Muslim Youth Find a Bridge In a U.S. Tradition: Scouting

U.S. Muslim scout troops have been increasing in the past two decades, said Donald York, director of the relationship division of the Boy Scouts of America: 112 troops with 1,948 members are chartered through an Islamic school or mosque.

"What's happening now in the Islamic community is very similar to what was happening in the 1920s and '30s in Boy Scouts . . . with the Jewish community," York said. "They used scouting to assimilate their young people into America."

York said scouting values -- which include an adherence to faith -- mesh well with Muslim ones. "Islamic families and clergies want the same thing for young people," he said. "They want them to grow up in their faith and learn their histories and cultures," he said. "Things like trustworthy, obedient, clean and helpful" -- elements of Scout Law -- "these are predominant Muslim ideas. They're very attractive to an Islamic family."

A spokeswoman for Girl Scouts of the United States of America said the organization does not ask scouts' religious affiliation but does encourage spirituality. Troops often meet in churches, synagogues, and, increasingly, mosques.

"It's a pretty common thing," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. "In fact, we did an ad campaign trying to show Muslims as regular people, and that was one of the things we showed: a Muslim Girl Scout troop in California."

Most Muslim children attend public schools and absorb American culture there, Hooper said. But people whose children attend Islamic school or are home-schooled also say connections with non-Muslims are important.

"In this society, everybody has to learn to live together," said Zohra Sharief, a Pakistani living in Woodbridge who home-schools her five children and co-leads Troop No. 503. "If I isolate myself from the society, it's my loss."

It helps to have non-Muslim peers who understand the traditions, Hasan said. Still, she said, as immigrants arrive from Muslim countries and start families here, they must differentiate between what is religious and what is cultural and decide which American cultural practices to embrace and incorporate.

Many note, for example, that dress is a cultural choice. Some immigrants arrive accustomed to wearing Western attire; some hew to the sartorial traditions of their home countries; some make compromises, such as forgoing headscarves but forbidding miniskirts.

Hasan, 34, who is of Indian descent and was raised in Kuwait, said she and her three daughters do not wear head coverings except during prayers. "I tell them, 'We're in America; you can wear pants.' "

But she has a blanket rule against another American ritual: sleepovers. "It's not religious," she said of her reasoning, "but I remember my mom said it's not decent for young ladies to be sleeping in a house other than their own."

At the center last week, in a large room that serves as a prayer hall, party room and indoor gym, girls in headbands and jeans sat beside girls in headscarves and shalwar kameez -- tunics and trousers -- to make crepe-paper Eid necklaces.