When teacher Fuzia Jarad's English class read
Romeo and Juliet, the girls wanted to know, "Is it
love at first sight?" "Yes," the teacher answered. "As
Muslims, we don't do that. The difference is lust
versus love; appearance versus knowing. Islam protects
you from mistakes." For assistant principal Abdallah,
who is in charge of discipline, love is a big issue.
"I've had students come to me and say, �So and so are
in love. Everyone is gossiping about the girl. Her
reputation is ruined.'I tell them, �If you care, show
respect and stop the discussions.' Sometimes a girl or
boy will tell me about a love letter they've received.
It's always a letter. They can't socialize. They don't
want the letter. They don't want to get in trouble.
The feelings for each other are natural. Islam gives
us a way to approach those feelings. Choose your
spouse, but don't give your body or soul to someone
until you're married."
What's central to the environment is a sense of Muslim
family values. That's why Mohammad (Mo) Suleiman sent
his daughter Samia, 18, to Universal. "Family means
the older have mercy on the younger," says Suleiman,
"and the younger respect the older." The students seem
to make an effort, but cultural isolation is
impossible. "My dad will hear the word love when I
play my music, and he'll say that's against our
religion," says freshman Ryan Ahmad. "So I'll stop for
a week. But then one of my friends will start singing
some lyric, and I start up again." When freshman
Gulrana Syed watches TV, she tries to stick with
family shows but gives in to the temptation to watch
Fear Factor. "If swearing starts," she says, "I turn
it off and hope God forgives me."
Though the school and the parents want their kids to
be successful in America, the ambivalence of many
Islamic parents sends mixed signals. The pull of their
home country is a constant distraction from fitting
into this one. "They are obsessed with foreign
politics," says Steve Landek, who has been mayor of
Bridgeview since 1999. "I come to talk to them about
better sidewalks. They want to know how to run for
Congress so they can change America's Israeli policy."
Clearly respectful, however, of the economic and
cultural contributions of Muslims to the community, he
regrets to say 9/11 has set them back. "I still hear
comments. I'm not going to repeat them. I'm not going
to perpetuate the negative."
Some families have tried to turn back history.
Martini's parents are Syrian, her father a doctor who
finished his medical degree in the U.S. After 9/11,
the Martini family went to the United Arab Emirates.
"We weren't welcome here as Muslims," she says. "And
my parents wanted my brother and me to experience an
Arab culture." The experiment lasted only a year. "It
was not as Muslim a country as we thought," says
Martini. "There's lots of Western influence. And we
missed our relatives here."
The Universal School makes clear its independence from
the controversial institution right next door, the
copper-domed Bridgeview mosque. Built a decade before
the school, the mosque was started by moderates but
then saw a power struggle in which hard-liners came
out on top. Among its leaders, said the Chicago
Tribune in an investigative report, "are men who have
condemned Western culture ... and encouraged members
to view society in stark terms: Muslims against the
world." Last year a member of the mosque was indicted
for allegedly funneling money, before 9/11, to Hamas,
the militant Palestinian group.
The students next door sometimes give voice to the
commonplace resentment that can be found among Muslims
the world over. Assigned by his English teacher to
write an essay about his own American Dream, a
15-year-old wrote that the occupied territories should
be returned to the Palestinians and "the Jews should
be left to suffer." More often, however, Universal's
students feel resentment about being stereotyped, both
in the media and on the streets. To senior Ali Fadhli,
the Fox TV show 24, which had a plot this season about
a Muslim terrorist cell, is "obnoxious," he says.
"America has moved on to a new enemy. We're treated
now like the Russians were during the Cold War." Being
teenagers though, perhaps the worst slight of all is
being regarded as outsiders. "The students are aware,"
says Dalila Benameur, head of the social studies
department, "that they are perceived as different."
Says freshman Gulrana Syed: "It's kind of impossible
to blend in wearing a head scarf." Student Ryan Ahmad,
whose dad is his toughest music critic, admits,
"Americans seem to have more fun. Muslims try to be
American, but we don't know how. The cultures are so
different." A sense that U.S. life has its own
contradictions provides some perspective. Senior Muna
Zughayer, noting the use of women as sex objects,
says, "I think it's funny people look at us and say
we're oppressed!"
Vice chairman Zarzour has become more hopeful as time
has passed since 9/11, believing that "it will be
harder and take longer, but integration is possible.
Unless ..." He trails off, reluctant to say what he
fears: unless there is another attack on the U.S.
"What will happen to us and our children?" he asks.
"Internment?"
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