A Convert in Islamic Education – Hamzah Henshaw

Episode 33,
Hamzah has traveled an unexpected path from his Episcopalian childhood. Befriending an Indian Muslim classmate in 10th grade, he became enamored of Islam and accepted the faith after months of study. It has remained his true path and he has spent most of his career in Islamic education. Despite the unusual conversion, Hamzah has not rejected his upbringing religiously or educationally, continuing to hold the values of learning and faith. He lives a model of steady progress towards big dreams, even if the path remains unclear.   

Highlights:
·       Converting to Islam did not mean rejecting the Christianity of his childhood.

·       Islam is the newest and final ‘operating system’ of the Abrahamic faiths, after Judaism and Christianity. 

·       Investing in the stock market is permitted, as there is risk involved, but the investor must avoid in forbidden products such as alcohol that counter Islamic principles.

·       Dual enrollment programs allow students in high school to take college courses, helping students to grow beyond the high school’s curriculum. 

·       Islamic schools in New England are young but there is community interest in growth.

·       Hamzah has a passion for teaching literature and poetry.

Quotes:
“It's long been a dream of mine to have a Muslim boarding school similar to the ones that I was fortunate enough to attend.”

“Many of our students sort of sail through and actually change their college environments. They're very proud of their Muslim faith and heritage, and they practice it openly.”

“There are enormous resources within the Muslim community, so some of the challenges on the school side is to prove their product is great.”

Social Media links for Hamzah:
Website – https://hamzahhenshaw.com/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamzah-henshaw-a13a94215/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/MabeChai
Business – https://www.hidayahservices.com/
Newsletter – https://hamzahhenshaw.substack.com/p/five-before-five-3-escaping-the-velvet

Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project –  https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/

Transcript:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851013/episodes/12306186-33-hamzah-henshaw-a-convert-in-islamic-education/edit

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The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 

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Transcript

Hamzah Henshaw transcript

A Convert in Islamic Education

[Music]

INTRODUCTION:

Méli:  Hello and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life – at work, at home, in the community, in good times and in bad.  There is no one-size-fits-all ‘right’ answer, just a way to move forward for you, for here, for now.  I am your host Méli Solomon.  So glad you could join us.  

[Music]

Méli:  This is episode thirty-three and my guest today is Hamzah Henshaw. Born and raised in Boston, Hamzah accepted Islam in 1994 while attending the St. Mark’s School, an Episcopal boarding school in Southborough, Mass. where his father and grandfather had attended. Hamzah is a 2001 graduate of Harvard College, where he concentrated in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations with a minor in economics. After a few years in Islamic finance, he shifted to education, working at international schools in the UAE and Morocco. Later, Hamzah taught English and ESL at the Fay School in Southborough, the country’s oldest junior boarding school. In 2013, he became Assistant Head of School at Al-Noor Academy, New England’s first full-time K-12 Islamic School. There, he teaches high school English, oversees the dual-enrollment program, and serves as the college and guidance counselor. He has helped place nearly 150 high school students into many of the top colleges in the country.Hamzah lives in Mansfield, Mass. with his family. A link to Hamzah’s social media handles are listed in the show notes. 

Méli:  Hello Hamzah, I am really pleased to have you on today. 

Hamzah:  It's great to be here. Looking forward to it.

IDENTITY & CONVERSION:

Méli:  I'd like to begin with my usual first question. What is your religious and other identity? 

Hamzah:  In terms of my religious identity, I was brought up as an Episcopalian, but when I was in high school, when I was in about 10th grade, I converted to Islam and that has been the religion that I have followed ever since. 

Méli:  Uh, I'd like to hear more about the conversion, how you got introduced to Islam and what drew you to it. 

