ix-year-olds Ahmad, Jabriel, Sumaiyyah, and Yasin sit barefoot and cross-legged in a circle on the green carpet in a cramped living room in Roxbury, squirming and wriggling their faces as they try to remember phrases from the Koran.
mimc_bigad3
''Al-hamdulillahi rabbil 'aalameen,''they say in Arabic, a language only one of them understands. ''All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the world.''
Their teacher, Sulaiman Abdul-Musawwir, is just 17 himself. He wears New Balance sneakers, cargo pants, and a North Face vest; the only thing that distinguishes him from other young men in Roxbury's St. Joseph housing development is his taqiyyah, a tight black skullcap worn by Muslim men.
But to those in the know, Abdul-Musawwir has another distinction: He is a member of a particular Muslim elite, those few who have memorized the entire Koran, the New Testament-length Muslim scripture.
The child of parents who converted to Islam and who do not speak Arabic, Abdul-Musawwir 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.
In a phenomenon unlike study in any other faith, a handful of Muslim parents are pulling their children out of school, sometimes for as much as three years, so that they can learn by heart all the words of the Koran. Abdul-Musawwir was sent first to Canada and then to the United Arab Emirates, spending three years in special schools where the words of the Koran were drilled into his head from dawn to dusk.
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.
''It's a very praiseworthy thing for him to do, and he will get a great reward,'' says Sulaiman's mother, Aishah Abdul-Musawwir, who converted from Catholicism to Islam while a student at Northeastern University in the 1970s, and who now provides day care and runs an Islamic home school.
''According to the sayings of the prophet Mohammed, one who memorizes the Koran can bring 10 of his family members into heaven,'' she says. ''Any way I can get to paradise.''
Koran memorization is also an important skill now, as Muslims celebrate the holy month of Ramadan. Most mosques host Koran recitations every night during Ramadan, and individuals such as Abdul-Musawwir who have been trained at recitation are much in demand during this season.
This year, the familiar ritual of Koran recitation is particularly important to Muslims. They are seeking to reconnect with the joyful aspects of their faith after an extraordinary autumn in which many American Muslims have found themselves repeatedly defending their religion after the worst act of terrorism in US history, committed by a group of Muslim radicals.
Koran memorization is one of the oldest and most important expressions of Muslim piety, dating back to the very early days of the faith. Muslims believe that the Koran contains, verbatim, the words of God, as revealed to Mohammed.
''In Christianity, the contact between the human and the divine takes place through the sacrament of the Eucharist,'' said William A. Graham, professor of religious history and Islamic studies at Harvard University. ''In the Koranic tradition, the contact between the human and the divine takes place with the recitation of God's word.''
In many parts of the Muslim world, Graham said, Koranic recitation has been elevated to an art form that resembles entertainment. Large crowds gather to hear master reciters; their work is available on CDs and is played often over the radio.
But, as Islam has spread beyond the Arabic-speaking world, memorization has become more challenging, and nowhere more than here in the United States, where most Muslims are growing up speaking English and going to nonreligious public schools.
''The pressures of the modern world are on Islam ... and Koran memorization is obviously harder the farther you get away from the Arabic-speaking world,'' Graham said. ''Certainly the memorization tradition in Christian and Jewish and even in Hindu communities has weakened, and it may be that we'll see a diminution in the number of people educated in the old fashion of slowly memorizing the Koran from age 6 or 8 to 12 or 14.''
Sulaiman Abdul-Musawwir's parents started teaching him verses from the Koran as soon as he could speak. His mother home-schooled him for years, and then he went to the Islamic academy in Sharon. By the time he was sent to special memorization schools, he already knew many Koranic verses.
''At first, I was a little scared. My trip to Canada was my first time out of the United States, and when I went to the United Arab Emirates, it was the first time I had left North America,'' he says. ''Plus, it's a tougher system there - they memorize twice as fast there - so I felt like a real rookie.''
But for three years, Abdul-Musawwir would wake an hour before dawn, perform a ritual ablution, and begin reading the Koran. All day, the activities would alternate: Koran recitation, prayer, food, sleep. At night, he would memorize on his own.
''Not only do you have to memorize it, but you have to practically apply what is said, so now I am starting to apply it more fully,'' he says. For example, he says, he has strived to become more respectful of his parents as a result of more fully understanding the words of the Koran.
Abdul-Musawwir says he is still working at perfecting his pronunciation. He carries a pocket-sized, leather-bound Koran wherever he goes, and tries to read from it every day.
The Koran is 114 chapters long, roughly the length of the New Testament, and is written in a flowery, formalistic form of Arabic. It is performed as a kind of chant, and Muslims place great emphasis on pronunciation, including exacting standards for inflection, elision, and the duration of individual syllables.
The practice of memorizing the Koran transcends class and gender - children are selected based on interest and aptitude.
''Not every child has the ability or the personality for it,'' said Ingrid Mattson, professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary. ''It's like music - some dabble and others really excel, and their parents put a lot of effort into finding them the right teacher and the right situation and cultivating that skill.''
Mattson predicted that Koran memorization schools will multiply across the country in the years ahead, but said they will face a challenge with American youth.
''You need teachers who have not only memorized the Koran themselves, but who are also good with kids, and especially with kids who grew up in America, who don't have the same kind of respect for authority,'' she said. ''Koran memorization is very rigorous, and requires daily study.''
At the Islamic day school in Sharon, children start memorizing the Koran during religion classes two days a week in kindergarten, but many arrive at school already having memorized as many as 10 verses at home, according to Mona Abo-Zena, the school's academic director. She said the school expects the average student to have memorized a full chapter by the third grade.
She said the main method for memorizing Koranic verses is simply repetition, but that pupils develop their own tricks.
''Kids invent little games,'' she said. ''A group of girls will be walking along and will pick a sura[section]. One will say the first verse, another will say the second verse, and so on, and if you mess up or say it too slow, you're out. They make it fun I guess.''
Michael Paulson can be reached by e-mail at mpaulson@globe.com.
