UI – Part 580 – An Islamic Education
Have you ever asked, or considered, what is contained in the textbooks used in schools in Islamaland? In simple terms the contents tend to disparage non-Muslims, promote hatred towards other religions and religious groups, tell of laws for apostates to include the death penalty, caution against making friends of those of other religions or non-believers, and encourage resistance, even jihad, violent and non-violent (dawa), against non-believers.
A U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)(website) has surveyed texts in many Islamic countries only to notice a failure to fulfill promises made, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, to revise and update the textbooks. The Saudi textbooks inform high schoolers that if they do not worship the Saudi-State sanctioned interpretation of Islam (Wahhabism), they are polytheists, who will go to hell regardless of their good deeds.
The focus of USCIRF is religious freedom throughout the world. In December of 2018 this organization released a booklet concerning anti-conversion laws in south Asia, which are used (abused) by extremists to prevent persons from leaving their majority Muslim religion (apostasy laws).
This should be a concern to everyone. And moreso where Islam is being taught in free countries, in the EU, in Canada and in the United States. Hundreds of madrassas (and mosques) have been built with Saudi money, also Iranian dollars, and use textbooks required by the foreign funding sources. Language in these texts are offensive to non-Muslims, and a tactic of brainwashing for Muslims. They can be used to radicalize moderate Muslims who are weak and even though living in free nations subject to family, peer, and societal pressures to not even consider another pathway, another religion (or no religion – atheism) for fear (Islamophobia) of being ostracized. In many parallel societies, that exist in free nations, where Islamist’s rule and maintain a separate identity from their host country, harm may well come to those who leave Islam, or even criticize or question the practices of this ideology. Sharia courts have been established, separate from the host country judicial system, that rule on ideological (they say ‘religious’) matters for their people. Punishment can be exacted, even if not ascribed by national laws, or common law.
The Department of Education in the US provided public schools a program entitled ‘Access Islam’ a number of years ago. Debates arose concerned about this program as an ‘indoctrination’ into Islam. The pundits and analysis generally agree it is not; it is a comparison with other religions. However it does little to present Islam and its characteristics of hate and discrimination as taught in curriculums of madrassas. It paints a more positive picture and teaches nothing about terrorist activities or organizations such as Al Qaeda, ISIS or Al Shabaab, thus raising the concern, is it fairly represented? The program, written for Grades 5 – 12, has students learning verses from the Quran and Hadith. Students must not only learn the verses, but give the religious “meaning” of those verses and explain how they use them in their daily lives. There is no comparable program using the Bible.
There are other lesson plans, one is a video – a video of a Muslim who converted from Christianity and claims Islam “is the true worship of God.” The video instructs children to “submit yourself” to Allah.
The objection is that if the subject was Christianity similar activities, questions or instructions, would not be permitted in the public schools. There are no videos made available of Muslims having converted to Christianity, or accepting Christ as their Savior in any similar ‘Access’ program for public schools.
Islamic Charter Schools
There are over 100 charter schools in America that have programs established by Gulen, a Turkish exile jihadist, with support from our government. More fundamental Islamic principals are taught in these institutions. A Bottom Line editorialist wrote, “Muhammad Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish Muslim, propaganda writer, Islamic Imam and stealth Jihadist with a secret plan for bringing the barbaric Islamic Shariah law and oppression to America.” (U.S. Muslim Madrassas Secretly Financed By Obama, by de Andréa, Opinion Editorialist for ‘THE BOTTOM LINE’: Published January 22, 2016)
In 2016 Senator Chris Murphy noted, “According to some estimates, since the 1960s, the Saudis have funnelled over USD 100 billion into funding schools and mosques all over the world with the mission of spreading puritanical Wahhabi Islam.” He also said, “The uncomfortable truth is for all the positive aspects of our alliance with Saudi Arabia, there is another side to Saudi Arabia that we can no longer afford to ignore as our fight against Islamic extremism becomes more focused and more complicated.”
