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Islam taught in US public schools

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nasigoreng

Joined: 14 May 2004

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 9:10 pm Post subject: Islam taught in US public schools

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/03/MNG4ILH1201.DTL

Quote:

The suit challenged the content of a seventh-grade history course at Excelsior Middle School in Byron in the fall of 2001. The teacher, using an instructional guide, told students they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks to help them learn what Muslims believe.

She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class, had them memorize and recite a passage from the Quran and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during the month of Ramadan. The final exam asked students for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.

The students and parents who sued argued that the class activities had crossed the line from education into an official endorsement of a religious practice. A federal judge and the appeals court disagreed, saying the class had an instructional purpose and the students had engaged in no actual religious exercises.

re: Byron county case:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25997

1) Where is the ACLU on this issue? I'm sure if the teacher had a mock communion ceremony they would all be up in arms.

2) Is this material and the accompanying exercises appropriate for 7th graders?

3) Does it cross the line between social studies and religious studies?

ChuckECheese

Joined: 20 Jul 2006

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 9:38 pm Post subject:

I think it's pretty good exercise for the kids. It would teach the kids to better understand about various religions and help them learn religious tolerance. However, if it wasn't at the religious private school, it would be wrong for the teacher to only focus on one religion. For social studies subject, the teacher should cover all major religions.

happeningthang

Joined: 26 Apr 2003

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:04 am Post subject:

I'd agree with that Chuck E, I would hope, and expect, that this exercise was carried out for all the major religions. I had something similar as a schoolkid, when I was dragged through various christian churches, a bhuddist temple, synagouge, and mosque. If not I'd guess that the teacher thought it was a good way to counter the stream of kneejerk islamaphobia that's running through the west lately, and actually teach the kids something. Interesting to see that the teacher wasn't found to be doing anything wrong by the supreme court, in the case brought forward by EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS. There are no surprises to be had here.

Ya-ta Boy

Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:21 pm Post subject:

Looks to me like the teacher and the courts were on top of their game.

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:49 pm Post subject:

nasigoreng wrote:

Is this material and the accompanying exercises appropriate for 7th graders...? Does it cross the line between social studies and religious studies?

Yes and No, respectively.

I agree that the ACLU sometimes appears anti-religious and this is annoying and does not exactly coincide with my views on "religious freedom" and the separation of Church and state.

I also see nothing wrong in teaching Islam in a comparative religion context, esp. in a social studies environment. I think it would be beneficial to junior high-schoolers as well (and if it actually gets their attention for more than fifteen minutes, which is what I think the standard lesson plans are doing these days -- that is, fifteen minute teaching-activity-teaching-activity-style segments -- then that, in and of itself, is a huge accomplishment).

So I think this is a good idea -- with the same provision the others above have made, that this is a good idea if all religiouns are given equal weight and are presented in a social-studies comparative religion/comparative world history context.

nasigoreng

Joined: 14 May 2004

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

So I think this is a good idea -- ... if all religiouns are given equal weight and are presented in a social-studies comparative religion/comparative world history context.

I believe God is too big for any one religion and it's great that students can be exposed to other belief systems and ultimately make a decision about which one resonates within themselves. Even if it's "none of the above". I'm looking into this a bit further and I'm not seeing the fairness all of us would like.

This critique comes from a group called the The Textbook League which analyzes school textbooks. They criticize "intelligent design" so i doubt they're a bunch of Christian propagandists.

Quote:

The Muslim propagandists owe much of their success to their skillful manipulation of publishers of instructional materials. They have been able to persuade various publishers to become their confederates, and these publishers have produced corrupt textbooks and corrupt curriculum manuals which say what the Muslims want them to say, exclude any topics that the Muslims don't like, and shun any information that the Muslims don't want to see in print.

As examples of corrupt schoolbooks and corrupt curriculum manuals that reflect the labors and influence of Muslim pressure groups and propagandists, I cite:

Prentice Hall's high-school book World Cultures: A Global Mosaic (See "Promoting Islam in American Schoolrooms" in The Textbook Letter, Vol. 11, No. 1.)
Oxford University Press's elementary-school book A History of US: Making Thirteen Colonies (See "Joy Hakim Should Not Write About the History of Europe" in The Textbook Letter, Vol. 12, No. 1.)

