Muslim Heretics Conference

New Hudson Institute Report Shows Saudi Ministry Textbooks Still Teach Extreme Intolerance [incl. the Islamic Saudi Academy in VA]

by Jerry Gordon
American Congress for Truth Blog
July 15, 2008
http://blog.americancongressfortruth.com/2008/07/15/new-hudson-institute-report-shows-saudi-ministry-textbooks-still-teach-extreme-intolerance/

Earlier today, I talked with Nina Shea of Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute who was wrapping up a second Saudi text report. The 90 page report, “2008 Update: Saudi Arabia ’s Curriculum of Intolerance,” with a foreward by former CIA director R. James Woolsey was just released this afternoon. The Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs assisted in completion of the report released, today. This second Saudi text study encompassed a review of supposed reform texts drawn from the website of the Saudi Education Ministry. It reveals virtually no change in the core Wahhabi doctrine of hate and incitement to violence against other religions that was unveiled when the first Saudi text study was concluded in 2006. This means that the September 2008 deadline promoted by our State Department has been breached. As regards the current contretemps over the Islamic studies texts at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia examined by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), where Shea is a Commissioner, this most recent Saudi text study throws in serious doubt the hasty efforts by the ISA Islamic studies faculty at redacting Saudi texts to conform to alleged US standards. Further as Ms. Shea comments it also questions the veracity and intent of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the World Muslim League’s current ‘ecumenical meetings’ with other faiths being held in Madrid, Spain this week.

Here are some examples by the Hudson Institute Center for Religious Freedom report:

They assert that unbelievers, such as Christians, Jews, and Muslims who do not share Wahhabi beliefs and practices, are hated “enemies.” Global jihad as an “effort to wage war against the unbelievers” is also promoted in the Ministry’s textbooks: “In its general usage, “jihad’ is divided into the following categories: “Wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them.” No argument is made here that such references to jihad mean only spiritual and defensive struggles.

Lessons remain that Jews and Christians are apes and swine, Jews conspire to “gain sole control over the world,” the Christian Crusades never ended, the American universities of Cairo and Beirut are part of the continuing Crusades, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact, and on Judgment Day “the rocks or the trees” will call out to Muslims to kill the Jews.

They teach that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an “apostate,” an “adulterer,” and those practicing “major polytheism.” Shiites are among those identified as “polytheists.” One lesson states that “it is not permissible to violate the blood, property, or honor of the unbeliever who makes a compact with the Muslims,” but is pointedly silent on whether security guarantees are extended to non-Muslims without such a compact. Other lessons demonize members of the Baha’i and Ahmadiyya groups.

The reports notes the looming deadline of September 2008 negotiated with our State Department and questions the lack of genuine interfaith tolerance recently espoused by King Abdullah that we have posted.

This analysis is issued as a deadline nears for the removal of intolerant teachings from all Saudi textbooks. This commitment stems from the Saudi government’s “confirmation” of policies that resulted from extensive bilateral negotiations with the U.S. ; these policies were publicly announced and lauded as “significant developments” by the State Department in July 2006. Whether Saudi Arabia ’s “comprehensive revision of textbooks” will be achieved by the start of the September 2008 school year remains to be seen. As the report documents, thorough textbook reform has not yet occurred.

Saudi King Abdullah is taking a leading role in interfaith dialogue initiatives, including convening a conference in Madrid later this week. The report notes that the Saudi Education Ministry’s continued teaching of hatred and violence against other religious believers raises concerns about whether the Saudi government has a genuine desire to find common ground with other religions.

What this second Saudi text review by the Hudson Institute reveals is that the Wahabbi xenophobic doctrine still prevails in Saudi Arabia and that representations that core Quaranic elements would be ‘reformed’, and ‘modified’ are pure taqiyya-religiously sanctioned dissimilitude to fool the kafirs, the unbelievers, us. Shame on our State Department for believing in good faith that a new day has dawned in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It hasn’t. What is the expression, the more things change, the more they remain the same.

