It’s a good read, though a little off the mark at a few places. Just out of curosity, is there any plan by the different Muslim organizations of USA/North America to have such a school??
There are a few private Chrisitan colleges that offer Islamic studies as a minor, like Duke & Harvard but that’s from a educational/research point of view, not as a service to educate Imams to lead communities.
Role Of Imams Changes To Meet Community Needs
By RACHEL ZOLL
Published on 6/27/2003, Associated Press
A Lebanese man living in Syria, Muhammad Musri chafed
under that nation’s restrictive laws. Then he heard a
Voice of America broadcast about the shortage of imams,
or Muslim prayer leaders, in the United States.
“I was listening to it thinking, “What am I doing here?”’
he said, and soon afterward he left the country, hoping
to lead a mosque in America.
Years later, Musri is an imam in Orlando, Fla., but the
job is not exactly the one he anticipated when he
emigrated from the Mideast. In the religious melting pot
of the United States, the role of Muslim prayer leader
has transformed into something that would seem unfamiliar
to people in predominantly Muslim countries.
Imams in those nations generally have few other
responsibilities than leading prayers on Friday, the
Muslim Sabbath.
But in America, they do much more. Like ministers and
rabbis, imams manage their houses of worship, teach,
provide counseling and perform marriages and other
rituals.
Muslim leaders say the position of imams here has
evolved to the point that they are becoming an
institutionalized clergy - a remarkable shift since
Islam has no ordained clergy and is led instead by
religious scholars, traditionally a group that is
distinct from imams.
“You are at a crossroads,” Muslim political scientist
Muqtedar Khan told U.S. imams, meeting this month in
Alexandria, Va. Imams need to decide “whether you’re
going to end up becoming office managers at the masjid
(mosque) or becoming leaders of your community.”
U.S. imams started gaining importance in the 1960s, when
the federal government relaxed immigration laws, drawing
Muslims to the United States in large numbers for the
first time. Few scholars were among the newcomers,
creating a leadership vacuum that imams often filled.
Imad Benjelloun, an imam for mosques in the Quad Cities
area of Illinois and Iowa, said Muslims often ask him
for guidance on issues that counselors, scholars and
others would provide in his native Morocco.
His advice has been sought on everything from
reconciling with an estranged spouse to whether Muslims
can work in stores that sell alcohol, which they are
forbidden to drink under Islamic dietary laws.
Along with imams’ new duties have come new freedoms
that have boosted their position in local Islamic
communities. In many Muslim nations, a government
ministry tells imams what they must say in their
speeches at Friday prayers. In the United States, the
imams decide the topics themselves, setting priorities
for their congregation.
“In predominantly non-Muslim countries, you have to
have special skills,” Benjelloun said.
Imams also have been shaped by contact with other
religions.
Muslims, who have no ultimate religious authority
like a pope, have had to find leaders to work with
national organizations that represent U.S. Catholics
and Protestants, said Souheil Ghannouchi, a former
imam and president of the Muslim American Society,
in Alexandria, Va.
Local imams have often played that role. Musri and
Ghannouchi are among those trying to create a national
organization of Muslim prayer leaders to handle those
high-level interfaith talks, while also setting national
certification standards for imams and creating a job
placement network for them across the country.
“The National Council of Churches, the National Council
of Bishops - these people are looking for counterparts
in the Muslim community to deal with,” Ghannouchi said.
You can’t bring an imam from a small mosque to deal
with the head of all the bishops of the United States,
he said.
But their education hasn’t always kept up with imams’
growing responsibilities, raising concerns about how
they will influence the American Muslim community.
While there are some training programs for Muslim
chaplains in the United States, and even Internet
courses, no internationally respected U.S. school has
been established to educate them about Islam.
Some have studied at top universities overseas, like
Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar University, while others
have received little formal training.
Often, the less educated provide poor guidance on
religious matters, based on their own cultural
traditions instead of a true understanding of their
faith, said Sheik Muhammad Al-Hanooti of the Fiqh
Council of North America, a supreme court that
interprets Muslim religious law.
As a nation, “our knowledge of Islam is around
zero-plus,” Al-Hanooti said. “Our imams are in need
of a lot of learning.”
Musri tries to overcome this problem by training
imams himself at the Islamic Society of Central
Florida, where he oversees seven mosques serving
30,000 people.
Well-trained prayer leaders have become so critical to
Muslim communities that mosques often compete with
each other to hire the top imams, trying to lure
them away with more money and better benefits,
Musri said.