Interaction Publishers' curriculum manual ISLAM: A Simulation (See "Page for Page, This Is the Most Malignant Product That I've Seen During All My Years as a Reviewer" in The Textbook Letter, Vol. 11, No. 4.)

Houghton Mifflin's middle-school textbook Across the Centuries (See "Houghton Mifflin's Islamic Connection" in The Textbook Letter, Vol. 11, No. 3.)
Interaction Publishers' curriculum manual INTO ISLAM (See "Another Manual, Another Fraud" in The Textbook Letter, Vol. 12, No. 1.)

The fake "history" found in instructional publications which have been perverted by Muslim pressure groups is not limited to fantastic claims about supernatural beings and supernatural happenings. In typical cases, the corrupted publications also have sought to glorify and whitewash Islam by presenting such phony "facts" as these: Europeans didn't have any sailing ships until they learned about sails from Muslims; the existence of bacteria was discovered by a medieval Muslim, long before the invention of the microscope; and the subordination of women in Muslim countries today is attributable to "oppressive local traditions" rather than to "Muslim principles."

An uninitiated observer may be amazed and bewildered when he learns that the publishers of "educational" products print religious fables as "history" and print false, misleading or utterly nonsensical claims like the ones that I have just cited. But a person who has studied the educational-publishing industry will not be amazed or bewildered at all. Companies that supply instructional products to American public schools routinely cater to propagandists, respond to the propagandists' inducements, and turn out textbooks and other products which incorporate and endorse material derived from the propagandists' handouts. Any hustler, huckster, con artist, quack or religious zany, if he has enough skill and money, can get his message into schoolbooks -- or so it seems. Over the years, The Textbook Letter has called attention to bald propaganda, in schoolbooks, that plugged commercial products [see note 1, below], promoted various forms of quackery [note 2], endorsed phony "history" that glorified American Indians [note 3], endorsed the hoax-holiday Kwanzaa [note 4], and so forth.

The uninitiated observer now wonders how instructional-material companies can get away with such malfeasance. The uninitiated observer wonders how companies which sell out to propagandists, and which print books larded with promotional claptrap, can successfully market such books to schools. And the uninitiated observer asks: Don't educators recognize that the books are serving as vehicles for propaganda and are functioning as devices for deceiving and duping students?

In answering that question, I shall focus on the realm of history education -- the realm that is directly and intimately relevant to the subject of this report. My short answer to the question is: No, the educators don't recognize that the books are serving as vehicles for propaganda and are functioning as devices for deceiving and duping students. My longer answer is: A few of them may recognize it, but most of them don't, because most of them are too ignorant.

To understand this, my readers must understand that most (not all, but certainly most) of the people who give history courses in American middle schools and high schools do not possess any professional knowledge or understanding of history. Most (not all, but most) of the people who give history courses in American middle schools and high schools have not studied history and do not even know what history is -- that is, they do not know that the scholarly discipline which we designate by the name history is devoted to reconstructing and analyzing the past through the use of evidence and reason.

next post: examples

nasigoreng

Joined: 14 May 2004

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:23 pm Post subject:

examples from http://www.textbookleague.org/tci-az.htm

re: History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond

text inside quotes consists of commentary and actual book text in italics. My emphasis added in bold.

Quote:

Chapter 9 Chapter 9, "The Teachings of Islam," begins thus:

In Chapter 8, you learned about the prophet Muhammad and the early spread of Islam. Now you will take a closer look at the Islamic faith.
If you visited any city in a Muslim country today, you would notice many things that reflect the teachings of Islam. Five times a day, you would hear a call to prayer throughout the city. While some people hurry to houses of worship, called mosques, others simply remain where they are to pray, even in the street. You would see people dressed modestly and many women wearing head scarf. You would find that Muslims do not drink alcohol or eat pork. . . .
Whoa! Almost thirteen centuries have vanished! The writers of Medieval World have hopped all the way from 732 to the present. They have hopped all the way to what students might encounter in "any city in a Muslim country today." What are the TCI writers up to?

The answer is: They are launching a deliberately confused, confusing chapter that is set in the present but is spiked with pseudohistorical flashbacks to the past. This scheme -- this alternation between present and past -- helps to create the confusion that the writers have sought.