Hamzah:  So I attended a boarding school starting in 9th grade called Saint Mark’s. This was the school that my father had gone to, and even my grandfather had gone there. So we had a long sort of Henshaw family tradition of of going to this school. In 9th grade one of the classmates, his name was Nabil. He became one of my closest friends over the course of the year. Nabil was a little bit different than the other students. For one, ethnically he was from Indian Gujarati background. But he was born in East Africa, in Kenya. He grew up partially in London and his family was in Vancouver. And he was studying in America. So very complicated interesting person. He himself had somewhat of a religious awakening the summer before he attended St. Mark’s as a 9th grader, so he was very committed to his faith. In the evenings, for example, when we'd be getting ready for bed, we'd be all brushing our teeth and so on, and he would be preparing for the prayer. Which involves this ablution, making alwudu’ as we as we call it. So he would be doing all these interesting things with water and eventually he even put his foot in the sink to wash his feet. So this was obviously something very unexpected. He then go back to his dorm room and we'd hear him give the call to prayer and then we'd see him praying. And this would also happen on the football field. You know, he'd take a break and sometimes make this alwudu’ with a with a water bottle from the football team. Clearly his faith was something very important to him, and that caused myself and several others to question him about it, ask him about it. Eventually we would sneak out of our dorm rooms on Saturday night. And we would go to Nabil's room, and he had a lot of books on Islam. There was one that I remember called Spectacles of Death, which was sort of a scary title, but it was looking at the Islamic belief of the afterlife and what happens after we die and and so on. And just over the course of talking to him, you know, and obviously it's a very long story, but eventually, uh, within about 12 months of meeting him, I had ended up embracing the faith. 

Méli:  Well, what an unexpected event. I imagine it was quite unusual to have a student like that at Saint Mark’s. 

Hamzah:  Definitely diversity was big there. They they definitely had students from all sorts of different nationalities and backgrounds. But definitely Nabil was – he’s an unusual person and a very charismatic and so on. And actually there were three of us who ended up eventually embracing this, largely through his influence, although there was much more to it than just. 

Méli:  Wow. I'm curious about how your family responded to this event of converting to Islam. 

Hamzah:  So my family was quite supportive, I think. You know, a lot of times teenagers go through different phases, and I think they probably assumed that this might just be something I was dabbling in. But regardless, they were very supportive. Some of my family members had concerns. They'd heard things about Islam, especially, you know, around the treatment of women and and things like that which they shared, but generally in a very non-confrontational manner. That wasn't the case with all of us who embraced this faith. Some of the families were frustrated that they would send their children to Saint Mark’s School, the Christian tradition, and they would come out as Muslims. There was a spectrum of responses from the community, but my family in particular, I was very supportive pretty much from day one. 

Méli:  And have they remained supportive? 

Hamzah:  Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think after a while they they realized this wasn't just a passing phase. They saw it became, you know, a core part of my identity. So it was something that made me a little bit more, I guess, interesting than the average person. So my dad sort of saw it as the, you know, a way to differentiate myself through college admissions and things like that, sort of a more Machiavellian type look at things. Ultimately they were very supportive and continue to be so. 

Méli:  Had you been disaffected with your Episcopalian practice, or did you perhaps not have much of a practice? What was your relationship to Episcopalianism? 

ISLAM AS NEWEST OPERATING SYSTEM: 

Hamzah:  Great question. Definitely not disaffected. I think I always had sort of an innate belief in God. I I was not particularly observant. You know, I did go to church from time to time, and there was a youth group that I was a part of through the church, but the the particulars of the theology and so on, I didn't get too involved in that. However, the faith was always there and the way Islam was presented to me was that it didn't entail a rejection of my faith in my Christian upbringing. Rather Islam was the continued message that started, you know, with Abraham and continued on. So that sort of it's the latest operating system, if you want to say in modern terms. That Judaism came along and then Jesus came and and updated that and then our belief is that the Prophet Mohammed's, peace be upon him, came and continued the same message. So that the revelation is it's one single message that has come through and that really resonated with me. And so I didn't feel like and I don't feel like I was rejecting my upbringing. I was really in fact embracing it to an even greater extent. 

Méli:  Yeah, interesting view of it. I have heard other people say this kind of idea of the newest operating system. That does then imply, Hamzah, that there might be something newer than Islam. 

