Exclusive: Should Justice Dept. Investigate Violent Teachings at Islamic Saudi Academy?

by THE EDITORS June 14, 2008

Results of an investigation by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom revealed this week that textbooks used at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia tell students it is allowable for Muslims to kill adulterers as well as Muslims who convert to another religion.

According to the AP article linked above, "other passages in the school's textbooks state that ‘the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists".

The passages were found in selected textbooks used during the 2007-08 school year by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax and receives much of its funding from the Saudi government.

Just last year, the Commission recommended that the school be closed, although school officials deny that the academy promotes intolerance. Further, State Department officials said Thursday they have no plans to close the Saudi-financed school, even though it has failed to eliminate violent and intolerant language in textbooks.

Some believe the U.S. Attorney General should open an investigation into the teachings of violent tactics at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County, Virginia and the role of the Board of Supervisors in "enabling" the academy's operation, including the Traditional Values Coalition.

"This is an insult to American men and women risking their lives in the Middle East right now to fight this sort of poison," said TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty. "We're allowing a taxpayer-owned building to be used to indoctrinate the homicide bombers and terrorists of the future."

This disturbing revelation comes on the heels of another recent study - this one by the American Textbook Association (ATA) regarding textbooks in public classrooms across the country. The study concluded that students reading certain texts were not getting the whole picture about the Middle East and Islam:

From what they read in history textbooks, students and teachers are not likely to grasp why the United States and its allies consider militant Islam an enemy. Students will not learn that broadly based Islamist factions sanction violence in countries all over the world. They will not grasp the connection between jihad and September 11. Students may read of extremists, militants, and "anti-coalition forces." They will not realize that the "coalition" is in fact their nation, the United States, and its allies (notably the United Kingdom), and that "anti-coalition forces" are also known as Al Qaeda, insurgents, and suicide bombers. These labels make no connection to radical Islam. Even when textbooks link Islam directly to terrorism, the ways in which Islam is extreme or militant - and thereby of peril to the United States and West - remain unexplained and off the table.

FSM published the results of the ATA study earlier this year, which can be found here.

It's bad enough that students in public schools are receiving a watered-down version of Middle Eastern history and information about Islam. What's even worse is when students in the United States are being indoctrinated into Islamism under the guise of a religious education. The results of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's study should not be swept under the rug or defended under the guise of "multiculturalism."

Does this school really affect the young minds taught there? In 2005, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the academy's 1999 valedictorian, was indicted on charges of providing material support to terrorists. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being convicted on charges that included plotting to assassinate President Bush.

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