He crosses religious lines

He does not understand Urdu, nor can he follow the daily prayers, but Ian Paterson is credited with rescuing the King Abdul Aziz Islamic school from chaos.

Dr. Paterson, who for 30 years headed an elite private Christian school, is six months into his job as headmaster at this religious school at a time when Australians are wary of Islamic schools, and distrustful of Muslims in their midst.

The nation's Muslim community, still small in number compared with that of the United States or France, keeps growing, and so does the desire to build more mosques and religious schools. Such plans face resistance from non-Muslims who are mindful of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and the bombings in Bali last year.

"There is no question that I see myself as a bridge - a means to promote better understanding on both sides of the religious fence," Paterson says.

But the contrast between the wealth and privilege he knew at Knox Grammar School and the dismal situation at King Abdul Aziz, located in one of Sydney's poorest areas, could not have been more stark.

"He was shocked at the state of the school when he first came here," says Akbar Khan, director of the school's board. "Tiles in the bathroom were broken, the toilets hardly functioned, and there were very few facilities for the children and lots of dust - but I promised him that most of this would be fixed up in six months. And it has [been]."

After Paterson had retired from Knox in 1998 as was required by law when he turned 65, he consulted at the Yeshiva College, an orthodox Jewish school, a position he held for two years.

By the time the King Abdul Aziz school board had contacted Paterson, it had gone through four principals in four years, was experiencing rapid staff turnover, and discipline was in shambles.

"Culturally I was all wrong, religiously I was wrong as well, but the timing was right and their need was great," says Paterson, who adds he's been the recipient of nothing but goodwill from staff, students, and parents since he was hired.

"When I joined here, one of the most beautiful things I ever heard was when the member of the council said, 'Mr Paterson has just spent the last two years at Yeshiva in a Jewish school, and he thought it was time to come to their cousins,' " Paterson says. "And that says a lot for the tolerance of this community."

Others have not been so tolerant. The night after the Australian Broadcasting Corporation featured a TV program on Paterson joining the school, a stone was thrown at the window of his house in the upper middle class neighborhood of Turramurra.

This was followed by threatening phone calls that he believes came from conservative Christians.

"Frankly, the most positive messages I get, I get from the school, this Muslim community, and from my friends," he says.

Even the mufti, or spiritual leader, of Australia's estimated 300,000-strong Islamic community, Sheik Taj Din Halaly, approves of Paterson.

"In an ideal situation, we would prefer to have someone from the faith as headmaster," says Keysar Trad, spokesman for the mufti. "But this is a merit-based system and he turns out to be the most qualified person to do the job. And we have heard only good things about him."

"Before he joined us," says Mr. Khan, "we discussed matters like the fact that girls must wear scarves and boys must say their prayers and he told me, 'We all respect God in our own way,' and he was sincere."

Paterson asked Khan to form a separate committee to oversee religious teaching. This reassured the school's board, which Paterson admits was watching "hawkishly" over him in the first couple months after he was hired.

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