TINY SCHOOL SEEKS WIDE IMPACT

From left: Khadijah Abdullah, Mohamad Abdirisah, Sana Majid, Hasan Radwan, Mahnoor Alam

Nestled behind some thick trees along Cold Spring Road in Indianapolis, MTI Islamic School seems far removed from the busy city a mile outside its doors. However, students there feel very much a part of the larger community.

Students at MTI (an abbreviation for “school of knowledge” in Arabic) are comforted and challenged at the tiny school (enrollment 140 in pre-K through 12), where they can practice their Islamic values while also learning calculus and enrolling in dual credit courses at IUPUI and Marian College. However, rather than feel separate from other youth who attend other schools and practice other faiths, they feel much kinship.

“I mean we’re still Americans. We are just as American as everybody else,” said Khadijah Abdullah, 17.

Visitors as well as students are made comfortable at MTI. Greeted with a warm welcome and a smile, a banner adorned with Arabic calligraphy catches the eye. Farther on, the two corridors leading to the classrooms are a reminder of the school’s condensed quarters.

According to the Muslim Alliance of Indiana, about 280,000 Muslims live in Indiana (about 4 percent of the population). While many of these students and their families have experienced the alienation that comes with being a minority, these students feel the need to reach out and promote the common good, especially after the fallout of 9/11.

“It is like our duty, you know, to give back to the community, to show everybody that we’re good people,” says Mohamed Abdirisah, 16.

An example of this attitude is the recent controversy over the Islamic community center at Ground Zero. These students believe that there should have been a broader community discussion before the location of the center was decided.

“While it is our constitutional right to build a community center or worship area, it still also should’ve been on our part to show some tact on where we build it. I mean, we should’ve realized the sensitivity of the issue and how people feel about it,” says Abdelaziz Hamid, 20, an MTI graduate who now attends IUPUI.

Sometimes misunderstandings and stereotypes make students feel like they are out of the mainstream, but they don’t see themselves that way.

“I have personally been called a terrorist by a little kid,” said Khadijah. “He probably doesn’t even know what a terrorist is, so I’m not going to blame him. He probably just like heard it on TV or something like that.
But when I usually hear those comments, I usually just try and back out of the situation. I don’t want to try to cause any conflicts or violence or anything like that.”

Yusuf Abdul-Hafiz, a sixth-grade math and history teacher, often has to address stereotypes faced by his students.

“As an instructor, I get asked some really tough questions by some of my students about some of the things that they hear about themselves, that are said about Muslims in the media. I hate to even use the word terrorist, but it’s associated so much with Muslims that they start to ask the question, ‘Is this all that people think that we are?’”

Sana Majid, 15, said her family was as terrified as any American after 9/11. “We were also scared. We didn’t know what was going on. And I think just a lot of people forget that.”

While the fear and paranoia sparked by the 2001 attacks have receded, they still linger, Hafiz said. “When it comes to Muslims, I’ve noticed it seems that people often forget that individuals are responsible for their own actions. I don’t know when that stopped being true. I think that’s always true.”

MTI and its students have undertaken several initiatives to try to correct misunderstandings about their religion, including interfaith discussions and State House page volunteering. In addition, the Student Visitors program encourages non-Muslim students to learn about Islam by touring the school and join in a Q & A session.

Visitors find that Islam shares many traits with other religions, said Hasan Radwan, 16. “Most of the time when people compare religions, they compare what’s different. They don’t look at the similarities, of what we have in common. Islam, Judaism, Christianity — you can go on forever — a lot of the principles are the same,” he said.

Neelum Safdar, a science teacher and administrative assistant at MTI, says it’s important for all people to learn about other cultures.

“If you don’t understand what the person’s culture and what their religion teaches them, then you can form stereotypes that cause you to misjudge them and treat them as if they are others, whereas we are all citizens of this country and we all want the best for the country.”

While MTI incorporates the values and rituals of Islam in its curriculum, it does share traits typical of most schools. Among these are soccer and volleyball programs, AP classes, history and math contests and science fairs.

“We learn the same things. We do the same activities. The only thing that I really think is different is the atmosphere and like the kind of environment. I feel like it’s a lot more friendly. It’s like these people are my family, like they practically live at my house,” says Mahnoor Alam, 14.

Most of the students have been at MTI since they were toddlers. They described how it was their parents’ decisions to enroll, though the school did its best to encourage them by offering them treats such as suckers and baklava.

“I was only four. It’s not like I had a choice,” said Mohamed, who explained that he has never doubted the decision. “Here at MTI, you have an opportunity to get a first-class education K through 12, and then have Islamic morals and values instilled into your education. So I mean, that’s the opportunity too good to pass up.”

But service is as much a part of the school as education – Islamic morals and values compel students to reach out to others, Mohamed said.

“All that matters in the end is that you have to follow up all your plans with action and show everybody that you’re good people -- give back to community, help the needy and, you know, basic civic engagement.”

Copyright 2011 Y-Press