Hermeneutical religious positions among Muslim educators vary in flexibility and openness to critical thought. Those within a school community may disagree on how Islam should be interpreted and practiced. In the light of this, who determines which expressions of the faith are acceptable in particular locations, and how? And what messages do these processes send to students? Based on 18 months of ethnographic research at a K-12 Islamic school in the midwestern United States, this paper describes conflict-ridden instances in which school faculty subtly communicated interpretive norms through implication or example. These demonstrate select ways that distinct approaches to Islam were constructed and contested within the community.