Interview With The School Founder, Saber Zaher

We had a great opportunity to sit down and speak with brother Saber, the school founder, and ask about various topics! Let's see what he has to say...

Questions:

1) What is the mission of the school?

2) What was your biggest challenge when first starting the school?

3) What do you think separates this school from any other Islamic school?

Interviewer: What is the mission of the school when it was first founded?

Brother Saber: Our mission was have children keep the American identity they are raised in but within the boundaries of their beliefs, to know it's possible, it 's doable, to stand for everything we have in this country and at the same time have your spiritual/religious beliefs. You should live in a society where you are proud of your identity and background and still be able to integrate and be out there within the society, give back to society, do good, be of service to the people because that is the message of our beliefs. It is why we are here!

Interviewer: Okay good! What was your biggest challenge when first starting the school?

Brother Saber: Location, staff, teachers... that's about it.

Interviewer: How did you overcome those challenges?

Brother Saber: As we started, we were successful in what we did and people started joining. People who agreed with the mission started stepping forward and they started helping out and being involved.

This goes back to our mission, the school doesn't care where you are from. This is my personal mission. When we started there were issues with some community ethnic groups (in the Islamic center) having difficulty being united with one another. Every community (in the Islamic center) had their own programs for their ethnic group so I said we start a school where it focuses on the beliefs and whoever is a follower of Ahlul Bait (as) and wants to help in this mission step forward. Honestly, I am proud we had Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Lebanese, and Saudi Arabian people all involved here (the Saturday school) so it was the first project that brought everybody together towards one cause. We came together because of the mission not because of our cultural backgrounds. That's it.

Interviewer: What do you think separates this school from any other Islamic school?

Brother Saber: A lot of other Islamic schools are very cultural focused, it's one group of people. You might have 90% of the school from one community and the rest from others. So it's the multi-cultural aspect that distinguishes us.

Interviewer: I see great! Thank you for taking this time to speak with us! Inshallah the readers will stay tuned for the next blogs coming up!