It sure looks like it, and they sure shouldn't be.
By Katherine Kersten for the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) -- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain -- is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Its approximately 300 students are mostly the children of low-income Muslim immigrant families, many of them Somalis.
The school is in huge demand, with a waiting list of 1,500. Last fall, it opened a second campus in Blaine.
TIZA uses the language of culture rather than religion to describe its program in public documents. According to its mission statement, the school "recognizes and appreciates the traditions, histories, civilizations and accomplishments of the eastern world (Africa, Asia and Middle East)."
But the line between religion and culture is often blurry. There are strong indications that religion plays a central role at TIZA, which is a public school financed by Minnesota taxpayers. Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students' religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion.
TIZA raises troubling issues about taxpayer funding of schools that cross that line.
Asad Zaman, TIZA's principal, declined to allow me to visit the school or grant me an interview. He did not respond to e-mails seeking written replies.
TIZA's strong religious connections date from its founding in 2003. Its co-founders, Zaman and Hesham Hussein, were both imams, or Muslim religious leaders, as well as leaders of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN).
Since then, they have played dual roles: Zaman as TIZA's principal and the current vice-president of MAS-MN, and Hussein as TIZA's school board chair and president of MAS-MN until his death in a car accident in Saudi Arabia in January.
MAS-MN came to Minnesotans' attention in 2006, when it issued a "fatwa," warning Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that transporting passengers with alcohol in their baggage is a violation of Islamic law.
Journalists whom Zaman has permitted to visit TIZA have described the school's Islamic atmosphere and practices.
"A visitor might well mistake Tarek ibn Ziyad for an Islamic school," reported Minnesota Monthly in 2007. "Head scarves are voluntary, but virtually all the girls wear them." The school has a central carpeted prayer space, and "vaguely religious-sounding language" is used.
According to the Pioneer Press, TIZA's student body prays daily and the school's cafeteria serves halal food (permissible under Islamic law). During Ramadan, all students fast from dawn to dusk, according to a parent quoted in the article.
In fact, TIZA was originally envisioned as a private Islamic school. In 2001, MAS-MN negotiated to buy the current TIZA/MAS-MN building for Al-Amal School, a private religious institution in Fridley, according to Bruce Rimstad of the Inver Grove Heights School District. But many immigrant families can't afford Al-Amal. In 2002, Islamic Relief -- headquartered in California -- agreed to sponsor a publicly funded charter school, TIZA, at the same location.
TIZA claims to be non-sectarian, as Minnesota law requires charters to be. But "after-school Islamic learning" takes place on weekdays in the same building under MAS-MN's auspices, according to the program for MAS-MN's 2007 convention. At that convention, a TIZA representative at the school's booth told me that students go directly to "Islamic studies" classes at 3:30, when TIZA's day ends. There, they learn "Qur'anic recitation, the Sunnah of the Prophet" and other religious subjects, he said.
TIZA's 2006 Contract Performance Review Report states that students engage in unspecified "electives" after school or do homework.
- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain
What not a religious figure? A warrior? A warrior with a religious agenda as well.
Sometimes the name of something is a tip off.
"But the line between religion and culture is often blurry."
-- from the article above
There is no line in Islam between religion and oplitics, or religion and culture, or religion and anything else. It is a Total Belief System. It offers Total Regulation of Life, and at no extra cost, a Complete Explanation of the Universe. And what's more, you have to take both, and yours not to reason why. The habit of mental submission is encouraged, and every attempt at independent or individual thought discouraged and punished severely.