Hamzah:  Right. Well so the Muslim belief is that the Prophet Mohammed, again whenever I say his name, I always say peace be upon him. So or ‘alayhi as-salaam, the seal of all of the prophets, it's mentioned in, you know, authentic religious texts that he is the final prophet. Therefore this is the final operating system if if you will. Of course, the interpretation of Islam and how does a religion that originated 1400 plus years ago, how is it practiced in the modern age is a is a gigantic topic that so many people have been wrestling with and and trying to figure out for a long time. 

Méli:  OK. Well, thanks for explaining a bit about that. I understand you worked in Islamic finance for a while. And then shifted to education. So I'd like to take just a moment to understand a little about Islamic finance. What does that mean? How is that different from other kinds of finance? 

ISLAMIC FINANCE:

Hamzah:  One of the prohibitions in Islam is interest, and so that makes it pretty complicated to exist in the modern world, which is very much an interest-based economy. So Islamic finance tries to use different mechanisms by which people can finance large purchases – companies can buy new fleets of 747’s and that sort of thing. So for example, when it comes to purchasing a house, usually most people's largest purchase there are now Islamic finance companies that will help you. So that's what I did. When we were ready to buy a house, we used something called Guidance Residential. The structure of the contract is actually quite similar. It's not just that you get a a loan and you pay back the exact amount of the loan. There's something that looks sort of very similar to interest, but there are different rules and sort of very technical things in terms of ownership. That is not, however, the type of Islamic finance that I was interested in and involved in, I was more in the Islamic investing space, the equities market. So investing in in the stock market is at its base a permissible activity because you're taking on a risk. The issue with interest is that there is no risk. You're essentially getting money back no matter what. Once you take on a risk and you have that shared ability to profit and to lose, then it becomes permissible, as long as the company itself is in an industry – that is so you wouldn't invest in you know, Budweiser or things that are otherwise like obviously against Islamic principles. There's also more complicated things about the way the companies themselves are structured and debt-to-equity ratios and a lot of other more complicated pieces than that. But essentially, my idea as I was graduating I, you know, I had this faith, but I wanted to figure out how do I succeed in the world. How can I, I say, have my Biryani and eat it too, or have my cake and eat it too? This seemed to be an obvious path. My stepfather is an investor, and he had gotten me very interested in in investing early on and so this seemed like a a great path to go on. As it turned out, it doesn't seem to have been my calling. And you know, I did switch to education as you mentioned, relatively early on in my career, but I had some great experiences in New York City over in the Middle East, in South Africa, and a lot of other tastes of the Islamic finance world. 

Méli:  Thank you for making that clear point about working in Islamic finance was a way to live your faith. 

Hamzah:  Definitely. 

Méli:  And then you shifted to education. You are now at Al-Noor. 

Hamzah:  Al-Noor Academy. Yep. 

Méli:  Were you at another school before that? 

ISLAMIC EDUCATION:

Hamzah:  When I first made that transition, the first teaching job I ever had was actually at the Islamic Academy of New England, which is now become my current school’s primary school. So that's where our K-5 campus is. So that was my very first taste. It was sort of a maternity leave position. I was teaching middle school social studies, then I was over in the Emirates and in Sharjah teaching. I was hired as a high school history teacher and when I arrived they said: ‘Actually you'll be doing 5th grade homeroom’. So I got a little taste of elementary education. And the interesting thing there, was I assumed that I would be at my best teaching the humanities. That was always my strength. And in high school writing and and and so on. But I actually found that teaching science and math was a lot easier, largely because the population were mostly non-native speakers. Numbers are much easier to translate, so rather than doing the obvious thing and becoming a math and science teacher, I decided I really needed more training. So I went to a wonderful school in Vermont called the School for International Training, where I got my masters in TESOL teaching English to speakers of Other Languages. So the idea behind that was that I could essentially live anywhere in the world. I loved to travel. I love travel. Wanderlust hit me early and hard. And I, you know, I wanted this freedom to be able, if I wanted to go to the Maldives for a year and teach, then I, you know, I could do that. And this seemed like the a great career for that. As it turned out, I didn't actually end up teaching internationally too much after that. I had short stint in Morocco, but I started working at the Fay School, which is the country's oldest junior boarding school. So I taught there for seven years. I taught ESL, and I did some mainstream English as well, and I coached tennis. Was a dorm parent and sort of had that experience. Fay is actually directly across the street from Saint Mark’s. It was founded as a feeder school for Saint Mark’s, so there's a nice symmetry to that. To be back in the town where I went to high school and where I became Muslim. So after seven years there, that's when I moved here to my current role at Al-Noor Academy. 

