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Report: Public School Textbooks Whitewashing Islam
CBN News ^ | May 2,2012 | Erick Stakelbeck

Posted on 05/02/2012 9:42:57 AM PDT by robowombat

WASHINGTON -- Through the years, American public schools have taught students that Nazism, communism, and other totalitarian ideologies should be opposed.

But when it comes to the current war with Islamic jihadists, public schools are taking a much different course.

According to a new report, students are getting a white-washed version of what our enemies believe, and it could have dangerous implications for America's future.

Sugar-coating Islam

For students in America's middle and high schools, 9/11 is a distant memory. Some were still toddlers when the World Trade Center towers fell.

But if they're looking for answers in their history textbooks about who attacked the United States and why, they may be disappointed.

One 2003 world geography textbook widely used in public schools gives the following explanation for the 9/11 attacks:

"On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four passenger planes, crashing two of them into New York City's World Trade Center and the third into the Pentagon. The devastation and loss of so many lives made the United States firmly resolved to rid the world of terrorism."

Guy Rodgers, a former public school teacher who is now executive director of ACT! for America Education, noted that while the text mentions terrorism or a terrorist attack, it never mentions Islam or that the attackers were Muslim.

"The closest they'll get to it is they'll mention al Qaeda," Rodgers told CBN News. "But they don't typically define what al Qaeda is or describe it."

Education or Indoctrination?

ACT! for America Education recently studied 38 textbooks widely used in 6th through 12th grade classrooms nationwide to teach about Islam. They published their findings in a new report called "Education or Indoctrination?"

According to the report, the books contained a sanitized version of some of the most radical aspects of Islam, including the oppressive system known as Sharia law.

"Virtually every school district in America is using one or more of these textbooks-and probably a lot of private schools, too," Rodgers told CBN News.

One textbook, World History: Patterns of Interaction, reads that Sharia "requires Muslim leaders to extend religious tolerance to Christians and Jews."

Yet another text taught that Muslims were "extremely tolerant of those they conquered" and "allowed Christians and Jews to keep their churches and synagogues and promised them security."

Rodgers says such teachings are factually and historically incorrect.

"There's nothing in Sharia law that requires Muslim leaders to extend tolerance to Christians and Jews," Rodgers said.

"And this idea that there was full religious freedom granted? Well, let me refer to one Muslim historian - he estimated that some 30,000 Christian churches were destroyed during the first two centuries of jihad after (the Islamic prophet) Mohammed died," he added.

Islam and Women

Then there's the treatment of women. One frequently used book stated that the Koran "granted women Koran spiritual and social equality with men" and gave them the right to own and inherit property - a claim Rodgers disputes.

"In the Muslim world, do women enjoy anything approaching what we would call social equality with men? Even in the more moderate Muslim countries, that's not the case," Rodgers said.

Most of the books researched for the study were written after 9/11, when accurate information about Islam has never been more crucial for the next generation of American leaders.

Yet Rodgers told CBN News that what American students are learning about jihad -- or holy war - in their most formative years is anything but accurate.

He cited a passage from one textbook that calls Jihad "an Islamic term that is often misunderstood," explaining that it means "to struggle" and "to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil" --acting only in self-defense.

"Islamic armies developed an empire from the Atlantic Ocean on the West all the way to India on the East. They didn't do it through handing out tracts," Rodgers.

ACT! for America Education has mailed the textbooks report to over 70,000 state and local school board members nationwide. Rodgers said it's not only a matter of education but of national security.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: islam; jihad; koran; muslim; publiceducation; quran; sharia

1 posted on 05/02/2012 9:43:01 AM PDT by robowombat
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To: robowombat

The answer to this is simple. People need to take back their schools and pay attention to what they are teaching. Until this happens, nothing will change. Islam should not even be taught in the schools.