The man Sen. McCain is likely to pick as his VP running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, appointed an Imam from this school to the State Board of Teaching:
Asad Zaman, of Inver Grove Heights, has been the Executive Director of the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy since 2003. As Executive Director, he serves as the principal of this charter school. Zaman previously served as a Principal Consultant for InterimLogic Solutions, Inc., as a Project Leader for Thompson Corporation/West Group, and as a Team Integration Coordinator for Electronic Data Systems/Technical Engineering Solution Centers. He has served on the President's Advisory Committee for Inver Hills Community College, the Minnesota Governor's 2003 Education and Graduation Standards Committee, and as Imam and Treasurer of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. Zaman received a B.S. from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He is appointed as a school administrator member of the Board and will serve a four-year term which ends January 5, 2009. Zaman replaces Dee Grover-Thomas on the Board.
The Board of Teaching establishes rules governing the licensing of public school teachers and the accreditation of teacher education programs. The Board also establishes a code of ethics for teachers and has the authority to suspend or revoke a teaching license. The board is made up of eleven members appointed by the Governor.
"and Hussein as TIZA's school board chair and president of MAS-MN until his death in a car accident in Saudi Arabia in January."
Was he cut off by a kuffar exiting at the "All Non-Muslims" road sign posted here last week?
THIS IS AN ISLAMIC TAX-FUNDED SCHOOL--O U T R A G E!!
Charles Bogle,
Any ideas how we can STOP John McCain and his team from considering Governor Pawlenty as a Vice-Presidential finalist? HOW BIG A STINK DO WE NEED TO MAKE??
Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) -- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain -- is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights.
So, they're going to use taxpayer dollars to fund the TIZA madrassa, named for the guy who conquered Spain for Islam -- in other words, they're rubbing it in the face of the infidel.
(Fortunately, Spain threw the rascals out. It took them 700 years to do it.)
Its approximately 300 students are mostly the children of low-income Muslim immigrant families, many of them Somalis.
Most of the radical islam troubles come from Somalis. Somalis are the main ones who aren't allowed to handle alcohol or pork.
(They would do more good going around the country, teaching all of the muslim gas station owners that they shouldn't sell liquor and hot dogs.)
We were not fawning over Muslims and submitting to their every whim prior to 9-11. At the root of all of this is a bipartisan effort at appeasement.
If this is our response to a ragtag and small number of Muslims in our midst now, what does the future hold when, due to further immigration and high Muslim birth-rates, the proportion of Muslims has doubled, and then doubled again?
When Obama is elected and ends the war and takes the reins on immigration authority, my guess is that the doors of the U.S. will be thrown open to a huge number of Muslim refugees fleeing sectarian violence in Iraq (and a huge number of others just taking advantage of open doors into the U.S.). Most of those new arrivals will also find their way to liberal states like Minnesota, where they will insist on more of this PC nonsense such as Muslim public schools.
No liberal should be appeasing Islam like this. The liberals will figure this out when it is too late. Their freedom will become the freedom to think and say and do whatever they like, as long as it is approved by the local imam.
Karl said
Which state do you consider to not be liberal, and therefore safe from Muslim immigration? Texas? Arizona? Michigan?
Anyone who thinks that either main political party has the slightest clue about jihad is kidding themselves. Though, there are some individuals who do much better, such as Tom Tancredo.
So when can I enrol at the Jan Sobieski academy in Constantinople?
We were not fawning over Muslims and submitting to their every whim prior to 9-11. At the root of all of this is a bipartisan effort at appeasement.
Posted by: Karl at March 9, 2008 3:38 AM
No! It is not"we" it is the vote-greedy "politicians", starting with White House, if you see the huge difference.
Pat Condell - Appeasing Islam
Mr Condell expresses my sentiments perfectly.
Amen.
"Asad Zaman, TIZA's principal, declined to allow me to visit the school or grant me an interview."
This is a public school funded with public monies. The principle has no right to do this. Now I'm not saying that he has to grant an interview ASAP, but this clown needs to know that Minnesota, and the US, are not Islamia (yet). Secrecy is not our rule. This is an outrage. But then again, I am now outraged daily by the RoP(MA).
One also has to wonder if Jefferson is given short-shrift in this publically funded muslim school. You know, the old dead white guy who studied a koran because of his war in North Africa with the muslim pirates calling themselves emirs and beys.
