Islamic Schools

This entry focuses on full-time Islamic schools in the United States, defined as private schools that exist to provide Muslim families with the option of education based on an Islamic worldview and including religious, cultural, and often language instruction based upon one of several Islamic traditions. Not discussed here are those Muslim families engaged in homeschooling, or the many part-time programs, often sponsored by mosques, that also offer religious, cultural, and Arabic-language instruction.

The latest estimate of the National Center for Education Statistics is that, during the school year 2005–2006, there were 202 Islamic schools in the United States, enrolling 26,209 pupils or 0.5% (i.e., 1 in 200) of private school pupils. The Islamic Schools League of America, which maintains a more current state-by-state database, complete with school addresses, lists 236 Islamic schools in the United States, enrolling 32,000 pupils; check the League's Web site for the most recent listing.

The League's listing includes schools in 37 states, with the largest number in California (32), New York (24), Texas (20), New Jersey (18), Florida (15), Illinois (13), and Michigan (13). There are also 26 Islamic schools listed in six Canadian provinces, 16 of them in Ontario.

Public schools do not record the religious identity of their pupils but it appears, based on the Pew Research Center's estimate, that there are 2.35 million Muslims in the United States and that more [Page 485]than 9 out of 10 children in Muslim families attend public schools.

A number of other Western democracies provide public funding for Islamic schools. The most notable is the Netherlands, where approximately 50 such schools receive full funding from the government. England, Australia, Ireland, and other countries also provide public funding and require Islamic schools to follow essentially a government-prescribed curriculum, but from an Islamic perspective and with additional subjects such as Arabic language as the school board chooses.

Muslim education in the United States, like other faith-based schooling, has developed completely outside of the publicly supported sector, making its first significant appearance in the form of the schools started by Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam in Detroit and Chicago in the early 1930s, with the declared intention of the moral transformation of the Black community on the basis of a heterodox version of Islam. Since the mid-1970s, schools associated with this movement have become orthodox or mainstream Muslim schools known as Sister Clara Muhammad Schools, with much less stress upon rejection of the majority society (and race), and much more upon Islamic teaching. The Islamic Schools League of America identifies 23 of these schools, down from 38 some years ago.

The other Islamic schools are characterized by the League as “immigrant community-based,” with 85% of them being founded since 1999. Most remain small, with more than half enrolling fewer than 100 pupils, but the League reports that more than two-thirds are in the process of expansion.

Critics of Islamic schools in western Europe have expressed concern that they could result in postponing or preventing the integration of Muslim immigrants into the host societies, a charge also brought against Catholic schools in the United States during the 19th century. Research in the Netherlands suggests that this concern is as misplaced as it was against Catholic schools; indeed, there is some evidence that Muslim youth who attend Islamic schools in England are less alienated on average than are those who attend state schools.

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