From the Free Dictionary - (Arabic: “school”) Islamic theological seminary and law school attached to a mosque. The residential madrasah was a newer building form than the mosque, flourishing in most Muslim cities by the end of the 12th century. The Syrian madrasahs in Damascus tended to follow a standardized plan: An elaborate facade led into a domed hallway and then into a courtyard where instruction took place, with at least one eyvan (vaulted hall) opening onto it. The madrasah at the Qalaun Mosque in Cairo (1283–85) has a unique cruciform eyvan on the richly carved qibla (wall facing Mecca) side and a smaller eyvan opposite. Residential cells for scholars occupy the other two sides.
It was established in 1984 by Royal Decree by King Fahd as a part of the worldwide madrassas that they funded. The curriculum was a Wahhabi interpretation of Islam and included praise for militant jihad to “spread the faith”, permission to kill various “unbelievers”, the permissibility to kill and take the possessions of anyone who “turns from the faith” and anyone who is “polytheistic” (and in their view anyone who is not a believer of Islam is polytheistic), the practice of taqiyya – which is the religiously sanctioned tradition of lying to non-believers, and there are the text books endorse marriage between adults and prepubescent children, and that women should not be judges or exercise “greater governorship”. That is just from a start.
There has been opposition to the school since it opened, really. And that has not changed with the request last year for the school to enlarge. Some of the local opposition to it was from the basis of what it would do to the traffic in the area and how that would affect the people who lived there. Others were opposed to it on the basis of what they teach… Also, a part of the controversy surrounding the school is the 1999 valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who is the most famous/infamous/ notorious graduate of the school. He is currently serving 30 years in prison for the attempted assassination of President Bush.
As of the 3rd of August, they got the permission to go ahead with the expansion of the school facilities. In 2006, there was an agreement between the State Department and the Saudi Government that they would remove all of the intolerant passages from its educational material within 2 years, but the books reviewed for the 2008-2009 school year by the National Review, and by the New English Review, didn’t show that to be the case. Besides, how many of us have been in a classroom with a teacher who, when given a new book, continued to teach what they had been teaching previously regardless of what was in the new book? Also, how many teachers do you know that supplement the books with additional material? Just because the text book has been redacted doesn’t mean that the curriculum has been changed.
In Detroit, a woman in Detroit was in court in a hearing for a name change application. She was asked by the judge to remove her headgear -“no hats allowed in the court”. She said, according to courtroom personnel, “It doesn’t mean anything” and took it off without any comment to the judge. Now, with the help of the Michigan Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a lawsuit is being filed stating that the judge “violated her rights” because he asked her to remove her hijab (headscarf). Did she tell him that she was a Muslim? Did she tell him that it was a religious article? Had she done so, I doubt that he would have asked, or insisted, that she remove it. It most likely would not have been a big deal at that point and would have been allowed to remain. If a Nun had been in the courtroom I doubt that he would have made her remove her habit.
Now… while all of this has been going on, we have a VERY different situation that has developed in New Hampshire.
Here we have a 10 year old child, who is being homeschooled by her mother and has been since the first grade. According to the court, she is doing well both socially and academically and she does attend some supplemental public school classes. However, the judge in the case has ruled that she must now be taken from her home schooling and placed into the public school system because the court-appointed guardian in a child custody hearing stated that the child reflected her mother’s “rigidity” on questions of faith, adding that the “girl’s best interest would be served by exposure to a public school setting”. And the Judge stated that the girl’s faith was a “bit to sincerely held and must be sifted, tested by, and mixed among other worldviews”.
Now, would anyone care to guess as to what the “sincerely held” religious beliefs that were so rigidly reflected by this girl were? SURPRISE!! It’s NOT Islamic! She is a Christian. Now, where is the ACLU demanding that her First Amendment Rights are being violated and that this will not be allowed? Where is the outcry from Jesse Jackson? Where are all the other people who protest this sort of thing when it happens like in the court room in Detroit? Why isn’t this all over the national news and on YouTube? Where is the “hue and cry” from the masses about this mother’s right to educate her child as she sees fit? The court even agreed that she was being well educated and was doing well socially. But because she was strongly convicted of her CHRISTIAN beliefs, she is wrong??
What do you think?
Included above are links to some of the articles where I verified some of the information, and a list of the books reviewed.
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