Méli:  And you've been at at Al-Noor Academy now- 

Hamzah:  20 years total as an educator, 10 years here at Al-Noor. 

Méli:  So I understand you are now the Assistant Head.

AL-NOOR ACADEMY:

Hamzah:  I've had lots of different roles at Al-Noor including that one. I have actually taken a step back from administration this year and tried to focus more on what I do in the classroom. So I teach 9th and 10th grade English and then I run our college counseling program. We also have a dual enrollment program, which I oversee, and then I'm the Head of the Humanities Department. We're we're a very small school, so you wear a lot of hats, but technically I'm no longer the Assistant Head of School, but that is a role I held for for many years. 

Méli:  OK. Thank you for that clarification. What does dual enrollment mean? 

Hamzah:  Dual enrollment is a way for students to be simultaneously enrolled in a, you know, traditional high school and take college classes. It's done in different ways. Our students typically take classes at local community colleges like Quincy College or state universities like Bridgewater State University. As a small school, we're not able to offer, you know, a huge variety of curricular topics. You know, we might have an honors section and a and a CP section, but we don't have a bunch of different electives and and so on. The dual enrollment program allows students to pursue their actual interests. If someone's interested in computer science, they're able to take quite a few classes, you know, in that. And so they have the benefit of the huge course catalogue of these universities. So it allows them to really design a unique path, which I think is one of the things that's helped make our students very competitive when it comes to, you know, the college admissions, which is the other big part of my work. 

Méli:  So with the dual enrollment program, you're saying that students at Al-Noor Academy are actually taking basically college level courses while they're still in high school. 

Hamzah:  So our campus is grade 6 through 12 from grade six through 10 students. Are here five days a week, taking all of their classes, all the classes that you'd expect: English, math, science, history, etcetera, and our sort of Islamic classes. So they'll take an Islamic sciences class, they take Arabic language, they take a Quranic recitation and and study class. Once they hit 11th and 12th grade. They are only on campus with us on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Monday, Wednesday and Friday is when they take their their dual enrollment classes at these colleges. Depending on where they end up going to college, that credits will will transfer. 

Méli:  Yeah, interesting. Is this very common? 

Hamzah:  I mean the many high schools have this kind of dual enrollment program. Dual enrollment is is somewhat common. Many schools will offer it. Let's say a student is extremely strong in math and they've gotten through the entire math curriculum at their at their high school, but they still are eager for more. So then then the guidance counselor there might suggest you know, taking some high level math class through dual enrollment. Our system where our students are taking all of their secular classes, their English, their math, their science and social science classes off campus is unusual. There are some other schools like ours, small schools, limited budgets, etcetera that have adopted this model. I don't I don't know the history of it. I don't know if we were pioneers in this, but it's definitely a model that has worked for us. Obviously there are pros and cons to everything. You know, because our oldest students are only on campus two days a week, typically those are the leaders of of the school, but actually it's our 10th grade often who really steps up because they are the sort of oldest students who are on campus, you know, full-time. But overall it's it's been working well for us. 

Méli:  Yeah, fascinating. Completely different high school experience than, than I had. And than I think most kids have that were really, as you say, you move up through the ranks and by the time you're seniors, you're really the leaders of the community and there's a there's a cohesion. So interesting. OK. But it sounds like it's working. How many students does the Academy have? 

