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Latest Updates: Muslim Schools RSS

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  johnpi 8:33 am on February 13, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: faith schools (11), girls schools (6), Islamic centers (9), mosque construction (15), mosque expansion (14), Muslim Schools, new mosques (14), schools (20)

  Green light for Muslim girls’ boarding school in Burnley.

  The new college will have 1,500 students, 230 of which will be boarders from all over Europe.

  Vice principal of the new college Jean Weston told the committee: “The college will improve achievement in the town and will raise aspirations locally.

  “People from the college will go on to employment locally and will be of benefit to the town.

  “They will shop in Burnley and will use local services while the boarding part of the college will create jobs for local people.”

  One key to the success here was that a school had been housed there previously that had 4,500 students. I think it was hard for opponents to argue against 1,500 with that history.

   

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  johnpi 9:55 am on February 8, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Islamic centers (9), mosque construction (15), mosque expansion (14), Muslim Schools, new mosques (14)

  A 5,000 student Muslim girls school planned for a small town in northeast England that was huge and out of scale to the surrounding communities has not only been halted by the Charity Commission but the local MP will attempt to compel legal action against the charity that proposed the project.

  The prospect of a boarding school for 5,000 Muslim girls being set up in Pendle has been shattered by the Charity Commission. The charity watchdog has ruled Birmingham-based charity Islamic Help was operating outside its charitable objects in raising money for a school at Brierfield Mills.

  In a hard-hitting decision, the commission has ordered donations to be returned to those who responded to the appeal for funds.
  ….

  Pendle MP Gordon Prentice called in the commission, insisting Islamic Help was breaking charity law in asking for money for a purpose outside its charitable objects.

  “I shall be raising this issue in Parliament. I want to see a full audit of the finances of Islamic Help. And I want the Charity Commission to maintain an oversight and supervisory role.

  “I am also left wondering what kind of assurances were given by the charity to Lloyds TSB (57% privately owned) to secure the £650,000 loan.”

  You can’t just say, “Inshallah!” and come blazing in without regard for the local political response, which is nearly always cautious at best or alarmist at worst whenever new religious institutions come to a community.

   
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  johnpi 12:15 am on December 13, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: charter schools (3), faith schools (11), islamic state schools (4), Muslim Schools, schools (20)

  Embattled Muslim charter school’s lawsuit against the ACLU dismissed.

  In ACLU of Minnesota v. Tarek Ibn Ziyad Acadamy, a Minnesota federal district court dismissed counterclaims for defamation and tortious interference with contract brought by the sponsor of a charter school against the ACLU that was suing it alleging Establishment Clause violations. The counterclaims were based on statements made by the ACLU’s executive director, who repeatedly insisted that the Academy was using taxpayer dollars to operate a sectarian Muslim school.

  The court held that the body of law holding that government bodies may not sue for defamation applies to a publicly funded charter school.

   
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  johnpi 9:51 pm on December 12, 2009 | 11 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: faith schools (11), ismaili (2), Ismailis (2), Muslim Schools, schools (20)

  Unusual program lets Ismaili Muslim parents, kids share learning experience.

  Class springs to attention with the Pledge of Allegiance. Five-year-old Saniya Khoja takes the lead, twirling a red-white-and-blue flag the size of a napkin. Little ones with hands over hearts recite “… one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.” Then, Saniya and her classmates sing “Are You Sleeping, Brother John?” Voices rise in Arabic greetings. Mothers and a few fathers join in harmony.

  This is an after-school program for Ismaili Muslim children in Carrollton at their social and spiritual center, known as a jamatkhana. And the program emphasizes an essential that public schools have tried to inspire for decades: parental involvement.

  “This is the secret sauce,” said Gulzar Babool, the national program director for the Ismaili Learning Center for Parents and Children. “It is what makes it successful.”

  The program at the Learning Center for Parents and Children emphasizes early literacy and school readiness and “empowers mothers to assimilate in this community,” Babool said.

  Ismailis are a minority within the Shia sect of the broader Muslim world of 1.5 billion. And Ismailis are 10,000 strong in North Texas.

  The program is a fusion of traditional and Montessori teaching methods. Montessori methods generally are characterized by the absence of tests and grades and allow for small group instruction.

