Supreme Court on School Prayers
I read about the court’s ruling against prayers in schools with considerable amusement.
My great-grandfather was the family physician to the Nizam of Hyderabad, fabulous mogul, then the wealthiest man in the world. My family, for generations prominent in government and the professions, are Establishment Muslims. They nevertheless sent me to St. George’s, an exclusive English Christian school in India affiliated with Cambridge University.
We studied the life and teachings of Christ exhaustively. I know more about Christianity than many Christians. I have no regrets. None of our Muslim or Hindu parents--all conservative, proud, privileged “old families”--had any objection to daily Christian prayers in school. All knowledge is light.
In 100 years, no Muslim or Hindu student or graduate of St. George’s “converted” to Christianity or rejected his own religion.
I trust my “liberal” American friends will forgive me if I believe that objections and confrontations about brief prayers in schools are much ado about nothing. Is their “faith” so fragile?
ALI WASSIL
Los Angeles
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