Where Faith and Early Childhood Meet
By Tasmiha Khan
Jul/Aug 26
After having her second child, Chicagoan Maryam Bozai realized she needed support. Specifically, she needed somewhere she would be comfortable leaving her oldest while she took care of her newborn. But she didn’t want to send her child to any childcare center.
She was looking for an Islamic daycare, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for. So she created one herself.
Bozai is the founder of Little Muslims in Chicago, an institution that weaves Islamic practices into the curriculum. As a teacher of 12 years, she decided to use her expertise to kick off the movement.
“Chicago has a big Muslim community, and there are tons of Islamic schools for kids over three years old, but we have nothing for kids under three,” Bozai said.
She explained that during her own search after having her second child, she found at-home care. But she wanted a center with a full-time staff. She thought if she needed this service, then others in the area would, too.
“The idea is to have a Muslim environment where families can have quality child care that is encompassing Islamic values,” Bozai said.
A Difficult Industry
In every state, the cost of early child care exceeds rent payments. Only 1 in 6 families eligible for child care subsidies receive them, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Early educators make a national average of about $12 an hour.
These are just some of the reasons why early child care in the United States is a difficult market, where demand almost always exceeds supply.
More than 65% of children under six have parents who both work full time, according to the Center for American Progress. More than 2 million parents, mostly women, make job changes because of a lack of child care options. This takes a toll on the U.S. economy, which loses about $172 billion annually because of child care problems.
Despite financial setbacks, parents nationwide continue to seek child care. Child Care Aware of America reports about 93,000 early child care centers were registered in 2022, which is a 3% increase from the previous year.
Within the larger issue of limited child care options comes the notion of faith-based centers. According to the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, as of 2019, about 7,550 centers were sponsored by a church or a religious school, serving around 430,000 children.
In a poll by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), 31% of working parent-households used center-based care, and over half of these families were affiliated with a faith organization.
“Parents additionally cited trust as the leading factor for why they selected their child care program,” the report said. “Faith-based child care can offer settings and curriculums that support children’s healthy development and successful learning.”
Early childhood Muslim educators agree. Husun Murrar, the founder of Altayseer Educational Center in Oak Lawn, Ill., began her own initiative based on a similar experience about 15 years ago serving children three and up.
“Back then, in our area, we had maybe one or two Islamic centers,” Murrar said. “Some of them were very expensive. I couldn’t afford it. So I thought, ‘Why can’t I do something?’”
More Than a Place For Muslims
Islamic institutions don’t solely teach Muslim students. At Little Muslims, Bozai’s team is made of Muslims and non-Muslims and enrolls children of different faiths as well.
“We don’t discriminate against anyone’s religion,” Bozai said. “We just make it very clear that this is our program. This is what we’re teaching. If you’re okay with that, great.”
Bozai said that it’s the little things that differentiate an Islamic environment from a general center. For example, only halal food is offered.
General child care centers generally don’t offer halal meat which Bozai said can be an issue because children often don’t realize what is or isn’t permissible for them to eat. Even when parents request only halal meals, they are often just given vegetarian options.
At Little Muslims, the staff skips holidays like Christmas as they are not Islamic celebrations. Instead, Muslim holidays like Ramadan and Eid are scaled up.
“We do a Hajj program. They practice wearing an ihram,” Bozai said. “We teach them how to do Tawaf, how to drink Zamzam [water], and the blessings of that. [We] try to get them excited about everything related to Islam.”
Walking into a Little Muslim center in the morning might mean hearing the morning du’as and saying “Salaam” to teachers. Students also start learning formal Arabic at three so that they know how to read the Quran. This is all foundational to Muslim families.
Muslim families traditionally rely on extended families for child care. However, Muslims in the West may find themselves in vulnerable situations where they are distant from their support systems.
Bozai said many families opt for Little Muslims because they are looking for a space where their children can grow up in an Islamic environment.
According to Bozai, most parents at Little Muslims are working professionals.
“Parents say they feel like they’re dropping their kids off at their moms’ house,” Bozai said.
The Path to Affordability
Bozai doesn’t like to meet the standard; she prefers to exceed it. Instead of meeting Illinois’ requirement of a two to eight teacher to student ratio, hers is five to one. But having more attention to each individual student means that she has to hire additional staff.
“Child care has to be expensive if you are going to do it in a quality way,” she said. “I want to pay everyone a wage that’s worth it for them to stick around.”
Child care affordability is a persistent struggle for American families regardless of faith. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the national average cost of center-based child care reached $13,128 in 2024, exceeding in-state college tuition in 38 states and Washington D.C. The average family now spends 20% of household income on child care, nearly triple the federal benchmark for what is considered affordable. Federal subsidies exist but are largely out of reach. For Muslim families seeking faith-based options specifically, the limited supply of Islamic centers means even less room to negotiate on cost.
Bozai acknowledges that her center is not the most affordable. She understands that it’s hard for a typical family that might not hold higher salaried jobs.
Altayseer also has trouble balancing high quality care with low costs. “I try my best to make my prices reasonable,” Murrar said. “But sometimes it’s too hard on me to keep lowering the prices.”
But she said she makes an effort to help when she can. “Whenever I see somebody desperate to teach their kids, I’m willing to work with them.”
She once had a single mother come into her office and explain significant financial hardship. When the mother expressed how much she valued an Islamic education, Murrar offered her child free tuition.
“I’m hoping that the kids will carry the education that we taught them, go through their life and bring back their kids to learn about their religion,” Murrar said. She is waiting for that full circle moment, when the generation that started during Altayseer’s beginnings returns to enroll the second generation of students.
Navigating the Loopholes
Atop standard requirements like CPR certifications and degrees in early childhood education, most staff members at Little Muslims take on in-house training where they have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with Islamic practices and cultural sensitivity.
During such training, staff discuss decisions that can differ as every family has different levels of faith, Bozai said. For example, some parents like to celebrate birthdays, sending cupcakes or goody bags for the class. Other families are against birthday celebrations completely.
Openly Muslim, Openly American
Habeeb Quadri, superintendent of MCC Academy in Chicago and a consultant to more than 100 Islamic schools nationwide, explained that it’s a core value to provide students the opportunity to become confident Muslim Americans. However, as an Islamic institution, there is a deeper goal. “I think every goal of the school is to give them the necessary tools to be productive citizens in this society,” Quadri said, “but to also give them the necessary tools to become citizens of paradise.”
Like Quadri, Bozai makes it clear that her centers are providing students with the tools to become better Muslims. She made sure that people know what they’re offering when they read the name.
She mentioned that Jewish and Christian centers are very open about their faith. “They’re very unapologetic about it, whereas I think Muslims, a lot of times, are hesitant and apologetic, and I think that needs to change,” she said.
Bozai started Little Muslims to address her own needs, but she found a business model where she can earn while serving the community. She opened a second location almost immediately due to heavy demand. She is now working on opening a third center.
“I figured out a business that’s sustainable, profitable and is benefiting my community,” Bozai said. “And I really do feel like that came from Allah.”
With a goal to open an Islamic child care center in every state within the next five years, Bozai believes her goals are attached to her religion.
“I feel it in my core that we have this responsibility to raise a generation of Muslims that are going to be strong in their identity, in their values, and can speak truth to power and can speak against oppression,” she said.
Tasmiha Khan is a Nova Media Fellow and Youth Building & Belonging Fellow with bylines in The New York Times, National Geographic, and TIME. She is a mother of three and is passionate about caregiving.
Support for this reporting was made possible by the Better Life Lab at New America.
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