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John Brecher / msnbc.com
Students discuss a poem by Maya Angelou in teacher Fatima Quadri's literature class at MCC Full Time School in the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, Illinois.
John Brecher / msnbc.com
Students in a special "Hafiz" program work on memorizing the entire Quran at MCC Full Time School in the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, Ill.
John Brecher writes: Msnbc.com's Kari Huus and I recently visited an Islamic school in suburban Chicago, producing this video and story. Most of the students in the school, like the girls in the top picture, have a standard curriculum as well as classes about the Quran and Islamic history. A couple dozen students attend a special class in which they memorize the entire Quran. According to the school's principal, that's 114 chapters - more than six thousand verses.
That's quite an undertaking, to memorize an entire book, and it's a notable activity that distinguishes this school from a public school. That said, it's only taken on by a couple dozen out of the school's several hundred students, so I didn't think it represented the school as a whole. For the cover of the site, then, I considered images like the first one above: students working through the secular curriculum while wearing hijabs. The second image ran inside the text of the story.
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There would be a lot less religious intolerance in the US if Christians memorised the bible, too, especially the New Testament. I managed it as a kid, so I'm not sure why Christian religious schools can't provide the same for their students.
My biggest fear with religion taking over is really with the fundamental religious right more than the the Muslim schools. The christian right want to do away with the Separation of Church and State by continually passing religious based laws. As they continue to erode this in their favor they are opening the door for any religion to demand changes in government for their own religious agenda. If the Muslim ever become a majority they would then have to right to push their views on the rest of us because of the ignorance and short sightedness of the christian right today. Freedom of Religion and Separation of Church and State go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other.