Hamzah:  So a total we're now pre-K through through 12th grade, it's somewhere around 250, maybe maybe a little bit more. We have a really large you know, elementary and preschool and waiting list over over there. With the Grade 6 through 12, I think we have maybe 115 students. Our graduating class this year is 18. So that's a fairly typical class size. So you know very small compared to many other schools. But it over the course of my time here, it's almost doubled. When I first came, our enrollment numbers were in the 70s. And we're pretty much up against space constraints at this point. I think there is an appetite and interest from the community. There are talks afoot among our board and so on to you know, to build a larger unified campus and so on. But that's a long-term project. 

Méli:  That is a very big project, indeed. And that leads me to wonder about the larger community attitude or stance or reaction to Al-Noor Academy. 

Hamzah:  Islamic schools are – they've proliferated over – you know, I think the the first school in Massachusetts was founded in something like 1994 called Al-Hamra Academy in Shrewsbury. And since that time there have been many, many schools that have started. Most of them are K-8 schools. We are the only full-time high school in the area, but you know, there are some in Connecticut and some other other places. Most Muslim families in the area send their children to public schools. The number who send them to Islamic schools is probably in the, you know, 5 to 10% range. That's partially because obviously Islamic schools cost money and although our tuition is is very, very low compared to private schools, it's still a lot more than free, you know, which is what the public schools cost. And I think it's also a trust issue. I think Islamic schools, it's a young industry. The schools aren't always as as mature. They have limited resources. One thing that we don't have that I really wish we had is interscholastic sports. I think a great school celebrates students in sort of three dimensions. They look at them as students, of course, academics, but also as athletes. And then most importantly as people and and how they are socially and so on. And so a boarding school like the ones that I attended or or worked at really allows allows for that. And I really hope that Islamic schools as they get more mature and you know have more resources can really add athletics in. And you know it's long been a dream of mine to have a Muslim boarding school similar to the ones that I was fortunate enough to attend. 

Méli:  Well, good luck with that. 

Hamzah:  Thank you. 

Méli:  It's a long, big dream. I can, I can see that. What is the highlight of your work these days? 

TEACHING HIGHLIGHTS:

Hamzah:  This spring at here at school I'm teaching an entrepreneurship class which hopefully will culminate in sort of a a Shark Tank, Muslim Shark Tank type project. So I'm really trying to get the students to also expand their beliefs about what's possible. And also I think economy is really changing, artificial intelligence and ChatGPT and so on as making traditional schooling to some extent somewhat obsolete. I think we really need to pivot as educators and embrace some of this technology and push students forward. But one thing which I think the new economy will really reward is creation. It's a creator economy. The students as well have very interesting perspectives as people who are trying to live their faith in a very complex modern, modern times. And some of the students have become social media personalities and they have their TikTok and Instagram and lots and lots of followers. One of my one of the seniors is writing a Halal romance series which I think is just really cool. So it's sort of a chaste, a chaste romance that culminates in in marriage and and so they're finding all sorts of different ways to express their beliefs and so on. And so that's something I'm really excited about. I'm always excited about teaching English, teaching the classics, teaching Shakespeare, and just generally getting students excited about language, about ideas. And that's really what I want to continue to do. I want to work with a wider range of students pretty much leveraging the power of the Internet to attract a larger audience you know who are interested in these sorts of things. 

Méli:  Lots of interesting angles there. When you say larger range of students, do you mean staying within the high school ages but increasing the audience? Or increasing, and/or increasing the ages of students you're addressing? 

Hamzah:  That's a great question and one I'm still wrestling with as we begin the conversation. My life changed when I was 15 years old, and I've listened to many other Muslims that I know also became Muslim and made that choice right around, that time. But beyond that, so many people, something happened to them in high school and I I argue that it often happened in the English class, but maybe I'm just biased. But something happened which really had a huge influence on on their life trajectory. And so that's sort of the age group that I love working with. That sort of middle of high school and so on. At the same time, I have the experience with college admissions, which I think is critically important part of of a student’s life. But increasingly I'm also interested in speaking to adults. Sometimes working with students can be a little bit tiring and frustrating, and they're not always as invested as they might be, especially here in the school environment. The students are here because they have to be here. Their parents are sending them. When you teach a class online that people actually sign up for, they tend to be more invested in those because they're making the choice. I guess I'm hoping to continue to work on it with this high school age, but I also really am am interested in developing you know, more of an adult audience as well, and these are the things that I'm wrestling with and trying to figure out how it will all look. 

