The "My Story" that I published online was actually missing a great deal of stuff that I decided not to publish. Here are a couple of chapters that I removed - for those who are interested:
Chapter...
Islamia School
?Hadrabak ya walad!? yelled Teacher Rafiqa, the large Egyptian lady seated in front of a class of five-year-olds. The words meant ?I will hit you, child!? They were directed at a boy climbing over the back of another child. The boy knew she meant it and got down. The class sat still and quiet while Teacher Rafiqa was in the room. Even the naughtiest child dared not misbehave in her class. She was teaching them Arabic, and ?Hadrabak!? was a phrase the children picked up quickly. She continued chanting Arabic words, slapping her thigh with each syllable as she did.
?Battatun.? (Duck).
?Battatun,? chanted the children.
?Tufahatun.? (Apple).
?Tufahatun,? chanted the children.
When the lesson finished Teacher Rafiqa collected her sheets and marched out, leaving Teacher Kulsum, the regular class teacher, to take over. The children had been sitting still for a long time and were fidgety. So she got them all to have a stretch and played a quick game of Ahmad Says, which is like Simon Says ? but it?s Ahmad who?s saying it, not Simon. Then she sang a nursery rhyme to the tune of ?Boys and Girls come out to play;? everyone joined in.
Boys and Girls its time to pray
Azaan is called five times a day
Stop your playing and leave your sleep
Ignore the noises in the street
Pack up your toys and leave your games
Remember Allah most glorious of names
Come in a hurry come clean and smart
Speak to your maker and open your heart
Praise and thank Him all day long
And say you're sorry if you've done wrong
He?ll forgive you all and give you the power
To think and do good each second and hour.
It was almost play time, so Teacher Kuslum lined them up by the door, the girls looking angelic in their white hijabs and beige pinafores.
?Walk quietly, in a straight line,? said Teacher Kulsum as the children set off along the corridor. ?And don?t run!?
But some of the boys had already started to canter past the girls at the front, and once they turned the corner it became a full blown gallop to get to the playground first. Teacher Kuslum made her way to the staffroom where Teacher Rafiqa had laid out some snacks.
?Cup of tea, brother Hassan?? said sister Nasreen as I came in the door, carrying a pile books to mark.
?Yes please,? I replied. ?And if there?s any of the fresh mint left, could you pop that in it too please??
I sat down at one end of the long table and began ?flicking and ticking? through the books, adding comments such as, ?Remember to use capital letters for place names.?
?Did you hear what happened to sister Sandra when she was leaving school yesterday?? said sister Maheen.
?No??
?That racist over the road ? the one who lives in the bed and breakfast ? started swearing at her and told her to go home.?
?Stupid man. What did she say??
?She told him she was going home.?
Teacher Abdullah appeared at the door with a lady in a short skirt and low cut blouse.
?This is Caroline, from ?Scholastic Books?. She?ll be attending our staff meeting today. She has some ideas about reading schemes to present to us.?
Caroline stood nervously at the door.
?Come and sit down, habibti (darling),? said Teacher Rafiqa, holding Caroline?s hand and leading her towards a chair as though she were a small child. Then without asking if Caroline wanted anything, she placed an enormous slice of cream cake on a plate and put it in front of her.
?Oh thank you, but it?s too much,? said Caroline.
?No,? said teacher Rafiqa sternly, ?you must eat it all; you are too thin.?
Islamia School was both a mad and a wonderful place. The sincerity, commitment and genuine warmth of those involved made one feel part of a huge family, albeit a rather odd and dysfunctional family. Throughout the fifteen years I spent there as a teacher it was always much more than a job to me. I mixed socially with the teachers and parents; we attended prayers together, went to the same Islamic circles; my children played with their children. Regardless of whatever doubts and inner turmoil I had, the community at Islamia School kept me going and provided an anchor on which to hold. Everyone at the school was a constant reminder of the reality of Muslims that was a world away from the demonizing headlines of the tabloids. It was also a reminder of how people's humanity always triumphs over narrow-minded dogma ? eventually.
Islamia School was founded as a nursery in 1983 by Yusuf Islam with a small group of parents ? my sister and her husband being amongst them ? and expanded into an infant, junior and then secondary schools. It was a natural consequence of the increasing Islamic awareness amongst young Muslims in the late 70s and early 80s. Many of them were now married and starting to have children, and so their attention inevitably turned to education. They wanted to provide an Islamic alternative to the secular schools on offer in the UK. But although everyone agreed that they wanted an ?Islamic School?, the details of what that meant to them were not clear. To Teacher Rafiqa, it meant importing the traditional system of rote learning and corporal punishment she had been used to as a child in Egypt. To others, such as Teacher Nazeer, an Asian born in the UK and educated at public school, it meant adopting the methods and curriculum of the West, with minor ?Islamic? concessions, such as beginning the lesson with al-Fatiha (first chapter of the Qur?an) and ending it with al-Asr (103rd chapter of the Qur?an). My own commitment to the cause of Islamia School was related to the crisis of identity that I had experienced as a child. I hoped the school would give Muslim children in the UK a strong sense of their identity as British Muslims. I wanted them to feel confident about who they were and have others around them who shared their values and beliefs. Yusuf Islam, who became the chair of the board of governors, had a holistic vision of Islamic education as it had existed during the golden age of Islamic history and wanted a school that could combine the spiritual with the temporal.
