Muslim Schoolbooks

William J. Bennetta

That is what students are learning in many American public schools, because the major producers of American schoolbooks routinely print rubbish -- devised and distributed by Muslim propagandists -- that is loaded with disinformation. The propagandists bray that Islam is congenial to Judaism and to Christianity, and that Muslims affectionately view Jews and Christians as comrades in monotheism -- and the schoolbook companies print those claims, as facts, in social-studies textbooks [see note 1, below] and history textbooks [note 2].

While students in our public schools read texts that portray Muslims as friends to Jews and Christians everywhere, students in Muslim schools read texts that vilify Jews, vilify Christians, and teach the students to view Jews and Christians with hostility and contempt. Educators can learn more about these matters by consulting two recent analyses of Muslim schoolbooks. Both will help teachers to expose and refute Muslim propaganda:

• "Sowing Seeds of Hatred," an article written by Larry Cohler-Esses for the New York Daily News, describes some textbooks that are used in private Muslim schools in the United States. Cohler-Esses reports that typical books not only proclaim the supremacy of Islam but also teach (for example) that Christians "worship statues," that Jews are obliged by their religion "to call down curses upon the worship places of non-Jews whenever they pass by them," and that "lying, alcohol, nudity, pornography, racism, foul language, premarital sex, homosexuality and everything else" are accepted in the Christians' churches and the Jews' synagogues. Cohler-Esses's article ran in the Daily News on 30 March 2003.

• The West, Christians and Jews in Saudi Arabian Schoolbooks is a report of research conducted by the American Jewish Committee and the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace. In surveying 93 Saudi schoolbooks, the AJC and the CMIP have found that Saudi students regularly read such statements as these:

  The religion of Islam is the true religion and any other religion is false. The religion of Islam is high and triumphant over all [other] religions. . . . There shall be no requital against a Muslim for [murdering] an infidel, nor against a freeman for [murdering] a slave. . . . there is no bond that binds [Jews], except for a corrupted religion. . . . [Jews] resemble a donkey that carries big books but does not benefit from them at all. Its lot is toil and hardship. What a bad example! One should act according to one's knowledge, since not acting according to knowledge is a characteristic of the Jews. . . . It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a friend of one who does not believe in God and his Messenger [i.e., Muhammad]. . . . [Crusades] are military expeditions by the Christians of Europe against parts of our Muslim country in order to occupy it and exploit its resources. . . . In our time the Jews have occupied Palestine with the help of Crusadism. . . . The Jews are wickedness in its very essence. . . . You will hardly find any sedition without the Jews having part in it. . . . Now [Palestine] is occupied by the Jews, a people of treachery and betrayal, who have gathered there from every place: from Poland, Spain, America and elsewhere. Their end, by God's will, is perdition. . . . The hand of Jewish aggression is extended today to al-Aqsa Mosque. The Muslims in all parts of the earth are entrusted with the duty of defense and Jihad which will ensure the Muslims' glory and dignity and the purification of the Islamic holy places. . . .

An abridged rendering of the AJC-CMIP report is displayed at http://ajc.org/InTheMedia/PublicationsPrint.asp?did=750 on the AJC's Web site.

Notes

1. As an example, 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. [return to text]

2. As an example, Houghton Mifflin's middle-school textbook Across the Centuries. See "Houghton Mifflin's Islamic Connection" in TTL, Vol. 11, No. 3. [return to text]

William J. Bennetta is a professional editor, a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, the president of The Textbook League, and the editor of The Textbook Letter. He writes often about the propagation of quackery, false "science" and false "history" in schoolbooks.

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