Part five of six
For 25 years, Muslims in Hernando County have gone about the quiet business of building their community and becoming pillars in the county’s health care system. But they are worried that their American dreams may be threatened by the fallout from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent war on terror.
Over the past year, the Times has researched the story of Hernando’s Muslim community. The newspaper has interviewed more than 90 people and attended 30 weekly prayer services at the local mosque. This six-part series is the result of that research and shows how, through it all, local Muslims remain united by faith.
SUNDAY: Overview
MONDAY: Religion
TUESDAY: Politics
THURSDAY: Medicine
TODAY: Education
SUNDAY: Family
TAMPA - As school assemblies go, this one has its share of giggling and commotion.
The children, neatly attired in their uniforms, file outside under a giant oak tree and take a seat on the basketball court.
There is banter and jostling until the principal walks out in his stocking feet. Soon he begins chanting - in Arabic.
Welcome to the afternoon prayer at Universal Academy of Florida, a school in Tampa founded by Hernando County Muslims.
Situated on Sligh Avenue, just down the street from the region's largest mosque, the academy is a school with Hernando fingerprints all over it.
Of the 320-plus students in prekindergarten through Grade 12, nearly 60 come from Hernando.
On the doors of classrooms and the school's computer lab are the names of Hernando County doctors whose money helped furnish them. Hernando doctors Ghiath Mahmaljy, Husam Shuayb, Mahmoud Nimer and Azzam Muftah play key leadership roles as trustees and directors.
And the woman who ran the school until last year - and who still carries most of its institutional history in her head - is Magda Saleh, a longtime Hernando resident whose husband, Mohamad Saleh, has a neurology practice based in Hernando.
For probably 90 percent of the Muslim families in Hernando County, Universal Academy is the place they send their children for an education.
So why did they build the school in Tampa and forever subject their children to hourlong commutes?
"At some point we thought about doing it somewhere in the middle. But Tampa is the major city. There are thousands of Muslims there," said Mahmaljy, who was among the academy's founders and now is chairman of its board of directors.
"We thought we would do something good for the (Muslim) community, and we would make the effort. We thought it would be selfish to do it close to us for the sake of our children."
So now, each day, sleepy-headed Muslim children rise early in Hernando to catch the bus at the mosque on Barclay Avenue west of Brooksville. They ride for an hour - through rural Pasco County and the rush-hour traffic of Interstate 275 - to reach a school with a distinctly Muslim perspective.
This is a school where a plaque on the wall of the principal's office lists the 99 names of Allah. This is a school where, once kids reach the age of awareness about the opposite sex, their classrooms are arranged so boys sit on one side and girls on the other.
In upper grades, classrooms have two doors - one for each gender. Girls exit into an indoor hallway while boys exit to an outdoor sidewalk.
This is a school that, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, does not even offer lunch to students old enough to observe the holiday's ritual fasting. The school eliminates rigorous physical education classes during Ramadan, opting instead for board games, archery or Nintendo tournaments that allow hungry students to save calories.
This is a school where every student learns Arabic, studies the Koran and - as was evidenced by the afternoon assembly - halts what they do each day to stop and prostrate themselves in prayer toward Mecca.
"The idea behind it is to provide a good moral atmosphere and environment for our children, where they can excel in their education but also grow up in a good, clean environment," Mahmaljy said.
"But the main thing is a clean environment. We do have a lot of concerns about what goes on in the public schools."
School finds solace in safety
The idea of Universal Academy was first conceived in 1991 by the handful of Muslims living in Hernando County at the time. Among them were the Salehs, Mahmaljy, Shuayb, Nazir Hamoui and brothers Imad and Samih Tarabishy.
In 1992, the academy opened and operated from a set of loaned trailers. There were 90 students - 11 of them carpooling from Hernando County.
These days, the carpools have been replaced by a big yellow school bus that the Hernando County parents bought. The trailers have been replaced with $2-million worth of permanent classrooms built through a fundraising effort.
Magda Saleh was one of the Hernando mothers who took turns driving the early carpools. She became the school's principal in 1995 and stepped aside only last year. She now lives in Tampa but remains as an "as-needed" consultant to the school.
A few local Muslim families find the trip too far to send their young children. Some simply choose public or other private schools. And, typically, these families supplement their children's understanding of Islam and Arabic with local tutors versed in those subjects.
But the vast majority of Hernando's Muslim children make the 50-mile trip to Tampa each day and pay tuition that ranges from $3,150 to $4,350 a year.
Parents say they like the challenging academic atmosphere that offers all of the basic courses while also paying attention to the essentials of Islamic culture.
But above all else, the issue Universal Academy parents say they cherish first and foremost is safety.
Nada Hamoui, whose husband was among the founders, said her two oldest sons were in public schools during the 1991 Gulf War. Because they were Muslim at a time when the nation was at war with a Muslim country, they endured their share of name-calling.
At Universal Academy, that is not an issue.
"We're all in the same boat," she said.
Samar Shakfeh said Universal's commitment to being drug free, and its adherence to Islamic teachings, are important ingredients in the safe atmosphere she desires for the two children she sends to the academy each day.
"Boys are not allowed to fraternize with girls. They keep their hands to themselves," she said. "The stuff you see in public schools you don't see at UAF."
Dina Kanawati says she likes that the school watches its children closely and deals swiftly with inappropriate behavior.
"The kids feel very comfortable in that environment," Kanawati said. "I love the safety."
