The following report comes from Toyoko Morita (Shingetsu Member No. 12). Morita is a specialist on Muslim immigrant workers in Japan and works at Osaka University of Foreign Studies and Kagoshima University.

AN ISLAMIC SCHOOL IN JAPAN

The Islamic Center of Tokyo has reported on their homepage about their project to establish the first regular Islamic school in Japan. It has already bought a plot of land to build the school (as noted in the book of Keiko Sakurai, Japan’s Muslim Society, Chikuma Shobo, 2003, p. 184). Now in Japan many mosques have been built, and they have some classes to teach Islam to children, women and others. For example, the Kobe mosque has a class two days a week: one is for children and the other is for women. As the number of Muslims is increasing, Islamic mosques are also increasing now in Japan. There are classes in mosques and some schools attached to the embassies of Islamic countries. However, there is no regular Islamic school in Japan yet. It is written on the homepage that the purpose of the school will be “to teach the principles of Islam to the new generation of the present Muslims and to keep the Islamic originality in their minds as well as to prepare future scholars by using their mother tongue (Japanese).” It will become the first regular Islamic school taught in Japanese.

Now in Japan there are about hundred Korean schools, dozens of schools for Latin Americans, and other international schools. Tens of thousands of children go to such ethnic schools. The oldest ethnic school is the Chinese School in Kobe (built in 1899). They teach in their own languages, but the Japanese language is also taught in almost every school. In their history of a hundred years, they share the same problems. They do not have enough financial support from the Japanese government, and it is difficult for children from these schools to go to Japanese universities. It is written that the purpose of the public schools is to produce ‘Japanese.’ Thus, ethnic schools cannot be recognized as being public schools. Ethnic schools are in the same category as driving schools in Japan, and there are very strict requirements regardinging the ownership of buildings, schoolyards, the training of teachers, and other matters in order to be recognized as schools. This kind of situation of Japan has been criticized and the UN has made recommendations for change for several times.

Perhaps the first regular Islamic schools will also have same problems as such ethnic schools. Now some cooperation among ethnic schools is being seen in Japan. When the regular Islamic school is built, I hope that they will be wise enough to take advantage of such networks of cooperation.