Méli:  The wrestling does take time and energy and it sounds like you're quite in the mix, so I look forward to hearing how that all turns out. Turning back to the issue of your college counseling. You're at an Islamic Academy and I'm guessing, but correct me please if I'm wrong, that your students are going into “normal colleges”, perhaps Harvard, where where you went, what are the challenges that they are facing going into those non-Islamic environments? 

Hamzah:  So definitely we aimed to place students and you know competitive colleges. The very first student I ever placed actually did go to Harvard and we routinely send people to great schools – MIT, Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, all sorts of wonderful schools and then many, many other schools in in this area. Definitely the UMass. system is is great and we send a lot of students to there. You know, our students, almost all of them were born in this country and they've been here for a long time and they've been wrestling with a lot of these issues. So even though some of our students are really in the Islamic school bubble, they come from very conservative backgrounds. They have very limited access to social media and and other things, but I don't think that's the majority. I think most of them, you know, have a wider and more cosmopolitan view of the world in terms of the challenges that they they face. It's definitely a challenge to maintain your faith and your practice in an environment where lots of things are pulling at you. College can be a time you know where it's very easy to to divert from some of your practices. So that's definitely a challenge I think. Obviously it's hard to know. I feel like even when our our students might fall down and and make some bad decisions, in the end, most of them end up coming back and really making this choice to to practice Islam. And I think many of our students sort of sail through and and actually change their college environments. They're very proud of their of their Muslim faith and heritage and they they practice it openly. I think that's one of the real benefits of going to an Islamic School, just like Nabil did at Saint Mark’s, he he didn't shy away from practicing his faith. He just practiced and and that naturally led us to ask questions. But definitely when there are big global events and things like that and and people call on Muslims to speak for the entire you know population, those can be challenges. Those sorts of things happen on college campuses. There are a variety of challenges that they do face. But I think the dual enrollment program also helps them because they're on college campuses, you know, as they're still in high school and they're able to process some of the things that happen there. You know when they are with us on Tuesday and Thursday and get the Islamic perspective on some of the things they're hearing about and and so on. 

Méli:  Yeah. And I can imagine how that toggling back and forth between the Islamic bubble, as you say, and the the wider world would help them to figure out how to carry themselves truly as a Muslim into situations where there are minority. 

Hamzah:  Yeah. 

Méli:  One other thing I wanted to ask about in terms of the Al-Noor Academy activities, as you mentioned earlier, in an earlier conversation about the Salaam Shalom program with the Gann Academy, which is a Jewish high school program. Can you say more about that? 

Hamzah:  That's a partnership that came up I think shortly before the pandemic. And unfortunately, the pandemic has slowed it down a little bit. But this was a chance for students to get together and and celebrate their commonalities and also, you know, openly discuss differences as well. I wasn't directly involved in this. It's actually, as with many of our organizations, it's been student led. But I've been really impressed by the students who have volunteered and and participated in this, and most of it has been done virtually, but I hope they can, you know, do some events in person as well. 

Méli:  Yeah, interesting. I didn't realize it was really a virtual thing and I didn't realize it was a student led. So you know, good for them, good for them. That's that's great. I know they, the Gann I know a lot of families at my synagogue send their kids to Gann and I know it's a really a top-flight school. 

Hamzah:  I think that it's an example of the type of school, Islamic school in terms of resources and and and so on. Again Maimonides these these types of schools that are a little further in their evolution and the families have really invested in them in a way that I hope that Muslim families will invest in our our schools as well. 