State Department-Negotiated Deadline for Reform Nears
News Release, Hudson Institute, July 15, 2008

Today the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute released a 90-page report, 2008 Update: Saudi Arabia — Curriculum of Intolerance, with a foreword by R. James Woolsey. It was prepared in consultation with the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs.

This report compares the 2007-2008 textbooks that are currently posted on the website of the Saudi Ministry of Education with those analyzed in our 2006 study, and shows that the same violent and intolerant teachings against other religious believers noted in 2006 remain in the current texts.

They assert that unbelievers, such as Christians, Jews, and Muslims who do not share Wahhabi beliefs and practices, are hated “enemies.” Global jihad as an “effort to wage war against the unbelievers” is also promoted in the Ministry’s textbooks: “In its general usage, “?jihad’ is divided into the following categories: “Wrestling with the infidels by calling them to the faith and battling against them.” No argument is made here that such references to jihad mean only spiritual and defensive struggles.

Lessons remain that Jews and Christians are apes and swine, Jews conspire to “gain sole control over the world,” the Christian Crusades never ended, the American universities of Cairo and Beirut are part of the continuing Crusades, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact, and on Judgment Day “the rocks or the trees” will call out to Muslims to kill the Jews.

They teach that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an “apostate,” an “adulterer,” and those practicing “major polytheism.” Shiites are among those identified as “polytheists.” One lesson states that “it is not permissible to violate the blood, property, or honor of the unbeliever who makes a compact with the Muslims,” but is pointedly silent on whether security guarantees are extended to non-Muslims without such a compact. Other lessons demonize members of the Baha’i and Ahmadiyya groups.

A lesson from a tenth grade text now posted on the Saudi Ministry’s website sanctions the killing of homosexuals and discusses methods for doing so.

In the lessons examined in this report, the Saudi government discounts or ignores passages in the Qur’an to support tolerance.

All of these textbooks have been reissued at least once and all but two of them reissued twice, yet overall the changes to the passages in question have been minimal, and the degree of substantive change has been negligible. Taken together, the report concludes, revisions in the currently-posted texts amount to moving around the furniture, not cleaning the house.

This analysis is issued as a deadline nears for the removal of intolerant teachings from all Saudi textbooks. This commitment stems from the Saudi government’s “confirmation” of policies that resulted from extensive bilateral negotiations with the U.S. ; these policies were publicly announced and lauded as “significant developments” by the State Department in July 2006. Whether Saudi Arabia ’s “comprehensive revision of textbooks” will be achieved by the start of the September 2008 school year remains to be seen. As the report documents, thorough textbook reform has not yet occurred.

Saudi King Abdullah is taking a leading role in interfaith dialogue initiatives, including convening a conference in Madrid later this week. The report notes that the Saudi Education Ministry’s continued teaching of hatred and violence against other religious believers raises concerns about whether the Saudi government has a genuine desire to find common ground with other religions.

For the report, along with English and original Arabic excerpts go to www.hudson.org/religion

New Hudson Institute Report Shows Saudi Ministry Textbooks Still Teach Extreme Intolerance [incl. the Islamic Saudi Academy in VA] - Campus Watch