Moral instruction is fundamental
The attention to moral guidance is pervasive.
In Islamic studies, teacher Awatef Elmohd tells the children to develop purity, fear Allah and seek Allah's forgiveness when they have an argument with their brother.
"Of course, we all do wrong," Elmohd tells the class. But she goes on: "Do you protect your tongues from ill speech? You have to protect your tongue."
During Ramadan, students in the class were assigned the task of keeping track of their deeds - both good and bad - on a chart. Good deeds performed earned a check; good deeds they failed to perform earned an X.
Elmohd says her job is to teach the pillars of the faith, the biography of the prophet Mohammed and to discuss the other prophets, such as Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. But her job goes beyond facts.
"We talk about morals, honesty, truthfulness and how to treat your neighbors," she said.
And Elmohd offers her students the chance for additional guidance outside of class.
"You are welcome to come to my office and pray," she tells them.
In English class, teacher Rania Elsioufi told her 11th-graders to write a poem and be prepared to read it in class. Every boy in the class chose the prophet Mohammed as the subject for their poetry; all the girls chose their mothers.
"They love their mothers, and they love the prophet," said Elsioufi. "Those are good choices."
In the student handbook, students at Universal Academy read that they are to "think, act and talk in an ISLAMIC MANNER." How that is accomplished is described in great detail.
The handbook says boys, for example, are required to sit when they urinate and to clean their private parts when finished. This mandate is in keeping with the example set by the prophet Mohammed, the handbook notes.
All but the youngest girls cover themselves in head scarves and ankle-length robes known as jilbab, in keeping with Muslim customs regarding modesty.
And this carries over to physical education classes and sports teams.
Girls participating in athletics must wear sweat pants and oversized T-shirts that hang down to their knees. And if they are old enough to cover their heads in class, they also cover their heads on the athletic fields.
Isn't that hot?
"When you watch Little House on the Prairie - and you see girls in skirts this wide (she holds her arms far apart) and they would climb trees and go fishing - it is what you are used to," Saleh said.
The school has a boys basketball team that plays non-Muslim opponents, but there is no equivalent team for girls.
Having girls play non-Muslim schools would require them to wear basketball shorts and jerseys, as well as uncovered heads, Saleh said. That would not meet the standards of modesty required in mixed company - and mixed company would be inevitable in games played at another school's home court.
So, the girls stick to a schedule that includes only students from other Muslim schools.
As strict as the code may seem, Saleh says some Muslim parents hold their children out of Universal Academy because the separation of boys and girls isn't absolute. In other words, they don't want boys and girls even in the same classroom.
"We've found that they have to know how to relate to each other properly when they are mixed up," Saleh said. "They are going to get jobs. They are going to go to college."
Teacher Moosa Yahya, a native of Iraq, said his job as one of the academy's Islamic studies teachers is to help prepare the children for life in a culture that often stands in contrast to the conservative nature of the faith.
"I'm trying to kind of raise them as responsible citizens," he said, "so they don't feel like aliens in this country."
Reaching out in times of uncertainty
Universal Academy has had a mostly peaceful existence, which puts it in stark contrast to the other Muslim school in Tampa - Islamic Academy of Florida.
That school was co-founded by former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, who was arrested and is awaiting trial on charges that he raised money for Palestinian terrorists. In Al-Arian's indictment, Islamic Academy of Florida was described as a front for Al-Arian's terrorist fundraising.
At the time of his arrest, Al-Arian's school drew only a handful of students from Hernando County. However, four Hernando County Muslims were then part of its governing board.
Since the indictment and Al-Arian's arrest, those board members have resigned from Al-Arian's school, and the local families have withdrawn their students, some of them transferring to Universal Academy.
Despite its mission as a Muslim school and its similar name, Universal Academy of Florida seems to have suffered no ill repercussions from the troubles that have beset Al-Arian's Islamic Academy.
But Universal Academy has been tested in other ways.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Universal Academy shut down for three days simply because parents were afraid the school would be an easy target for anyone seeking to retaliate against Muslims.
The school responded by hiring armed security guards for the first six weeks after the attacks.
Calm had seemingly returned when, in August 2002, a Seminole physician named Robert Goldstein was arrested on charges that he planned to attack 50 Islamic centers and mosques around the Tampa Bay area. In Goldstein's possession were 20 homemade bombs, a .50-caliber rifle, handguns and antiarmor rockets.
The reality of that threat resurrected all of the terror of 9/11.
In response, Universal Academy decided to temporarily leave the sign bearing the school's name in front of the old trailers the school had used before moving across the street to its new building. It was a bit of misdirection for other would-be attackers.
The school also installed new security systems. But Saleh said the frightening nature of the threat led to an important realization: that the school needed to reach out to the broader community.
Subsequently, the academy developed a new relationship with nearby Tampa Bay Tech High School that included security backup.
But the arrangement goes further. Universal students are also able to get advanced courses at Tech. And Tech students learn about Islam during visits by Universal Academy students.
"Usually we were so short-staffed that we didn't have the time or energy to make the connection (to Tampa Bay Tech). But after Sept. 11, it was not an option anymore," Saleh said. It is a lesson she hopes the school will carry into the future.
"Everybody has got to know who we are. We have got to know who they are," she said. "Our kids need to go there and mix with their kids."
- Times researchers Caryn Baird, Kitty Bennett and Jenny Lichtenwalner contributed to this project. Robert King can be reached at 352 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com