Quote:

Page 95 Now we get a flashback to the alleged origins of the hadith, which are canonized stories about things that Muhammad supposedly said and did:

Within 200 years after Muhammad's death, thousands of reports about the prophet had traveled throughout Muslim lands. Scholars looked into each story. They placed the stories they could verify into collections.

The "stories they could verify"? How, pray tell, did those so-called scholars "verify" stories that had been originated by people long dead -- stories that had mutated again and again, as they were told and retold, during a period of 200 years?

Quote:

Page 95 Continuing their tale of the hadith, TCI's writers say:

Called hadith (tradition), these accounts provided written evidence of Muhammad's Sunnah as seen in his words and deeds. They continue to have this role today.

What a spectacle! The TCI writers' contempt for students evidently has no limits. Hearsay doesn't become "written evidence" merely because someone jots it down on a piece of paper -- and according to the TCI writers' own narrative, the hadith are nothing more than collections of hearsay. Even if the hadith were carved in stone, they still would be nothing more than collections of hearsay, and they still wouldn't constitute evidence of anything.

Quote:

Chapter 10 Chapter 10 is titled "Contributions of Muslims to World Civilization." If my readers are familiar with the code-words that are used in trashy schoolbooks, they will immediately grasp the import of that word "contributions." It signals that the TCI writers and their Muslim masters are ready to stage a circus of glorification.

Predictably, the "contributions" claims in chapter 10 include falsehoods, gross distortions, and deep absurdities. Here are some examples:

In the section titled "Science and Technology," the subsection called "Zoology" carries this splurge of baffle-gab:

A number of Muslim scholars became interested in zoology, the scientific study of animals. Some wrote books describing the structure of animals' bodies. Others explained how to make medicines from animals. In the 800s, a scholar named al-Jahiz even presented theories about the evolution of animals. Muslims also established zoological gardens, or zoos, where exotic animals were displayed.

So what? All of those "contributions" to "world civilization" had already been engendered by other peoples -- but TCI's writers omit this information. These writers are using selective omission to distort history and to generate the false impression that the Muslims' efforts were unique.

Notice that TCI's writers make the grandiose claim that "In the 800s . . . al-Jahiz even presented theories about the evolution of animals," but the writers don't tell anything about the nature or content of those "theories." Whatever al-Jahiz's so-called theories may have been, we don't have any reason to believe that they were "contributions" to anything. The world's intellectual history is littered with speculations about the origination of new species from older species, but the first coherent, supportable, intellectually tenable theory of organic evolution was not promulgated until the late 1850s (about 1,000 years after al-Jahiz's day). I refer, of course, to Darwin and Wallace's mighty theory of descent with modification under the influence of natural selection [note 23].

In the section titled "Science and Technology," the subsection about "Irrigation and Underground [sic] Wells" teaches this:

. . . . Much of the land under Muslim rule was hot and dry. Muslims restored old irrigation systems and designed new ones. They built dams and aqueducts to provide water for households, mills, and fields. They improved existing systems of canals and underground [sic] wells. . . . Muslims also used water wheels to bring water up from canals and reservoirs.

So what? Other peoples already had done all of those things. TCI's writers and their Muslim masters are again employing selective omission to create the false impression that the Muslims' efforts were unique.

In the section titled "Medicine," a passage that seems to be set in the 10th century includes this:

Muslim doctors made many discoveries and helped spread medical knowledge. For example, al-Razi, a Persian doctor, realized that infections were caused by bacteria.

That is a plain lie. Bacteria were unknown until the 17th century, when they were discovered by Anton van Leeuwenhoek, the great Dutch microscopist. Some of Leeuwenhoek's contemporaries speculated that bacteria and other microbes might be pathogenic, but the germ theory of disease didn't take shape until the 19th century, when Louis Pasteur (a Frenchman) and Robert Koch (a German) did their magnificent work in microbiology and experimental medicine.

In the section headlined "City Building and Architecture," the TCI writers devote a subsection to the development of the mosque as a new kind of building. Their account says, in part:

The Mosque Muslims created distinctive forms of architecture. A particularly important type of building was the mosque, the Muslim house of worship.
Mosques usually had a minaret (tower) with a small balcony where the muezzin chanted the call to prayer. In the walled courtyard stood a fountain for washing before prayers.

