Thursday, March 12, 2009

Saudi Academy in Va. removes some controversial items from books

Apparently a Saudi academy in Virginia, has removed words like kuffar (derogatory word for non-muslims) and replaced it with non-muslims. That makes me feel a lot better now. Instead of reading

I will instil terror into the hearts of the kuffar: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.

it will read

I will instil terror into the hearts of the non-muslims: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them."
AP

The school was founded in 1984 and largely stayed out of the spotlight until the Sept. 11 attacks, which focused attention on the Saudi educational system. In December 2001, two former ISA students, Mohammed El-Yacoubi and Mohammed Osman Idris, were denied entry into Israel when authorities there found El-Yacoubi carrying what the FBI believed was a suicide note linked to a planned martyrdom operation in Israel.

In 2005, a former ISA valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was convicted in federal court of joining al-Qaida while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush.

Last year, the school's then-director, Abdalla al-Shabnan, was convicted of failing to report a suspected case of child sex abuse.

Last year also was when the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released a report saying the school's textbooks contained several troubling passages, including one saying it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam and another saying "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people."[...]

Al-Ahmed, whose group monitors politics and education in the Gulf, said the revised texts now being used at ISA make some small improvements in tone. But he said it's clear from the books that the core ideology behind them — a puritanical strain of Islam known as Wahhabism that is dominant within Saudi Arabia — remains intact.

"It shows they have no intention of real reform," al-Ahmed said.

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