Source: The Boston Globe

On December 4, 2001, The Boston Globe featured an article on young Muslim Americans who are learning the tradition of memorizing the Quran. Sulaiman Abdul-Musawwir is "the child of parents who converted to Islam and who do not speak Arabic, [but he] represents the first wave of an effort to replicate an ancient Islamic tradition in the new world. He is one of perhaps five American-born Muslim youths in Boston who have been formally trained to recite the entire holy book of Islam, a status that wins him respect in this life and is supposed to help pave his path to heaven... Although most Muslims who memorize the Koran do so abroad, a small number of Koran memorization schools are springing up in this country, including in Buffalo and Chicago. And many Muslim schools, such as the Islamic Academy of New England in Sharon, train students to memorize at least parts of the Koran starting in kindergarten."