The Coalition for Muslim School Holidays met recently in the Bronx Courthouse Rotunda in preparation for a City Council hearing on the possibility of the inclusion of the holy days of Eid Ul-Fitr and Eid Ul-Adha in the official public school calendar as holidays.

Citing religious discrimination by the Department of Education, the coalition claims that Muslim students are forced to make an unfair decision between attending school and observing their principal religious holidays.

The Eids, as explained in a flyer distributed by the group, are considered the two most important holidays in the Muslim faith and draw a comparison to Christianity’s Christmas and Judaism’s Yom Kippur. Eid Ul-Fitr is described as a “time of joy and thanksgiving” celebrated at the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting which ended last week, while Eid Ul-Adha is “a day of remembrance.”

According to the group’s flyer, New York City is the quickest growing Muslim community in the nation, home to over 600,000 Muslims, including one in eight of the city’s public school students.

Joined by several Bronx politicians at the courthouse, the several-hundred-strong coalition laid out their plan of action and then, as the sun set, communally broke their daily fast.

Two Bronxites, Adeeb Ameen, an English teacher, and one of his students, 19-year-old Moussa Fofana, attended the rally. From Ameen’s experience in the city’s public schools, the issue, he said, is usually more about practicing Islam in school rather than about days off for holidays. “I don’t think [not having the days off] bothers most of the families,” said Ameen. “[They] just take the day off. They’re not held back from celebrating.”

For Fofana, the student, the situation was fairly cut and dry. “I really think they should give [the days off] to us,” he said. “We follow all the school rules and everything. If it’s a school rule we respect it. So if it’s a Muslim holiday we should have that day off, too. Respect one another’s rules.”    —Peter Mullin