2 posted on 05/02/2012 9:52:04 AM PDT by RC2 (Buy American and support the Wounded Warrior Project whenever possible.)
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To: robowombat

The public schools have always taught with an agenda.
When I went to school I learned that Genghis Khan was an evil horrible person who massacred and killed indiscrimately as he extended his empire West. I found out in later life that what I was taught was bunk. It is true that Genghis Khan sought an immense empire and his Mongol Army took city after city. What I wasn’t taught was that he did not want to destroy the cities or kill the citizens of these cities. He only wanted commerce. He would march into a city round up the top leadership and usually eliminate them and leave the middle leaders and citizens as loyal subjects in his empire. He did this always, until he encountered his first Muslim city. His armies had so many problems with the muslims and the islamic culture that he finally decided that Muslim cities, when captured, would have to be razed to the ground and all the muslims killed, because the problems with muslims were too much.
The only cities he ever utterly destroyed were Muslim.

I’m thinking that he wasn’t quite the monster the liberal school systems made him out to be.


3 posted on 05/02/2012 10:13:40 AM PDT by BuffaloJack (End Obama's War On Freedom.)
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To: BuffaloJack

I recall when Genghis Kahn was slandered by John Kerry.


4 posted on 05/02/2012 10:28:50 AM PDT by luvbach1 (Stop the destruction in 2012 or continue the decline)
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To: robowombat
What's to whitewash???

Sex with dead 6 year olds... Wooo Hooo!!!! It's shariaa compliant!!!

5 posted on 05/02/2012 10:41:09 AM PDT by rawcatslyentist ("Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one," Jeremiah 50:31)
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To: robowombat
Sura 2:191 "Kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out, for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter."

Sura 5:34 "Slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers, that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall have a great punishment in world hereafter."

Sura 8:39 "Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah."

Sura 9:5 "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

6 posted on 05/02/2012 10:47:33 AM PDT by Gideon7
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To: robowombat

I thought at first this was from CBS News.

Silly me.


7 posted on 05/02/2012 10:53:45 AM PDT by heartwood
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To: robowombat; 2Jedismom; 6amgelsmama; AAABEST; aberaussie; AccountantMom; Aggie Mama; agrace; ...

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. This can occasionally be a fairly high volume list. Articles pinged to the Another Reason to Homeschool List will be given the keyword of ARTH. (If I remember. If I forget, please feel free to add it yourself) The main Homeschool Ping List handles the homeschool-specific articles. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping list. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from either list, or both.
8 posted on 05/02/2012 10:54:10 AM PDT by JenB
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To: BuffaloJack
His armies had so many problems with the muslims and the islamic culture that he finally decided that Muslim cities, when captured, would have to be razed to the ground and all the muslims killed, because the problems with muslims were too much.
The only cities he ever utterly destroyed were Muslim.

Nothing has really changed, for the culture of ignorance, delusion and arrogance that is islam.
Suffice to say that when the Mongols first approached the existing cultures to the west, the Khan sent emisaries to the most powerful of his immediate neighbors, islam, seeking accomodations and agreements.
The emisaries were promptly executed.

9 posted on 05/02/2012 10:54:53 AM PDT by Publius6961 ("It's easy to make promises you can't keep" - B.H.Obama Feb 23, 2012)
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To: robowombat

One of the problems with reading the Quran is the English translations were made by sympathetic translators who whitewashed and generally re-wrote the more nasty verses.

For a good literal translation see Hoque’s Translation and Commentary on The Holy Quran,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0967830400/104-6021043-6359914

See also Ibn Warraq’s What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157392945X/104-6021043-6359914


10 posted on 05/02/2012 10:56:46 AM PDT by Gideon7
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To: robowombat

*for later


11 posted on 05/02/2012 11:23:18 AM PDT by rightly_dividing
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To: robowombat

You can bet that these same textbooks portray the Crusaders as bloodthirsty mercenaries, the Inquisition as a tidal wave of terror, and Christianity as the endorser of oppression, mayhem, and ignorance throughout history.


12 posted on 05/02/2012 11:48:40 AM PDT by IronJack (=)
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To: null and void

took my school back!


13 posted on 05/02/2012 12:56:02 PM PDT by Shimmer1 (Take the high road, it's less crowded. (Mark Lowry))
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