Texas Islamic Scholar Dr. Salah Al-Sawy Advises Against Enrolling Muslim Children In Catholic Schools, Which 'Have A Poisonous Atmosphere Charged With Polytheism'

On September 15, 2022, prominent American Islamic scholar Dr. Salah Al-Sawy posted a video to his YouTube channel about the Islamic law perspective on sending Muslim children to Catholic schools for academic reasons and to prevent mixing between boys and girls. He warned that Catholic schools are dangerous for Muslims, and he said that homeschooling may be preferable. He explained that the atmosphere of such schools is "poisonous" and that these schools contain the "seeds of polytheism" and the worship of gods other than Allah. Dr. Al-Sawy is the Secretary-General of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) and the President of the Medical Center Islamic Society of Houston, Texas.

Dr. Salah Al-Sawy: "A viewer from Canada asks: 'Is it permissible to enroll my son in a Canadian Catholic high school, where school starts every day with church hymns, because this is a good school from the academic perspective, and only for boys, or should I enroll him in a secular co-ed school, since there is no Islamic school for older kids in my town?'

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"Try to get your son exempt from attending those church hymns, on religious grounds, and see what these people say. Then follow your son's behavior and ideas closely. I fear that the danger might not lie only in the hymns, but in the entire poisonous atmosphere. Perhaps homeschooling is one of the alternatives, until Allah provides you with a solution.

"It is not necessarily only about the morning hymns, although those are [bad] enough. The general atmosphere is charged with the seeds of polytheism, and with ecclesiastical concepts that are based on casting doubts, politization, and the worship of gods other than Allah."