Inside the mosque was the prayer room. Worshipers sat on mats and carpets on the floor. The imam, or prayer leader, gave his sermon from a raised pulpit called the minbar. Next to the minbar was the mihrab, the niche that indicated the direction of Makkah.

We may grant that the development of the mosque was important to Islam, but in what way was it a "contribution" to "world civilization"? Why should we believe that "world civilization" was altered when Muslims adopted the ancient, utterly mundane practice of putting fountains in courtyards? Why should we imagine that "world civilization" was shaped by the practice of equipping mosques with towers? TCI's writers don't suggest any answers to such questions.

Now look again at the last line that I have quoted from the TCI writers' description of a mosque. The writers say: Next to the minbar was the mihrab, the niche that indicated the direction of Makkah. Informed adults will ask: Does this mean that no mosque was built before the time when Muslims demoted Jerusalem and chose Mecca to be their principal holy city? But the young students who are TCI's intended victims won't ask that question, because TCI's writers have concealed the crucial fact that the earliest Muslim temples were oriented so that worshipers faced Jerusalem.

Quote:

In the second book of the eleven-book series A History of Us, issued by Oxford University Press, students read:

[In Europe during the Middle Ages] knights, lords and ladies lived in splendid feudal castles. And crusaders set off for Israel (called the Holy Land) in the name of religion, but managed to plunder and murder as they went.

And so much for that. The writer of the book in question, Joy Hakim, says nothing else -- absolutely nothing -- about crusaders or crusades. She doesn't even tell what "crusaders" were! Obviously, the only purpose of her cryptic sentence about "crusaders" is to teach students to associate the word "crusaders" with the words "plunder" and "murder" [note 24].

This one is my personal favorite:

Quote:

In the curriculum manual ISLAM: A Simulation [note 25], issued by Interaction Publishers, students who are pretending to be Muslims, and are pretending to live in the 7th century, read this:

While in Damascus you are attacked by Christian crusaders.

Of course, the crusades didn't begin until the closing years of the 11th century, so there were no crusaders in Damascus, or anywhere else, during the 7th -- but chronology doesn't matter to the Muslim agents who feed fake "history" to publishers of instructional materials.

Following pieces of text receive criticism from Thomas F. Madden professor of history at Saint Louis University, a specialist in the history of the crusades.

Quote:

Page 122 In a passage labeled "Later Crusades," the TCI writers say:

Some crusades were popular movements of poor people rather than organized military campaigns. In 1212, for example, tens of thousands of peasant children from France and Germany marched in a "Children's Crusade." Few, if any, ever reached the Holy Land. Some made it as far as European port cities, only to be sold into slavery by merchants. Many disappeared without a trace.

That material, Madden says, is "wretchedly confused" and seems to have come from an old dime-store publication. The so-called Children's Crusade Madden explains, was neither a crusade nor an expedition of children. It acquired its misleading name because medieval writers used the term pueri (the Latin word for boys) in referring to members of the lower classes, and some 18th-century readers of medieval accounts took pueri literally. In fact, the "Children's Crusade" was a mass movement of adults, mostly poor, with some adolescents and a few children thrown in. The claim that merchants in Marseilles sold these people into slavery is a very late embellishment, and no historian accepts it as history.

Page 124 In a section titled "Christians and the Crusades," a subsection called "Impact on Christians as a Group" includes these claims:

The crusades brought many economic changes to Europe. Crusaders needed a way to pay for supplies. Their need increased the use of money in Europe. Some knights began performing banking functions, such as making loans or investments. Kings started tax systems to raise funds for crusades.
The crusades changed society as well. Monarchs grew more powerful as nobles and knights left home to fight in the Middle East. The increasing power of monarchs helped to end feudalism.

Madden remarks that he has no idea of where TCI's writers got that material, but they certainly didn't get it from any scholarly history written in the last century. Then he writes: "The suggestion that the European economy developed liquid capital, banking, and taxation because of the demands of the crusades is laughable. Those elements existed before the crusades. It was the increase in European prosperity that made the crusades possible in the first place."

Quote:

Page 126 At the start of a section headlined "Jews and the Crusades," TCI's writers declare:

The violence unleashed by the crusades caused great suffering for Jews. Crusaders in the Holy Land slaughtered Jews as well as Muslims. Other Jews became slaves.