  The Ismaili program places an emphasis on exercise, including yoga, and teaches children Spanish as an additional language. The program takes children ages 3 to 6 years old with at least one parent willing to commit to stay in the classroom with the child.

   
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  johnpi 11:58 am on November 6, 2009 | 39 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: American Muslim leaders (10), American Muslims (71), associating with Muslims (2), campus Muslims (2), conservative Muslims (7), gay muslims (11), mosque control (3), mosque leadership (3), mosques (38), muslim american (20), muslim american extremism (25), Muslim converts (7), Muslim dissidents (2), Muslim families (3), Muslim family life (3), muslim fanatics (18), Muslim feminists (6), Muslim Identity (2), Muslim Leaders, Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (2), muslim liberals (7), Muslim Schools, Muslim unity (2), Muslim women (80), Muslim World (13), muslims condemn (3), Muslims in America (36), Muslims in Politics (5), peace activist Muslims (3), progressive muslims (6), western muslims (8)

  Interesting conversation I was having with another moderate Muslim.

  Her point: Mainstream/moderate American Muslims deserve the suspicion of our fellow Americans for having allowed this thing to grow among us that resulted in the violence at Fort Hood and other recent expressions of extremism, for shrinking back from mosque boards and private school committees when those of the puritanical strain among us take them over, for allowing ourselves to be put on the spot at mosque functions and social events instead of turning it around and not putting them on the spot.

  Agree or disagree?

   
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  johnpi 5:47 am on September 24, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Feminism (26), girls schools (6), indonesia (54), Islamic feminism (9), Muslim feminism (8), Muslim Schools, schools (20)

  Time magazine: Indonesia’s Islamic schools: More female friendly.

  When she was widowed two years ago, most people in the Javanese village of Babakan Ciwaringin expected Nyai Yu Masriyah Amva to marry again. They also assumed that the local pesantran, or traditional Indonesian Islamic boarding school, would close with the death of her husband, its head Islamic scholar. Neither happened. Bucking tradition, Amva decided that she would run the school. “If men can do it, then why can’t I?” the 48-year-old recalls praying. “If you, Allah, are the source of all power, then why do I have to find someone else to run it? Just give me the power. I know that I can do it.” After all, she reasoned Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia’s ex-president, was a woman, joining the ranks of “Benazir [Bhutto], and Elizabeth, and the woman Madonna played in that movie” — Evita Peron.
  ….

  This July’s bombings at two five-star hotels in Jakarta and the 2002 bombings in Bali raised fears among counterterrorism experts that Indonesia’s 12,000 pesantran were potential breeding grounds for radicalism. And while suicide bombers and radicals have been traced to a few schools notorious for their extremist teachings, others have been incubators for a more benign trend in the world’s most populous Muslim nation: the development of feminist readings of the Quran and Islamic traditions. Indonesia’s two largest Muslim political parties — the Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah — have intricate campaigns promoting women’s rights. Indonesian feminists, male and female alike, have worked with progressive pesantran to develop women-friendly interpretations of shari’a — a radical break with the conservative notions of shari’a across the Muslim world, which tend to be heavily reliant on the world views of medieval — and male — jurists.

   
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  johnpi 8:26 pm on August 28, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: charter schools (3), faith schools (11), Muslim Schools

  Islamic charter school may sue dept. of education.

  A Minnesota charter school that educates Muslim students is threatening to sue the Minnesota Department of Education for defamation.

  A lawyer for Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy alleges in a letter to Education Commissioner Alice Seagren that her deputy commissioner told a Star Tribune reporter this month that the department is investigating lease aid payments from the state to the school. Lawyer Erick Kaardal says no one at the school itself was notified of an investigation.

  State aid to the school, which has sites in Blaine and Inver Grove Heights, has come under scrutiny after allegations it allowed TiZA to use taxpayer money to illegally promote religion.

   
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  umarlee 4:16 pm on January 22, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ACLU (6), ACLU and Muslims, charter schools (3), Muslim Schools

  With most Muslim schools underfunded ( and the vast-majority in support vouchers) and many Muslims struggling to  make ends meet charter schools have been seen as a good option for many. The ACLU is trying to get one shut down in the Minneapolis area.