"He did not respond to e-mails seeking written replies."
Why am I not surprised? Doesn't want to have his direct quotes from an e-mail taken out of context.
Nice. A little madrassa in the heartland.
PersonOfTheBook is right about Somalis. When I worked in corporate security for a major Canadian bank, we investigated numerous cases of Somali immigrants defrauding the bank, laundering money etc. Toronto has a large Somali population and those people are vicious! Lots of gang activity, knifings, shootings etc.
"TIZA claims to be non-sectarian, as Minnesota law requires charters to be. But "after-school Islamic learning" takes place on weekdays in the same building under MAS-MN's auspices, according to the program for MAS-MN's 2007 convention. At that convention, a TIZA representative at the school's booth told me that students go directly to "Islamic studies" classes at 3:30, when TIZA's day ends. There, they learn "Qur'anic recitation, the Sunnah of the Prophet" and other religious subjects, he said."
-- from the aritcle above
Ordinarily a taxpayer -- a "mere" taxpayer -- lacks standing to bring suit. But in the case of the Establishment Clause, given its great significance, such standing is likely to be found. A suit should be brought at once. By the sound of it, there is such an obvious intermingling -- an intermingling that appears to have been intended from the start -- of the suppoosedly secular during the regular school day and the purely Islamic education that starts at 3:30. But we know that in Islam that what we call "religion" in fact covers, or suffuses, every area of life. If, for example, there is in the science class mention that "all of science is in the Qur'an" or if false claims are made for "Islamic science" (as part of continued indoctrination of Muslim children) or if there are other reasons to think that the so-called "regular school day" is suffused with Islam, then there should be no public money spent. The Saudis and other Arabs take in billions every day. Not all of it goes to pay for foreign wage slaves, gaudy skyscrapers and private palaces and specially-outfitted 747s to take those rich Arabs to Western brothels and gambling dens and their wives on shopping tours. No, nearly a hundred billion has been spent by Saudi Arabia alone on spreading Islam. Let them pick up the tab -- or not.
And stop, for god's sake stop, importing trouble -- and Muslim immigrants, as a whole, necessarily mean trouble, in all lands where the political and legal institutions, and social arrangements, are flatly contradicted by the Shari'a. Muslims are obligated to change or tear down those institutions, in order to remove all "obstacles to Islam." It is not special or individual malice that prompts that attitude. That is their duty, a central duty. Why not come to fully and soberly understand that duty, and out of a minimal sense of self-preservation, cease to import those into our lands (America, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, and every other place that has so generously admitted, under a twisted definitiion of "refugees," people who do not, and can not, wish our ways or institutions or constitutions well.
But start with that law suit, as well-funded with American money, one hopes, as will be the other side, for the other side will have all kinds of Arab money behind it.
The United States will be under Shariah in the not too distant future. It will be forced upon the citizens of the United States by the courts and by the force of will of those who hold sway in public institutions:
Harvard Sets Women-Only Hours for Gym, Complying With Muslim Students' Request
Sunday, March 02, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334390,00.html
as well as those who essentially are self-appointed law-makers by the power they wield through the courts:
...not to mention others who control government institutions...
The islamic serpent is constricting about the necks of all American citizens who seem to delight in paying for the experience with their taxes.
The freedoms bought with their parents blood on the field of battle are simply being handed away as if they were nothing.
When shariah law comes to full flower -- and it will shortly -- their will be gnashing of teeth all right; but by then it will be too late.
Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) -- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain
I believe they mean "named for the creep that imposed a Jim Crow system on Spain for 700 years." Why not rename it Bull Connor Academy?
Caroline Fourest in "Brother Tariq" mentioned that it's interesting how Tariq Ramadan's father gave his son the same first name as TIZ - as if the son-in-law of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood saw his son as another person out to conquer Europe.
Mr Condell expresses my sentiments perfectly.
