Daily Archives: October 18, 2007

A Good Way of Promoting Extremism: Shut down Islamic Schools

Posted in Islamic Education, Muslim Communities in America, Muslim Minorities, Saudi Arabia by

This one really worries me that when the simple Arabic word for school, “madrasa,” has been so demonized.
Federal Agency Recommends Closing Saudi Supported School

Members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom today urged the U.S. State Department to shut down a Saudi-supported Islamic school in Northern Virginia, until the school can ensure the U.S. government that it is not teaching an extremist ideology.
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Panel members recently visited Saudi Arabia in an effort to determine the status of religious freedom in that country and the promotion of religious extremism in Saudi schools but did not visit the Islamic Saudi Academy.

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The commission charges that the academy purports to be a private school but that its properties are owned or leased by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia.On numerous occasions, the commission charges, Saudi Embassy officials have spoken to the press on the school’s behalf, a violation of the law governing diplomatic activity.

Associated Press has a more balanced and detailed report:

The commission, a creation of Congress, has no power to implement policy on its own. Instead, it makes recommendations to other agencies.

The commission does not offer specific criticism of the academy’s teachings beyond its concerns that it too closely mimics a typical Saudi education.

The report recommends that the State Department prevail on the Saudi government to shut the school down until the school’s textbooks can be reviewed and procedures are put in place to ensure the school’s independence form the Saudi Embassy.
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“There is nothing in our curriculum against any religion,” Al-Shabnan said.

He also said he is willing to show the school’s curriculum and textbooks to anybody who wants to see them, and he expressed disappointment that the commission did not request materials directly from the school.

“We have an open policy,” he said.

He also pointed out that many of the school’s teachers are Christian and Jewish.

The commission based its findings in part on a the work of a delegation that traveled to Saudi Arabia this year. The commission asked embassy officials to review the textbooks used in Saudi schools generally and at the Islamic Saudi Academy specifically but did not receive a response.

Commission spokeswoman Judith Ingram said the commission did not request to speak to academy officials because that went beyond the commission’s mandate.

So, I guess my questions for the commission are:
1. If your major contentions is that the privately owned school has links with the Saudi Embassy, why go to the Saudi Embassy to ask for the text books?
2. If speaking to school officials is beyond the commission’s mandate, why is it in your mandate to make such far reaching recommendations about the school?

One way to further alienate young Muslims and promote the notion that there is a clash of civilizaitons is to shut down an Islamic school. Why don’t these people set up a meeting with school officials and interview parents and students? I’m not all that familiar with the curriculum, but I seriously doubt that Saudi Arabia has a hate filled curriculum enciting young Muslims to jihad against all infidels–especially their allies. So, I’m going to watch this one.

Here’s a few blog entries that I found interesting:
Below the Beltway
Okay, I’m waiting for more reputable sources to report on this….

All’s Fair in Love and War

Posted in Interracial Relationships, Iraq, Islam, Military, War by

NewsWeek’s cover story“Love and War” explores the hope and sadness surrounding the relationships between Iraqis and Americans.

In Baghdad in May 2003, amid the chaos, fear and hope (it is easy to forget how much hope there was in those early weeks when Americans and Iraqis began meeting face to face after years of tyranny and war), Jimmy and Lena were among the first to fall in love. He was a career officer in the U.S. Army—Capt. James Michael Ahearn from Concord, Calif., winner of two Bronze Stars, veteran of tours in Korea, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. She was from a middle-class Baghdad family that had seen better days.

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Such romances have been part of the American way of war for as long as anyone alive can remember. In the 1940s, wherever U.S. troops were deployed, whether among steadfast allies or recently conquered enemies, and regardless of culture, language, religion or the best efforts of the military hierarchy to prevent “fraternizing,” soldiers and locals got married. “War brides” (and a handful of grooms) came to the United States from Britain and Australia, Italy, France and eventually Germany and Japan. Their stories were the stuff of comedy (“I Was a Male War Bride” with Cary Grant) and tragedy (James Michener’s “Sayonara,” about thwarted love in occupied Japan in the early 1950s). A reasonable estimate of the total number approaches 1 million from 50 different countries. Certainly there were hundreds of thousands. War brides from Japan, the Philippines, China and Korea, for instance, increased the population from those countries in the United States by 20 percent in just 17 years from 1947 to 1964. By the 1970s, thousands more spouses had been brought to American shores from Vietnam and, sadly, like Miss Saigon, many other partners were left behind.

What is striking about the Iraq War is not that couples have met and fallen for each other and succeeded like Jimmy and Lena in getting married. It’s that so few of them have.

The feature details several couples’ struggles and James and Lena Ahearn’s tragically cut short marriage. James converted to Islam to marry Lena, but had a real interest in the religion. As a convert to Islam, married to an Iraqi, he had hoped to build bridges between Americans and Iraqis. His life was cut short by a roadside bomb.

More on James Michael Ahearn here.