Islamic v. Arabic language schools
Reader comment on item: Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy – An Islamist Charter School in Minnesota?

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), May 20, 2008 at 07:17

The strange thing about all of this is that the majority of Muslims in this country are non Arabs and the majority of Americans of Middle Eastern origin are Christian Arabs.

The language is the center of a culture and Muslim and Christian Arabs have much in common including common language, culture and food. I do not see what Muslim Arabs have in common with pakistanis.or Somalis for this matter. Islam? The way Paksitanis see islam I would argue that it is very different from the way Arabs see islam. I recall reading a study from England that for example Yemeni communities in England do not share their mosques with Pakistanis and the obvious reason is the language Urdu v. Arabic and therefore very different cultures

So what is really a Muslim school and what is really the mandate of such school? I still do not really know. And what is the use of teaching Pakistani children Arabic when they need to learn Urdu instead? And would Christian Arabs send their children to an Arabic language school?

I think we need to step back and ask the question: should such school be an islamic school what ever that is or an Arabic language school?

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