What makes a terrorist? Islamic religious schools are widely cited as an important contributor to extremism, no doubt, and allowing them to spread, directly as a school (madrassas) or via a Mosque, is a concern. Curriculums imported from Islamaland contain extremist views. Are political Islamic ideals watered-down when incorporated into the curriculums of such schools in free nations, such as the EU, UK, Canada and the USA. I feel they are not. One problem is the teachers.
Free nations have few scholars of Islam. To fill the growing number of teaching positions educators must be imported. They are imported from cultures quite different from their new host countries. They bring with them the methods and the words, the style and the habits of the areas from which they emigrated. Styles are more often than not strict, harsh, and insistent on the more strident tenets of Islam be wholly observed, to include jihad. Memorizing the Quran is a practice, even if the words are not understood. Students will be told what their Scripture says and means. The teachers find their new societies too free, thus living in a sin filled environment, and call upon the students to resist the non-believer, to fight the infidel, to obey the laws of Islam, and maintain independence as a Muslim. This means not assimilating or distancing themselves from the culture and citizens of this potentially new homeland. They are not to drink, gamble, listen to music or even dance, at the extreme. This can lead to attempts to change the common law of the new land to be more Islamic. The practices are political.
Where Others are Concerned
“Given the widespread problem of jihad-inciting mosques, mosques need to be monitored. Muslims should welcome this as necessary for the well-being of their host nation, but the fact that mainstream Muslim leaders are quick to hit the “Islamophobia” button signifies a lack of interest in the well-being of infidels, and a lack of integration. Those who pontificate about diversity, pluralism, tolerance and human rights should have equal expectations of all groups. It is near impossible to imagine Christians, Jews and Hindus sitting in their places of worship listening to calls for the death of Muslims and other unbelievers,” writes Christine Douglass-Williams – (French City Shutting Down Mosque Preaching Jihad)(Read more).
In Austria, where violence by Muslims was being called for by teachers (Imams) in mosques, mosques were closed and foreign Imams asked to leave the country. Foreign funding of such school and mosques is forbidden by law in Austria.
Trey Elmore wrote, “Islam in the United Kingdom is largely influenced by hardline schools of Islamic thought, which control the majority of mosques there.” – article: IN UK, HUNDREDS OF MOSQUES OPENED, CHURCHES CLOSED, ChurchMilitant.com • April 3, 2017
This blog seeks to understand Islam and to raise concerns about its ideology. We can separate Islam as a religion when God, or Allah, is properly considered, but that is only when the believer allows Allah to be the final arbiter, not man. When that is the case other religions can be studied and compared. Restraints would not be placed on the mind or aspirations, even curbing doubt, of the believer. Freedom would be present, as Allah would see the heart of the person and never allow man to take his place. But most of Islam, its Scripture, the Quran, was created by man. They claim it is uncreated, but history itself makes clear that is not true. It was created for a purpose by leaders after Muhammad’s demise (he was murdered) who took on his mantel to capture territory for themselves, enjoying riches and power gained, and hiding under the almighty. More blasphemy than true faith. Islam is political and as taught in Islamaland and in most curriculums brought into the free world it instructs student to ‘submit,’ to their leaders and teachers standing above them on the rung or the ladder of their own construction while claiming Allah is at rest at the top.
A true believer should know, if they know God, there is no ladder with leaders on each step between them and God that deserve the same respect as God and must be obeyed as if they were God. Man is not God. No man, no Muslim, no Imam, no Shiite, no Sunni.
Beware the teachings from the platform of the political Islamists. Be educated in history, comparison to other religions, read and study, find your own path and avoid the propaganda of false teachers. Much of what is taught in Islamic schools is not a faith based belief system, it is a coerced, brainwashing that fills those who do submit to hatred, desperation, a belligerent superiority and isolation. Freedom is not permitted. Without freedom of thought there can be no education, only indoctrination. Teaching Jihad, Jihad causing harm to others, inciting violence, is not Allah’s (as God) Plan, it is that of the mind of creative humans introducing a way of life which can be enforced for the purpose of man.
No longer a slave of fear when living as a child of God, saved by his Grace.
Grace and Peace