Sunday School or Muslim Nation Builders? Part-1

Sunday School or Muslim Nation Builders?

Part 1: Teachers, Programs and Facilities

By Wael Adelgawad

I am a weekend Islamic school teacher. I teach a Sunday school class as a volunteer, and I also teach for MNB on Saturdays. As such, I am in a unique position to compare the two programs.

This will be a two-part series. In part one, I will discuss some of the problems faced by weekend Islamic schools in general and some of the ways in which these schools are failing in their duties. In part two, I will address the unrealistic expectations that some parents have and why traditional Sunday schools are unable to meet these expectations.

Success or Failure?

It’s common for masjids in the West to have weekend Islamic schools, usually on Sundays. Classes are generally an hour or two long, with some playtime for kids and maybe some snacks. These weekend classes are typically geared toward younger children, and the parents often have specific things they want their children to learn, such as “I want my child to memorize the Quran” or “I want my child to learn Arabic.” Sometimes the parents’ requests are behavioral: “Teach my child to respect his elders.”

I was born and raised in the United States, and in my lifetime, I have seen three generations of youth whose Islamic education consisted primarily of masjid Sunday schools. Among these youth, there are a handful who have grown up to be good practicing Muslims, alhamdulillah. However, others consider themselves Muslims but do not practice, and yet others have become atheists or converted to Christianity. I have seen this with my own eyes, and while I don’t have specific statistics, I think that those who practice Islam are outnumbered by those who do not.

By these standards, some or many of our weekend Islamic schools must be considered failures.

Why does this happen? There are several problems with the typical weekend Islamic school model:

Lack of Teacher Training

Weekend Islamic school teachers are typically volunteers. Some are quite young, even in their teens. Others are mothers from the community with no previous teaching experience. Their hearts are in the right place, and may Allah reward them for their intentions. However, they rarely have lesson plans or formalized curriculums. They themselves may have insufficient Islamic education.

The MNB model is completely different. Each lesson is carefully crafted by experienced educators, in consultation with Muslim scholars. The teachers, who are paid, are then given detailed training in how to deliver that specific lesson. The teachers communicate with each other, sharing ideas, knowledge, and resources. Are the teachers scholars? No, but they are chosen carefully. Each teacher is grounded in Islamic knowledge and is committed to learning more as the program progresses.

Focus on Rote Memorization

Sunday school instruction often focuses on rote memorization and for advanced students, recitation of the Quran in Arabic. This is excellent as far as it goes. But if there is nothing more, students go away without a deeper understanding of what Islam is all about and why they are Muslim.

MNB, on the other hand, is all about the why. Why do we believe in Allah and the Messenger (ﷺ)? Why should we love Allah? Why should we love our deen?

MNB wants to not only educate the students about the rules of Islam but also build their imaan. Children are learning machines. A child who is motivated, who loves Allah and His Messenger, who loves being Muslim, is a child who can learn anything. 

Lack of Resources

Islamic Sunday schools often don’t have the basic tools for teaching. That includes high quality textbooks, white boards and markers, and state-of-the-art communication apps. In addition, the facilities are sometimes sub-par, with inadequate space, a lack of climate control and not enough desks. No wonder children are uncomfortable and don’t want to go.

Muslim Nation Builders has two components: online and onsite. The online program makes use of communication apps that allow teachers to have simultaneous video calls with all the students, ensuring complete participation. While the onsite program, which currently exists in Fresno, California, is held in a modern and large Islamic center with fully equipped classrooms.

Unwillingness to Address Sensitive Subjects

If you want someone who truly understands the challenges posed by American culture, you have to go to scholars like Yasir Qadhi, Omar Suleiman, Zaid Shakir, Nouman Ali Khan, Yasmin Mogahed, Suhaib Webb, and so on. Those who were born and raised in the West.

I am absolutely not saying that immigrants cannot be good teachers. Most certainly, they can. But some immigrant teachers simply do not understand the challenges facing children growing up in the United States. This creates a few problems:

1. Teachers might react negatively to such fundamental questions as, “How do we know that God exists?” Or, “How can we be sure that Islam is better than Christianity?”
   
   These questions might seem outrageous to some, but for children growing up in the West, they are normal. These kids are confronted with these questions every day. We must be prepared to answer these questions openly, in order to give our children the ideological tools they need to survive as Muslims in this society.
   
   
2. Similarly, teachers might react negatively to questions (from older students) regarding sensitive subjects such as sex, alcohol or drugs, bullying in schools, and even suicidal thoughts.

At Muslim Nation Builders, we recognize that our children are growing up in a non-Muslim society that poses unique challenges. We are not afraid to address these challenges head-on.

Lack of Commitment

Many Sunday school teachers are deeply dedicated. I personally know some who have been teaching for decades, purely as volunteers. May Allah reward them. But I know others who have quit out of frustration or because they were no longer willing to invest the time needed to prepare lessons. I cannot say that I blame them. Teaching Islamic studies, especially if one takes it seriously, is time consuming and challenging. The problem is that quitting sends entirely the wrong message to the students. It tells them, “Teaching you is not my top priority. And I am not someone you can depend on.”

This is why the MNB model is so needed. If you think the MNB teachers are just in it for the pay, think again. I have interacted with all the MNB teachers and I can tell you that they are dedicated individuals, fully committed from the bottom of their hearts.

And because they are paid, they are able to make a formal commitment to invest the time needed and to stick with it for the long term. This is not a cynical or mercenary approach. We live in the real world. This is a solution - one that is much needed! - to the challenge of teaching Islam to children.

Insufficient Instruction Time

Sunday school programs often last an hour or two, including breaks. When you consider the time needed to get the children settled, review last week’s lesson, and do a quick review of the basics, it’s just not enough. So Sunday schools often end up teaching little more than the Arabic alphabet, the pillars of Islam, how to pray, and the memorization of the short surahs. They might also cover the seerah (the life of the Prophet sws) on a superficial level: Year of the Elephant, meditation in the cave, abuse by the Quraish, the Hijrah, Badr and Uhud, the end.

And let’s be honest, many parents are happy with this. You might think, “It sounds good to me.” In which case, Sunday school might be the right choice.

But as I said at the start, I have seen three generations of Sunday school graduates, and some are not even Muslim anymore. Learning how to pray, memorizing a few short surahs, and learning the highlights of the seerah were not enough to connect them to Allah ⁧سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى⁩ in a lasting way. Where is the deep appreciation of the beauty of the Quran? The understanding of the tremendous struggles faced by the Prophet (ﷺ) and the sahabah and that they made these sacrifices for us? Most importantly, where is the love of Allah, the deep appreciation for all the blessings in our lives, the yearning for Jannah, the knowledge that no matter what challenges we face in our lives, we must always turn to Allah and know that He is with us?

These are the sentiments that MNB seeks to plant in the hearts of our Muslim children. We believe that, inshaAllah, we have developed a solid program based on the Prophetic methodology that has the best chance of touching the children's hearts. We urge you to consider the program for your own kids, and may Allah guide us to what is best. You might have tried various schools and programs, but MNB Maktab is distinctively crafted to engage effectively with our children, fostering noticeable and positive changes in their behavior and understanding.

We warmly invite you to enroll your children at MNB Maktab and witness the transformative impact of a program that truly works. Please click below to enroll your children.