History

The Muslim community in New England, as in other regions in North America, faced the challenge of raising children with high academic achievement while maintaining their religious and cultural backgrounds. The weekend schools at various Islamic centers and mosques provided a partial solution to this problem. These schools did not provide adequate learning time for this purpose and also took away from the leisure time of children and parents alike.

In September of 1996, The Islamic Academy of New England (IANE) was established as a private, full- time day school in Sharon. During its first year, IANE had 84 students enrolled in its Pre- Kindergarten to grade 6 classes.

In 2000, our middle-high school, named Al-Noor Academy (ANA), came into being to support the growing need of the community towards offering our children the entire preK to grade 12 Islamic education experience.

ANA has since been the only full-time high school in the New England area and has been ranked in the 52nd position by NICHE in terms of best private high school in Massachusetts; the best in Bristol county! As of September 2018, ANA has nearly 130 graduates – all of whom have gained college admissions, including some of the best in the country like MIT, Harvard University, Boston University, Northeastern University, MCPHS, University of Chicago, University of Rhode Island, and many more prestigious institutions.

Both IANE and ANA achieved their accredited-member status in 2010 with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). In fall of 2018, as both schools began their re-accreditation process with NEASC and in full recognition of the schools’ continuing growth, the governance sought to merge both schools into a single PreK-12 entity while retaining the name “Al-Noor Academy”.