Vision

In our Community work we are often so consumed by the “activities,” the “tasks,” and the day-to-day running of affairs that we neglect forming a vision and constructing the intellectual platform needed for our movement. The result is often the lack of depth, style, coherence, comprehensiveness, and worse, the lack of substance in our efforts. A vision is everything, especially when put in the context of communities struggling to establish themselves and found their institutions in challenging and very demanding circumstances. The San Francisco Islamic School’s existence as an educational institution and a community service is to be perceived within this context. Rather than just adding a name to a list, we want the project to have the spirit of creating an environment for the structured efforts that our communities cannot afford to neglect. The dimensions of our work, and therefore its implications and requirements, is not t be limited to “opening a school” in the technical sense. The vision is to establish an institution where the importance of education is strongly manifested, not just discussed. An institution that, structurally again, enforce the powerful sense of “Read, Read, Read” that the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, first received in the Hira cave.

On another level, we want the San Francisco Islamic School to enhance the intellectual depth of our social work and community involvement. We start this task by discharging our literature and our collective psychology of the tendency to blame others and find pretty nouns for our failures. The focus on changing our conditions should have at its heart the focus on changing the terms of engagement. Don’t curse darkness, light a candle. We also want the school to nurture the sense of purpose and directness and create a space where individuals and families see their share of responsibility and live up to it enthusiastically. Working for the sake of Allah with devotion, sincerity and exalted effort is rooted in our work and must be implanted in our consciousness. Our slogan here is the Quranic verse: “Except he who comes to God with a heart pure and whole.”

This dimension of worshiping God in our work should also be channeled to our students. They are, after all, the base of the school and the main purpose for its existence. Success in this project can only be measured on the scale of the students. They should be able to find themselves in the formation and the teaching of the school. They should be encouraged to embrace the curriculum, given the tools to grasp the material, and ultimately, guided to absorb the inner dimensions of the Islamic Studies. We want our students to exemplify a Muslim character with a strong faith, a solid knowledge base, the best of manners, and a comfortable openness built on deep understanding of the fundamental principals of our religion, and recognition of genuine ethical universal values. Focusing in instilling and maintaining those elements of the Muslim character will prove to be more effective in protecting our children than just complaining about the ill character of the new generation and worrying to death about their identity. We must escape the excessive gloomy obsession by which we frame the issue of identity, and other similar constructions, in our communities.

Finally, the San Francisco Islamic School is an exercise in civic consciousness. Having a public school as the home of an Islamic school is an opportunity to build bridges and to reach out to people and institutions around us. What we have to offer is so precious, constructive, and useful to others that we don’t have the right to keep it away form people, all people. It is, after all, a trust from Allah that we will one day be held responsible for. For these reasons the San Francisco Islamic School should also be a valuable contribution to the educational and cultural landscape of the city. Likewise, our work is complimentary to efforts and programs that already exist in the field of educating young Muslim in the San Francisco-Bay Area. The independence of our entity should not stand in the way of cooperating and exchange ideas and experiences.

As we work toward our vision of an Islamic School full of enthusiastic young people, who are excited about their faith, we pray that we will maintain focus and commitment, and not get bogged down by our busy lives. We pray that we will remember Allah in all we do, and have faith that He will guide us to contribute to the solutions. Change can only begin by gaining a new perspective. What better way to see than through the eyes of children?