(U.S.) Hide and Seek — NPR article on Virginia’s Islamic Saudi Academy
— “A Virginia school scrubbed jihad from its textbooks, but may still preach violence”
— Nina Shea and Ali al-Ahmed report on Virginia’s Islamic Saudi Academy
— “For nearly 25 years, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), the Virginia school founded by royal decree of Saudi King Fahd in 1984, immersed students of its Islamic-studies curriculum in the same Wahhabi interpretation of Islam that is taught in Saudi Arabia and in Saudi-funded madrassas around the world. That curriculum includes praise for militant jihad to ‘spread the faith” and permission for the killing of various categories of “unbelievers,’ as well as other endorsements of religious intolerance.”
— “Now, as it seeks permission from Fairfax County to expand its operations, ISA claims that, over the last school year, it replaced the Saudi religious curriculum with a more moderate one.”
— “Through private channels, we were able to acquire ISA’s Islamic-studies textbooks, all marked for use in the first semester of the 2008-09 school year. Compared to the original Saudi Education Ministry versions, these new Arabic-language textbooks — one slim, single volume for each grade — are indeed redacted and condensed.”
— “We wish we could celebrate the deletions we helped catalyze, but we are not persuaded that the problem is solved. The books contain no significant discussion of jihad and make few references to the religious ‘other.’ The silence is deafening. It raises the question — a question ISA has yet to answer– of what supplemental material the academy is using.”
— “The question is not whether ISA supplements these new textbooks with other material, but what these other materials contain. There is evidence that the school, over the past school year, did in fact continue to use some extremist supplemental resources.”
— “ISA’s website for 2008-09 stated that the school ‘follows the Islamic Studies curriculum which has been set forth by the Kingdom.’ As the first resource on its ‘Useful Links’ webpage, ISA linked to the Saudi Education Ministry site, where the noxious curriculum is posted in full. Those books, according to the Ministry, are electronically formatted to facilitate copying, cutting, and pasting. This underscores the problem of a piecemeal approach to Saudi educational reform.”
— “Even the new texts themselves reference several extreme Islamic authorities. For example, the new twelfth-grade book directs students to Ibn Taymiyyah for resolving moral questions. A 14th-century author, Ibn Taymiyyah extolled the militant jihad we call ‘terror.’ His fatwas were found in a recent study by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center to be ‘by far the most popular texts for modern Violent Extemismis.’ Renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins wrote that Osama bin Laden cites Ibn Taymiyyah as a ‘special hero.'”
— “In addition, it’s important to note that on matters besides jihad, the books still largely reflect Wahhabi orthodoxy. For example, ISA’s new texts endorse marriages between adults and pre-pubescent children, teach that women should not be judges or exercise ‘greater governorship,’ and starkly divide the world into believers and unbelievers.”
— “Nina Shea is director of the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute and serves on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Ali al-Ahmed is a Saudi expert and directs the Gulf Institute, a Washington-based policy research center.”
— See also:
— Researchers Dubious that Islamic Saudi Academy Curriculum Problems Solved
— July 31, 2009: R.E.A.L. Statement to Fairfax County Board of Supervisors
— July 13, 2009: Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) Statement to Virginia’s Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on the Islamic Saudi Academy
— March 18, 2009 R.E.A.L. Statement to the Fairfax County Planning Commission
