Tonga's small Muslim community of about 100 people are aiming to build a new boarding school on Tongatapu before 2010.

Sheikh Imam Abdul Fader, the spiritual leader of the local Muslim community who is also a Mathematics teacher, said that their project is to build a three-storey boarding school that will serve Muslims and non-Muslim alike.

He said that a small delegation of Tongan Muslims would leave in June for Saudi Arabia and Qatar to seek donations and funding for the new school. These two countries are well known for their strong contributions to the Muslim community in Australia and New Zealand.

They are planning that the new school will follow the normal school curriculum of Tongan schools from Form 1 - 7 with subjects such as English, and Mathematics, and also with the Arabic language and Islamic studies as another option for students.

"We want to build the school to help the Muslim community and the non-Muslims, especially orphans who stay in the isolated outer islands or villages and are deprived of fundamental education, we want to bring these children to this school and educate them, but we will not force them to study Islam or convert to our faith, that will be their own choice," said Sheikh Imam Abdul Fader.

He said that a group of Muslims worshipers had been in Tonga since the 1980's, "but they were not known because the faith did not have a symbolic building to reflect their unique faith, like a mosque or in Arabic a Masjid (church for Muslim)."

He lived in Tonga during the 1980s, and married a Tongan convert, then they left to work and live in New Zealand and Australia until 2005 when they decided to return and set up a center for the Islamic Faith at 'Anana.

The centre has been a place for Muslim community to pray and for Muslim children to be taught by the Sheikh according to the Holy Book Qur'an.

The local Muslim community consists of Tongans, Fijians, Bangladeshi, Pakistanis, Arabs, and Indians.

Sheikh Fader said that in the Holy Book, the Qur'an, "we are taught peace and unity, there is no violence in the holy book nor there is terrorism or suicide bombing or the taking of innocent lives mentioned. Our purpose in life is to do good and be good and we wish for peace and to be able to live with our fellow Christians as one family.

"There are 1.2 billion Muslims around the world and every Muslim represents himself, and what he does, he is the only one to blame, because it would be totally unfair to blame the whole Muslim faith and followers for what a small minority did."

The Sheikh and his Tongan wife have seven children.