Amen.
Posted by: justamomof4
I agree, Pats right on. I like his straight forward, matter of fact, take no prisoners style. No apologetics from him. I bet muslims just love him to
pieces, if they could catch him...
The relocating of Somalis to the American continent is something like "a fish out of water".
Why not let them be relocated somewhere on the African continent? Doesn't that make a lot more sense? Costs less for sure, less culture shock.
Why should Americans bear this burden?
But then again, is this some kind of conspiracy to flood the West with moslems?
The idea that if we are forced to live side-by-side...we will suddenly be accepting of one another is BS in this instance. Islam will never be equal with other belief systems, they will not allow that.
Stupid politicians and their ideas of building Utopia, without the willingness of the plebes.
Stop these settlements now!
With dubya firmly in wahhabbi pockets, and access to US Treasery, not much Americans can do but to pour frustration at their sell-out politicians, while the traitors sell America out. Besides didn't America reject Tom Tancredo?
Hugh,
An intregal part of that lawsuit should be recouping ALL the tax dollars spent on this madrassa! And have their obcenely wealthy Saudi patrons foot the legal bills too! Then go right down the line and recall every politition and agency that enabled this obcentiy to occur!
Radar `73-`75
Can we start the "El Cid" School?
Actually, El Cid dealt with the Muslims both diplomatically and on the battle field. His success in convincing some of the Muslims to fight for the Spanish cause was instrumental in his victory.
We should fight a lawsuit to get this school and others like it barred from receiving public funding.
Here's another bonus...
Anyone contemplating a lawsuit to stop the MN state or local government involvement in promotion of Islam by way of an establishment cluase case can,if your side prevails, have attorney's fees awarded. The ACLU has been paid millions for their lawsuits over the years (since law passed in 1976). The attorney is paid only if victorious but I see little downside in this case.
Is this school in Kieth Ellison's District?
A little OT but on the issue of Establishment Clause cases and standing... a while back Hugh wrote on the building and funding of 2 "super" madrassas and mosque's in Afghanistan by the U.S Military. I did a little research and recently posted on my blog about this project. There is legal precedent directly on point in a 2nd U.S. Circuit decision that provides a clear basis for a successful challenge. Once again, loose standing rules and payment of attorney's fees could make such a challenge well worth the efforts of an enterprising lawyer. Any takers?
Once again, loose standing rules and payment of attorney's fees could make such a challenge well worth the efforts of an enterprising lawyer. Any takers? ~ USorThem
I would love to initiate a suit, however I do not have the means to do so, and I doubt the ACLU would pick this one up.
Here in MN, the school districts by law have to fund the charter schools. That's taxpayer money. My school district, Minneapolis Public is facing declining enrollments, loss of funding based on that decline, and still it's required to foot the bill in maintaining and transporting charter school students to and from their semi-private public schools of whatever stripe. In fact, my kid's school hours have been adjusted to accomodate the transportation of charter school kids, and now some students in our school are being further affected because they will no longer be dropped off and picked up at their door, again to accomodate charter students.
If anyone was going to initiate a lawsuit, it would stand to reason that MPS would take that challenge, but they haven't. With all their legal capitol, I'm sure they would if they could, but the way the laws are written in this infernal place it's impossible for the school district to do so. And there are MPS Board members who send their kids to charter schools. Why would they want to change the Way Things Are? Apparently, it's the will of the people for this to be, because the people keep electing these book smart but sense poor useful idiots who enact these laws.
"Is this school in Kieth Ellison's District?"
No- it isn't.
(Fortunately, Spain threw the rascals out. It took them 700 years to do it.)
---
Unfortunately they're well on their way to letting even more of them in.. they just re-elected that dhimmi socialist Zapatero.
Horrible
America is digging its own grave.
One question
Why our boys are getting kille in Iraq to get rid of terrorist and we are growing and educating them here?
Wake up, senators and congressmen.
ACLU?