Conspiracy Theories, Terror Support Found in ISNA Convention Literature

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) engages in frequent interfaith programs with Jewish groups and has been embraced warmly by the Obama administration as a contact point for the American Muslim community.

In those circles, ISNA presents an open and progressive face of Islam that is led by a woman, Ingrid Mattson.

Literature available at ISNA's annual convention last month in Washington, however, offers a far different vision. Books and pamphlets obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism from ISNA's July national convention feature numerous attempts to portray U.S. prosecution of terrorists and terror supporters as anti-Muslim bigotry; dramatic revisionist history that denied attacks by Arab nations and Palestinian terrorists against Israel; anti-Semitic tracts and hyperbolic rants about a genocide and holocaust of Palestinians.

Previously, the IPT exposed hate speech during a conference panel that featured a call for "more jihad" along with slurs against Jews and gays and a defense of the terrorist group Hizballah as an innocent player subject to incessant Israeli onslaught. Read more ...

Source: IPT News

Hide and SeekA Virginia school scrubbed jihad from its textbooks, but may still preach violence.

By Nina Shea and Ali al-Ahmed

For nearly 25 years, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), the Virginia school founded by royal decree of Saudi King Fahd in 1984, immersed students of its Islamic-studies curriculum in the same Wahhabi interpretation of Islam that is taught in Saudi Arabia and in Saudi-funded madrassas around the world. That curriculum includes praise for militant jihad to “spread the faith” and permission for the killing of various categories of “unbelievers,” as well as other endorsements of religious intolerance.

Now, as it seeks permission from Fairfax County to expand its operations, ISA claims that, over the last school year, it replaced the Saudi religious curriculum with a more moderate one.

Through private channels, we were able to acquire ISA’s Islamic-studies textbooks, all marked for use in the first semester of the 2008-09 school year. Compared to the original Saudi Education Ministry versions, these new Arabic-language textbooks — one slim, single volume for each grade — are indeed redacted and condensed.

We wish we could celebrate the deletions we helped catalyze, but we are not persuaded that the problem is solved. The books contain no significant discussion of jihad and make few references to the religious “other.” The silence is deafening. It raises the question — a question ISA has yet to answer — of what supplemental material the academy is using.

Jihad is a central tenet of Islam and is raised multiple times in the Koran. Saudi textbooks describe jihad as “the summit of Islam” and “one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God,” and endorse its militant form for both defensive and aggressive purposes. Read more ...

Source: NRO
H/T: IPT Blog

A Caucasian mufti offers to set extremist books on fire

Moscow, March 10, Interfax – Head of the Coordinating Center of the Muslims of the North Caucasus Ismail Berdiyev believes Russia’s federal list of extremist literature is essential.

When asked by Interfax-Religion if it is necessary to create such a list, Berdiyev said, “Sure. Especially here, in the post-Soviet space.”

The Mufti explained that people who lived in Soviet system, today experience “spiritual vacuum.”

Speaking about books kindling interethnic enmity, Berdiyev offered not to ban them, but rather “collect and burn.”

The Mufti laments that today everyone can write “whatever he wishes.” “There’s no need to ask if it is right or not, here’s the trouble,” head of the Coordinating Center of the Muslims of the North Caucasus said.

Source: Interfax

Saudi Textbooks Incite Hatred & Violence against non-Muslims

By Dr. Sami Alrabaa

Ahmed Al-Sarraf cited in Al-Qabas (June 2, 2007) some passages from a Kuwaiti school textbook taught at the first secondary grade. Here is an English translation of passages from the book, "Jurisprudence", p. 38:

Who is, or who is not, punished in a Muslim society:

• A Muslim who kills an apostate or someone who commits adultery against an infidel is not punished.
• If a Muslim kills an infidel or a slave, he is not punished.
• If a Muslim man, father, or grandfather kills someone from his offspring, he is not punished.

I went through the school textbooks taught in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Here is an English translation of some passages from these books. Read more ...

Source: Islam Watch