| Categories | Sunday School | Islamic School | Online Skype teacher | Structured Maktab |
| Fees | Free/inexpensive | Very Costly | affordable | affordable |
| Environment | chaotic | Non-Masjid | home | Masjid |
| Quran Reading | Very weak | moderate | moderate | Very Good |
| Quran Memorization | Very weak | moderate | Moderate | Very Good |
| Dua Memorization | weak | moderate | moderate | Very Good |
| Islamic Studies | weak | moderate | none | Very Good |
| Instruction Hours weekly | 2-3 hours | 6-7 hours | 2-3 hours | 6-8 hours |
| Teacher Student Interaction | weak | Good | None | Good |
How successful is our Masjid and community in providing Islam to our future generations?
Some questions to reflect on:
How much money and resources have we spent building our masjid/Islamic center? (millions?) Maybe our masjid/Islamic center was even purchased from a church or synagogue? Why did they (the church/synagogue) sell their most valuable asset–their very own place of worship/church that they built with their own hands and hard-earned money?
Will our masjid/Islamic center be able to survive for the next 50 years? Or will it (May Allah forbid) be sold off just like the churches and synagogues are currently being sold off? What percentage of our next generation youth are engaging in activities of our masjid? Do our youth even possess an Islamic identity or are they are disconnected from Islam? What will happen to them a few years down the road? What about their children?
Along with spending on bricks and making buildings (where we take pride in spending millions of dollars of the Ummah), we also need to ensure that these facilities have good educational and Islamic programs so that they will remain populated and active. We need to focus on protecting the Islamic identity of our upcoming generations (upon which if we are asked to spend even 1/20 of the facility price, we unfortunately shrink away). The greatest investment of any community is in their children. Our children are our future. If we invest in today’s children, they will become model American citizens having taqwa (piety) and tarbiya (character). Please bear in mind that not all our students will even remain in the community where they grew up but will most likely move away to wherever their jobs take them. So if they have not become a strong Muslim, then the chances of them reataining Islam when they are away from us will be very slim.
Programs that may already be present in our community which we believe will help solve this problem.
1. Full-Time Islamic schools are doing a very great service and are very much needed in every community. 100 % of all Muslims ideally should attend such full-time Islamic schools.
But the reality is that most communities do not have such schools upto 12th grade.
And wherever there are such schools present, they are too expensive for most parents to send their children to (especially multiple siblings).
Parents feel overwhelmed financially to pay Islamic schools when they are already paying school/property taxes and public schools are FREE.
Also, many Islamic schools are weak in their Quran and Islamic studies, because of lack of time and experienced Quran/Islamic teachers.
2. Weekend/Sunday school helps Muslim community stay in touch with other Muslims. But due to lack of time (once or twice a week) it is just not possible to expect children to even learn how to recite Quran fluently with just weekend/Sunday classes. Experience has shown that sometimes 10 years of Sunday/weekend schools aren’t sufficient to fix the Quran recitation of students.
3. Many Masjids offer daily Quran classes but due to lack of structure and administration, even though some progress is made in Quran reading but most places are lacking with regards to Islamic studies instructions. Also, since many students attend, most get only a few minutes of the teacher’s actual attention.
4. Online/remote studies are very convenient and cost-friendly, however there are four major shortcomings:
5. Youth group activities are great for getting kids connected to the masjid and participating in activities. But in such short and periodic sessions, children are not able to learn the Quran nor the basics of Salat, Wudhu, etc.