MUMBAI: Condemning the serial blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, the Urdu press said a true Muslim could never have committed such a heinous crime.
Urdu dailies, presenting the majority view of the Muslim community, especially the clerics, said the culprits could not be called Muslims as Islam is against killing of the innocents. “Those who kill the innocents are enemies of Islam,” the papers stated.
Many Urdu dailies saw Saturday’s serial blasts in Ahmedabad as the handiwork of the forces who want to polarise Indian society along communal lines. Urdu Times, in its editorial (July 28), Firqawarana fasadat ki jagah bam dhamakon ne leli (Bomb blasts are replacing communal riots), said the terrorists wanted to divide the country along communal lines. “With these attacks, Hindus are being made to harbour anti-Muslim feelings,” stated Urdu Times.
Writing in the same paper, columnist Farooque Ansari said India was more threatened by the enemies within than enemies without. “We are threatened neither by aggressions of China nor by attacks from Pakistan. The country is being bloodied by the enemies within. We have to fight such elements together,” wrote Ansari.
Almost every Urdu paper has highlighted the fatwa of Shahi Imam of Punjab, Maulana Habibur Rehman Ludhianvi, who, labelling the serial blasts as inhuman acts, asked for severe punishment for the culprits. He said in Islam, the punishment for the killer of innocents is death. “They can never be Muslims. They are merchants of death and deserved to be hanged,” the fatwa said.
Urdu newspapers have also asked the investigating agencies to enlarge their scope of probe. “They must look beyond the usual suspects like SIMI, HuJI and Indian Mujahideen ,” read the editorial in Rashtriya Sahara (July 28).
In the same edition of Rashtriya Sahara, writer Saeed Hameed has criticised the tendency of jumping to a conclusion and accusing Muslim organisations after every terror attack. “Why do we brush aside the involvement of organisations like Bajrang Dal, Hindu Janjgriti Manch and Sanatan Bharat in such attacks?” asked Hameed. Hameed said as the investigative agencies had themselves found some of the Hindutva organisations’ involvement in some of the blasts in the past, including those in Nanded, Parbhani and a theatre in Thane some time ago, they, too, should be probed for their possible involvement in the explosions in Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
Mumbai’s leading Urdu daily, The Inquilab, in its editorial (July 28), slammed political parties for politicising a national crisis like a terror attack. “All the political parties see the issue through their different political prisms,” the editorial read.

‘True Muslim can’t commit crime like blasts’-Mumbai-Cities-The Times of India

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Islam took me by surprise: Na’ima B Robert’s religious journey
Na’ima B. Robert was brought up in Leeds and Zimbabwe and led a typical Western lifestyle before she unexpectedly discovered Islam while holidaying in Egypt.

I didn’t become Muslim for any of the reasons for which people often assume Western women decide to convert.

Our perception of Islam is such that we view conversion and, in particular, female conversion, with a sense of incredulity, of mistrust, perhaps even of pity. After all, what woman in her right mind would leave the comforts of a Western lifestyle, the freedom of an emancipated age, the promise of a secular future, for a life of God-consciousness, devotion and prayer – not to mention hijab?
There must be a plausible explanation for such a conversion.
It is often assumed that there is a Muslim man in the background, pulling the strings, offering marriage and family if she agrees to become a Muslim. Another explanation is that she has been brainwashed by a group of religious zealots and just needs time and patience to grow out of this “phase”. Other explanations include a desire to rebel against family and society, to make a political statement, to opt out of normal life, or simply cry out for attention.
But I did not become Muslim for any of these reasons. Before accepting Islam, I was at the height of a successful university career, had a great circle of friends, an active social life and a sense of confidence far surpassing my achievements to date! I wasn’t empty or lost or searching for the meaning of life: the desire for a deeper understanding of my life’s purpose was to come later.
I suppose you could say Islam took me by surprise. I wasn’t looking for it, didn’t expect to find and then, all of a sudden, there it was, on a trip to Egypt: this way of life, rooted in faith, grounded in firm moral principles, based on a belief in One God.
It’s simplicity and the clarity of its message took my breath away: there is only one God worthy of worship, without any partners, and Muhammad (peace be upon him) is His slave and messenger. It was, quite simply, the truth.
I read the Qur’an, that message revealed over 1,400 years ago, and it made sense to me. It was something I could believe, could uphold, could live, even in the UK, in the 21st century.
Unlike some, I admired Islam’s austerity, appreciated the emphasis on conquering one’s ego, of submitting to God with full submission. And so, through questions, debates and patience and prayer, God tamed my rebellious heart and I opened up to His service.
I accepted Islam after researching it for six months. And it’s ironic that, after 10 years as an orthodox Muslim, a niqab-wearing one at that, I look at my life today and find that, once again, I am at the height of a successful career (writing this time), have a great circle of friends, an active social life and a sense of confidence far surpassing my achievements to date. So, no, my life didn’t end when I embraced Islam.
It was just the beginning of a wonderful new journey, one I feel honored to undertake. I wait to see where it takes me next.
Copyright: Na’ima B.Robert

tehran times : Islam took me by surprise: Na’ima B Robert’s religious journey