Méli:  Right. Maimonides has been around for, I don't know, decades and decades. What would assist that growth for Al-Noor Academy? 

Hamzah:  In terms of how Islamic schools can thrive, I think most of our Islamic schools and mosques and institutions were founded by immigrants who had you know a lot of concern and and desire to maintain their their faith as they came to this country. But now that they've been established for quite some time there's sort of a new generation of mostly American-born students and and adults coming up. So I think there's sort of a transition period at a lot of mosques and other Islamic institutions. There's to some extent a changing of the guard when it comes to boards and and so on. And so I think that Islamic education will really take off when schools become a little bit more progressive when when they're able to come up with fundraising strategies and other ways to bring in resources that they can really attract top flight talent, because teaching in general is not a very lucrative career and there's a reason that that relatively few people pursue it. But teaching at religious schools are – at least as Islamic schools – is particularly challenging on the financial side. And I think that's something that can change. I think there are enormous resources within the Muslim community, so some of the challenges on the school side is to prove their product is great. I hope the community can step up and support as well. 

Méli:  Well growing an institution is a complicated and long-term project. It takes a lot of work and and you're right, it takes a lot of funding and it takes consistent funding overtime. 

Hamzah:  When when I look at Fay or Saint Mark’s 20 years into their existence, those schools were not that much further along when you when you look back at what they used to be like. These other schools have a big head start, but I think Islamic schools will will continue to grow. I was recently in Texas at a retreat and there are schools there with 850 students and athletics programs and you know, all all the things that I hope will be common at lslamic schools. Obviously they have a much larger population and so on, but the future is is now there. There are a lot of fantastic Islamic school leaders and thinkers and so I think we're already there in some cases and and other schools will follow suit and and and so on. 

Méli:  Yeah. What year was Al-Noor Academy founded? 

Hamzah:  Our sister school, which is now our lower schools, was founded in 1996, and then Al-Noor Academy as a high school was founded in the year 2000. 

Méli:  OK. But you're right, these things take time and it is, I imagine, very helpful to look at the early history. We do, you know, when institutions are very old, we think: ‘Oh, they've always been so big and well established’, but no, everybody starts from zero. So, one more question before we wrap up Hamzah. Could you describe a surprising or challenging experience in your time in education? 

Hamzah:  One of the things I've I really enjoy here as an English teacher is teaching poetry. It's sort of a tradition to have a poem of the week every Friday, and I've noticed that it's had a big impact on the students. I have this tradition of starting the year with the poem called Scaffolding by Seamus Heaney. It sort of provides a scaffolding for our entire experience together. And many of the students have become quite interested in poetry and have started writing and even performing sort of Slam Poetry and so on. I was really proud of one of my students. We learned something called a reverse poem, which essentially means one thing when it's read forwards and then it means actually, the exact opposite when it goes backwards. So there's a great poem called Apathy by Arik Durfee, I believe is the name. The first half, it's talking about how everything's bad there. It's very apathetic. And then when you read it backwards, it's, it's the opposite message. So one of my students wrote a poem about the COVID-19 pandemic. This is when there is a lot of anti-vaccination things and and so I actually posted it as a comment on the New York Times and it it got really rave reviews. People were amazed that a high school student is you know is writing a reverse poem that that is so sophisticated and there have been other times where students have performed poems at large events, students have gone on to, you know, become editors of the newspaper at great schools like Williams and Wellesley and so on. So it's it's very gratifying to see our own graduates going off and thriving and in the real world. 

CLOSING

Méli:  Wonderful. OK, well, Hamzah, this has been just such a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate you coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast, and I wish you a good afternoon.

Hamzah:  Thank you so much. 

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Méli:  Thank you for listening.  If you’d like to get notified when new episodes are released, hit the SUBSCRIBE button. Questions and comments are welcome and can be directly sent to info@talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Transcripts are available a few weeks after airing. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. For more information about that research, including workshop and presentation options, go to my website – www.talkingwithgodproject.org.  Thank you so much.  Till next time.  Bye bye. 

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