They didn't have all these expenses of life. So it's better if you marry early, but under some circumstances it's better to develop your life first. Private schooling still touches only a small portion of American Muslims, whose numbers are growing. There are no official national figures, but a 1992 study commissioned by the American Muslim Council, a lobbying group in Washington, estimated the Muslim population in New York State at 800,000 and in New Jersey at 200,000. A more recent study by demographers at the State University of New York at Cortlandt concluded that 450,000 Muslims live in the New York metropolitan area alone.
Islamic schools are still small players in the private-education business.
But Muslim educators say the numbers of full-time Muslim students do not tell the complete story. Many of their schools have only now reached a point of critical mass at which they can attract more students because they offer advanced grade levels and have a demonstrable academic track record. But school administrators say that in an area that already supports 450 mosques in New York City and Long Island, there is a vast untapped pool of families willing to pay for an alternative to the secular public schools. Here they have to watch the way they walk, watch the way they talk and watch what comes out of their mouths. The formula of piety and penalties at schools like Al Noor seems to have whetted the appetite of Muslim parents.