Posted on 02/19/2006 8:33:03 PM PST by quantim
Celebrations follow reading, memorization of holy book.
NISKAYUNA, N.Y. – Taha Ahmed was all of 5 years old when he stood in front of a Muslim congregation and read from the Quran in Arabic.
It wasn’t so hard, he whispers now, curled up between his parents on the living room couch at their home near Albany. After all, he was there to celebrate the fact that he’d read the entire holy book.
Now, having just turned 7, he’s busy memorizing it.
In the world of religion, there are certain milestones. Young Roman Catholics have confirmation and, along with some young Protestants, first Communions. Now a growing Muslim population in America is importing a rite of passage called Ameen.
The cultural practice is a mostly South, Southeast and Central Asian one, familiar to perhaps a third of Muslims in the United States.
It has two parts. The first Ameen, or “Amen,” is held when a child finishes reading the Quran, roughly the length of the New Testament, for the first time in Arabic. The child reads the holy book aloud, sounding it out without necessarily understanding it.
The second, and more rare, Ameen comes when someone finishes memorizing it, a task that can take a full-time student as long as three years.
“It’s like a bar mitzvah for Jewish children,” says Eide Alawam, interfaith outreach coordinator for the Michigan-based Islamic Center of America.
America is home to as many as 6 million Muslims, though they remain a small faith group in this country relative to Christians. U.S.-born blacks and South Asian immigrants each make up about one-third of the community, with the rest from the Mideast, Africa, parts of Europe and elsewhere, according to the Mosque in America study released in 2001 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Muslims in the United States say it’s important to hold on to tradition. Depending on what part of the world they come from, they might celebrate when a child begins reading the Quran, or when a girl decides to start wearing a head scarf or hijab.
“In America, the ceremony is highlighted even more,” says Faizan Haq, who teaches Islamic cultural history at the State University of New York at Buffalo and is on the board of directors of the Washington-based National Council of Pakistani Americans.
America has many cultural distractions, which is why Muslim parents here have to take a more active role involving their children in the faith, says Fareez Ahmed, a 21-year-old graduate of George Washington University. Ahmed finished school early to spend his fourth year memorizing the Quran, and now he’s in Bangladesh to perfect his recitation with other students.
Islam experts say reciting the Quran from memory in one sitting would take about 15 hours.
In America, Ahmed would memorize the Quran three hours a day and review for another five or six hours.
“The practice is definitely increasing,” he says. He has five students to teach when he returns to the United States. “Especially with the current international situation, it’s really important to know what the Quran really says about certain issues,” he adds.
At Taha’s Ameen at the local mosque, he got presents including binoculars and puzzles and was given a feast with friends and family. Some American kids now insist on pizza as well.
Taha’s 5-year-old sister, Iman, is almost halfway through her first reading of the book, and she’s started memorizing it as well. Bolder than Taha, she stands and recites a short passage while holding her mother’s hand. But she can’t explain what she’s saying.
Classes about the meaning of the passages will come as the children get older. But for now, it’s a snowy day outside the family’s upstate New York home, and Taha and Iman plan to go sledding.
Some American kids now insist on pizza as well.
Pork in the pepperoni? How fun it would to be a kid again.
And they say Limbaugh listeners are mind numbed robots....
This ought to be legally classified as child abuse.
L
The problems begin when they are old enough to act it out.
Bomb mitzvah?
"Muslim Kids Can Quote Quran"
Ya, so? I had to memorize the Baltimore Catechism, learn responses to the Mass in Latin, and take a few years of Latin in school.
LOL! Very good!
But the line is drawn when these towel-heads start demanding that everybody else read the Kook-ran.
When he finishes memorizing the Quran in Arabic, his education will be complete.
Everything else is unnecessary.
So what is the big deal? My kids started learning Hebrew when they were 3 years old, and by the time they were 5, they could read the Bible in Hebrew and translate it into Yiddish and English.
6 years old is a milestone in the life of a muslim. One of Mohammed's brides was 6 and he consumated the marriage before she was 10.
My son is 7 and he can quote Exodus 20:1-17...in English of course.
I ashamed to say that I cannot.
I'll loan out my spare copy for the loving muslim family. Might be hard to memorize the passages though as I've substituted it for Charmin.
Do you recall a beheading section?
When do they get to the part where they can rape small children and behead for fun. Oh, don't forget the cartoon passages...
How about the part about "feeling your anger and using your hate". Welcome to the DARK SIDE of "religion".
They grow up so fast.../s
Thank you AP for yet another Muslim propaganda piece.
Thank you AP for yet another Muslim propaganda piece.
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