That passage, Madden says, suggests that crusaders regularly practiced the slaughtering and enslaving of Jews, yet TCI's writers do not cite any cases in point. Madden tells that during an isolated incident that occurred in 1099, crusaders killed some Jews whom they had captured -- but even in that instance, most of the Jewish captives were released and went to live in Ascalon. Madden then writes: "So when did all this slaughtering and enslaving happen? (Short answer: It didn't.)"

Info on the 3-week muslim-simulation/indoctrination can be found here:

http://www.textbookleague.org/114islam.htm

Quote:

The first page of Interact's manual carries an introductory statement which acknowledges that two Muslim agencies were involved in the genesis of ISLAM: A Simulation. The names of the agencies are given as "the Islamic Education and Information Center (San Jose, California)" and "the Council of [sic] Islamic Education (Los Angeles)."

I haven't encountered the Islamic Education and Information Center heretofore, but I know of the second outfit -- the Council on Islamic Education -- because its name appears in several schoolbooks that falsify the history of Islam, spread Muslim propaganda, and subject students to Muslim indoctrination. One such book is Across the Centuries [note 14], published by Houghton Mifflin: The list of "Consultants" displayed on the copyright page of Across the Centuries includes "Shabbir Mansuri, Founding Director, Council on Islamic Education, Fountain Valley, California." Another such book is Prentice Hall World History: Connections to Today [note 15]. The list of "Content Reviewers" on page iv of Prentice Hall World History: Connections to Today includes "Shabbir Mansuri, Director, Council on Islamic Education, Fountain Valley, California" and another CIE luminary, Susan Douglass [note 16].

nasigoreng

Joined: 14 May 2004

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:19 am Post subject:

happeningthang wrote:

Interesting to see that the teacher wasn't found to be doing anything wrong by the supreme court, in the case brought forward by EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS. There are no surprises to be had here.

interesting how the article's author thought it important to note that the case was brought by EVANGELICAL Christians. If they were simply CHRISTIAN parents concerned about how the public school is presenting religious material, then maybe readers might feel some sympathy.
If they're Evangelical Christians however, we'll just assume that the parents are intolerant religious wackos.

The plot thickens; enter the Saudi Connection:

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1148

Quote:

Look who's teaching Johnny about Islam
Saudi-funded Islamic activists have final say in shaping public-school lessons on religions
by Paul Sperry
WorldNetDaily.com
May 3, 2004

WASHINGTON -- A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government, which propagates a rigidly anti-Western strain of Islam, a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals.

The consultant, Susan L. Douglass, has also praised Pakistan's madrassa schools as "proud symbols of learning," even after the U.S. government blamed them for fueling the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Douglass, routinely described as a "scholar" or "historian," has edited manuscripts of world history textbooks used by middle and high school students across the country. She's also advised state education boards on curriculum standards dealing with world religion, and has helped train thousands of public school teachers on Islamic instruction.

In effect, she is responsible for teaching millions of American children about Islam, experts say, while operating in relative obscurity.

WorldNetDaily has learned that up until last year Douglass taught social studies at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Va., which teaches Wahhabism through textbooks that condemn Jews and Christians as infidels and enemies of Islam. Her husband, Usama Amer, still teaches at the grades 2-12 school, a spokeswoman there confirmed. Both are practicing Muslims.

The Saudi government funds the school, which has a sister campus in Fairfax, Va.

"It is a school that is under the auspices of the Saudi Embassy," said Ali al-Ahmed, executive director of the Washington-based Saudi Institute, a leading Saudi opposition group. "So the minister of education appoints the principal of the school, and the teachers are paid by the Saudi government."

He says many of the academy's textbooks he has reviewed contain passages promoting hatred of non-Muslims. For example, the eleventh-grade text says one sign of the Day of Judgment will be when Muslims fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say: "Oh Muslim, oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him."

Al-Ahmed, a Shiite Muslim born in predominantly Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia, says the school's religious curriculum was written by Sheik Saleh al-Fawzan, a senior member of the Saudi religious council, who he said has "encouraged war against unbelievers." Al-Fawzan has authored textbooks used in Saudi schools.

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