Yusuf financed the school out of his own money and was actively involved at every level, from what was taught in the classroom to what food was served in the canteen. He would arrive every morning as I was lining up the children in the playground to recite the morning Du?a (prayer) and would always be on the look-out to see if the playground had been cleaned, whether teachers were arriving on time or whether policies were being implemented. Everyone at Islamia School was well aware that Yusuf was the man in charge and that he could be a hard task master at times, but they also loved him. It is hard not to love Yusuf, as he is such an endearing character, so natural, honest and childlike, always enthusiastic and full of creative ideas about how to make the school a brighter place. He came up with the idea of re-painting the gymnasium based on the theme of ?Night? and ?Day?, with the circle around one of the basket-ball nets as the moon surrounded by a night sky and the circle on the opposite end as the sun surrounded by a clear blue sky. Yusuf wrote Nasheeds (Islamic songs) for the children, and I took small groups of children up to the mosque to practice songs with him for the Albert Hall performance in 2003, commemorating twenty years of Islamia School. Of course Yusuf has a wonderful singing voice, and the children responded to him well, as he taught them how to harmonise and get the key and timing right. But he is also a perfectionist and wanted things done again and again, when they didn?t meet his high expectations, and at times needed reminding that they were only children and could do with a break. Yusuf could be very whimsical and some of the ideas he would throw out were not to be taken seriously.
?I like the way you line up the children for the morning Du?a, Teacher Hassan,? he said one morning.
?Yes, it?s a good way to start the day.?
?How about doing some military drills with the children? Marching up and down the playground in formation, to teach them some discipline??
?I suppose we could do something like that,? I replied. ?Though I?m not sure when we could do it.?
?How about in PE lessons??
?I?ll look into it.?
In the early days of Islamia School Yusuf seemed almost embarrassed by his past as a pop star and never talked about it. I remember sitting with him in the staff room as we listened to a radio program about Islamia School. The radio host presented a short biography of Cat Stevens and started to play ?Wild World?; Yusuf jumped up and turned the music down, remaining there with his hand on the volume until the talking had resumed, then sat down as we listened to the rest of the programme. During this time when he was still a relatively new convert to Islam, I always felt he was not being true to himself and was obsessed with what people might think of him. When controversial topics were raised he often asked others what their positions were, as if he was trying to discover what his own view should be, rather than trusting his intuition. However Yusuf mellowed a great deal over the years and became more relaxed and willing to trust his instincts. One example of this was his attitude to music. At first he followed the strict view on the prohibition of musical instruments, and the only music lessons in the school were the Nasheed classes where songs were sung without any accompaniment. Yusuf set up a record label, Mountain of Light, to record them as well as those of other artists. It wasn?t long before he started to follow the opinion that using drums was acceptable. Then he adopted a more liberal opinion that allowed electronic instruments. He has now reached the position of allowing the full spectrum of musical instruments and has now recorded songs that are not on religious themes. This has drawn condemnation from some of the more hard-line elements in the Muslim community. Knowing how such criticism had upset him in the past, I told him, as we sat together in the mosque one day, not to take any notice of these narrow-minded idiots.
?No,? he replied, ?I?ve gone beyond that point now. It doesn?t bother me what they say.?
Islamia School also changed and evolved over the years as it struggled to find its identity. It was a pioneering venture to create an Islamic school to compete with the best schools in the UK while at the same time providing a traditional Islamic education. During one INSET day teachers were set the task of formulating a Mission Statement that encapsulated the aim of Islamia School. We eventually came up with this:
"To strive to provide the best education, in a secure Islamic environment, through the knowledge and application of the Qur'an & Sunnah."
But merging the British National Curriculum with the values of the Qur?an and Sunnah was no easy task and required compromises. The first problem was that the only text books we had were either the standard texts books found in UK schools, which therefore made no reference to the Qur?an and Sunnah, or they were sub-standard books borrowed from Muslim countries. Everyone agreed that we should use the same text books used in State Schools in the UK and we did our best to input our own knowledge of Islam into lessons. But this was ad hoc and unevenly applied, and Yusuf was keen to devise a standard Islamic syllabus. He directed us to collect Qur?anic verses or Hadith that related to scientific or historical areas of the National Curriculum and collate it together into an Islamic Syllabus.
At first the school adopted many of the strict Salafi views, such as not allowing musical instruments or the drawing of faces and the censoring of material deemed un-Islamic according to strict Salafi criteria. It?s true that a fair number of parents were strongly influenced by Salafi doctrines, but the deciding factor was Yusuf himself. He was the real power behind Islamia School. No decision could be made without his approval and he dictated the sort of people he wanted in charge and the policies implemented. Everyone in the school knew Yusuf was the real person in charge ? regardless of who was head teacher or Treasurer (an important post at Islamia School.) To be fair though, Yusuf?s leaning towards Salafi doctrines may have been partly due to the need to raise donations from wealthy Muslims ? including Saudis. It costs a great deal to run a school, and although Yusuf put a huge amount of his own money into it, more was always needed. This came partly from fees, but more crucially, from donations from wealthy individuals. The money was raised and distributed around the school through the Trust Office. Most of those Yusuf employed in the Trust Office were Salafis. Many of them were also parents of children at the school. As parents and custodians of the purse strings, the Trust Office felt they had the right to impose their views on the school, and relations between them and the more liberal-minded teachers were often very strained. Yusuf was forced into the position of peace broker, walking a tightrope between the different opinions.
Topic: Some missing chapters