Category: Local

(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

To: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on ISA Expansion – Urging Focus on Children’s Safety and Interests

From: Jeffrey Imm, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)

Fairfax County Board of Supervisors –
As a former citizen of Virginia for 14 years, I urge you once again to deny the request for the expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA).  I do so based on the issues of public safety of those children subjected to the ISA’s curriculum and the Saudi culture.  The Saudi culture is not simply an “Arab” culture, nor is it simply an “Islamic” culture, as has been frequently misstated.  The Saudi culture is a totalitarian and supremacist culture.  Regardless of how the ISA claims now that it has “removed” the hate and intolerance from ISA textbooks, the long history of hate and intolerance in ISA textbooks is merely a symptom of the Saudi culture itself, which has been repeatedly condemned by the U.S. State Department for its rejection of human freedom and has been repeatedly condemned by the International Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The charges that many who have challenged this request for ISA expansion are “anti-Muslim” is both offensive and absurd.  The argument that Saudi Arabia’s anti-freedom, supremacist, totalitarian culture represents “Muslims” has been repeatedly disproven.  As stated by both the U.S. State Department and by the International Commission on International Religious Freedom, Saudi Arabia denies freedom and promotes intolerance against other forms of Islam such as Shi’a Islam and oppresses Muslims.  Moreover, Muslim women of all sects are so oppressed in Saudi Arabia, that one Muslim woman recently described Saudi Arabia as the “world’s largest women’s prison.” Such intolerance against other Muslims has been a part of the ISA textbooks as well.  So it is totally false that ISA defenders claim that they are speaking in defense of “Islam.”  The fact is that the ISA has a documented history of textbooks promoting teachings against other Muslims.  Furthermore, three Congressional representatives recently went to Saudi Arabia to protest the continued use of textbooks in Saudi Arabia that promote hate and intolerance.  These are not isolated issues – they are part of a continuing culture of institutionalized hate that is inherent in the Saudi “culture” that will be taught by the ISA.

This past week – about 10 miles away from you – in the nation’s Capitol, there has been a conference discussing the horrific plight of Saudi Muslim women.  It was held on Capitol Hill where Congressional representatives spoke as to the oppressive conditions that Saudi Muslim women live, and how some Congressional representatives have worked to help American women who have ended up in Saudi Arabia to flee for their freedom and their lives.  The conference was held by the Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CDHR) in Saudi Arabia, led by its Muslim Director, Dr. Ali Alyami.  I urge you to email or telephone (202-558-5552) Dr. Ali Alyami to obtain a balanced perspective on the totalitarian, supremacist Saudi ideology that is inherent in the ISA teachings in Fairfax County. This week at the Capitol, as numerous Muslim men and women spoke to the totalitarian and supremacist nature of ideology oppressing women and others in Saudi Arabia, no one accused the speakers of being “anti-Muslim.”

According to CDHR’s Muslim Director Dr. Ali Alyami, “The Saudi government prohibits all democratic freedoms including political parties, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, civil society, equality for women, equality for religious minorities and religious freedom. The autocratic regime considers these empowering values antithesis to God’s will.”   The Declaration of Universal Human Rights that the United States and other free nations adopted 60 years ago, after the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, was rejected by Saudi Arabia then, and is still rejected by Saudi Arabia today.  Saudi Arabia remains a snapshot of the institutionalized hate of supremacism and totalitarianism that has vanished from many corners of the Earth today.  That is the culture that is inherent in the ISA’s academy and teachings.

It is such a totalitarian culture that in the United Kingdom recently – ten have filed for political asylum to be protected from having to return to the Saudi Arabia prison state – and for some death sentences for “cultural” crimes.  Just ten days ago, a woman filed for political asylum to be protected from being sent back to the Saudi Arabian prison state for fear of being stoned to death for having an “illegitimate” child.  Imagine the Fairfax County Government approving an expansion of an academy to teach and promote a “culture” that people beg and plead for political asylum to prevent having to live under.  This is the same totalitarian Saudi culture that refuses to protect children, where young girls are a significant part of human trafficking, and where “child marriage” is permitted — a Saudi culture where even 8 year old little girls are not safe.

The Saudi totalitarian, supremacist culture is the culture that children in Fairfax County will be taught by an expanded ISA.  Challenging such an expansion of ISA is not “anti-Muslim;” it is in the public safety and human freedom interest of these vulnerable children who need the protection of responsible adults and authorities.

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) has contacted you on this for the same public safety and human freedom reasons that we would if the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors was considering the expansion of a “South African Apartheid Racial Institute,” a “Communist Chinese Totalitarian Institute,” or a “Nazi Germany Aryan Supremacist Institute.”  Our arguments and our concerns for the public safety of vulnerable and impressionable children would be same in any of those or similar circumstances.  I realize that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors views the ISA expansion as a “land-use” only issue.  I would expect that it would have the same “land-use” questions for the public safety of vulnerable and impressionable children in any of these circumstances.

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) urges you, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, to do the right thing in terms of protecting the minds of vulnerable children as a fundamental responsibility of protecting  public safety as government representatives.  Such children, whose public safety and whose futures are so vulnerable, are dependent on your actions to help protect them now.

We urge you, as Virginians, and as fellow free human beings, to be responsible for equality and liberty and protect children in Fairfax County from an expansion of the ISA.

Jeffrey Imm
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)