| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
I give the history of Muhammad's massacre of the Qurayzah Jews in Onward Muslim Soldiers. But American schoolchildren are learning a somewhat different version. "Module for Teaching Islamic History in Public Schools Unfairly Maligns the Qurayzah Jews," by Andre Rublev at the 6th Column Against Jihad blog:
Due to the exponential growth in demand for information about Islamic history, we cannot ignore the intense competition over what version of events our children will learn. After all, the impact of first impressions on impressionable young minds cannot be underestimated. Well ahead of the game, the Council on Islamic Education has prepared a teaching module for use in public high and middle schools whose sole purpose is to pre-empt all negative impressions relating to Muhammad’s harsh treatment of the Bani Qurayzah following the Battle of the Trench.The CIE is not a stranger to controversy. William Bennetta of the California-based Textbook League first pointed out the CIE’s pernicious influence over history textbooks used in American schools in both the March-April and July-August 2000 issues of The Textbook Letter [1, 2]. More recently, Gilbert T. Sewall of the American Textbook Council in New York City made similar observations. In his 2003 publication “Islam and the Textbooks” Sewall described the CIE as “a content gatekeeper with virtually unchecked power over publishers” [3]. The CIE is also involved with teacher training and the preparation of supplemental teaching modules. The module in question incorporates the controversial Public Television special “Legacy of a Prophet” and adds insult to injury by going so far as to vilify the hapless Qurayzah.
No account of Muhammad’s time in Medina can inconspicuously gloss over this incident because it is linked to Muhammad’s most important victory over Mecca. The historical setting is referred to as the “Hiraj.” This began when Muhammad and his followers relocated from Mecca to Yathrib in 622 after two rival tribes had asked him to mediate an exhausting civil war. During the following six years, Muhammad sealed important alliances by way of diplomacy and marriage. He also built up the wealth and military prestige of the Muslim community by raiding caravans organized by the Quraysh and by appropriating the property of banished tribes. Yathrib was later re-named “Medina” in Muhammad’s honor.
Consequently, the Quraysh sent forces from Mecca to put an end to Muhammad’s disruption of their trade, culminating in the “Battle of the Trench” in 627. Muhammad’s success in outlasting the siege was a turning point in his rivalry with the leadership of Mecca. By the time of his death in 632 most of the Arab peninsula was consolidated under Islam.
In 622, Medina was also inhabited by three large tribes of Jews; the Bani Nadir, the Bani Qaynuqah, and the Bani Qurayzah. By 627, both the Bani Nadir and the Banu Qaynuqa had been expelled to Khaybar, a region north of Medina. During their final attempt to subdue Medina, the Meccans sent envoys to the Bani Qurayzah hoping to win their support. The Meccans had already obtained the support of the two exiled Jewish tribes now living in Khaybar. Although hesitant at first, the Qurayzah finally sided with the Meccans as the siege dragged on. However, before the Qurayzah could effectively act on their decision the Meccans broke the siege due to foul weather. Well aware of the Qurayzah’s dealings with the Meccans, the Muslims now laid siege to the Qurayzah fortress until they surrendered. Mortally wounded Arab chief Sa'd ibn Muadh was chosen by Muhammad to decide their fate. He ruled that all the men should be killed, and all the women and children be sold into slavery. The next day, between 700 and 900 men of the Bani Qurayzah were beheaded [4, 5].
To present this massacre to American high school students in a more positive light, the CIE module emphasizes the alleged “treachery” of the Qurayzah [6]. Below are no less than seven sentences or phrases from the lesson plan that use the t-word:
1) Title: The Concept of Treason in Comparative Law
2) Overview: This lesson explores the theme of treason.
3) Students should be able to…analyze the issue of treason in the United States Constitution and during the Battle of the Trench.
4) Have students organize into groups and read Student Handout: The Battle of the Trench, which contains background information on the Battle of the Trench, the comments of Professor Firestone on the Bani Qurayzah, and the clause on treason in the third article of the United States Constitution.
5) Why would the siding of the Bani Qurayzah with the Quraysh be seen as treason?
6) Could the definition of treason given in Section 3, Article 3 of the Constitution apply to the actions of the Bani Qurayzah? If so, why?
7) Why do you think treason is punished so severely in U.S. law? Give several reasons.
The authors of this module, Susan Douglass and Aiyub Palmer, are not alone in being so heavy-handed with the unfortunate Qurayzah. In her bestseller “Muhammad” Karen Armstrong points out that, “In the early seventh century, an Arab chief would not be expected to show any mercy to traitors like the Qurayzah” [7]. Armstrong is one of the featured narrators on “Legacy of a Prophet” and a frequent guest on Public Television and National Public Radio.These charges against the Qurayzah are based on their failure to uphold the principles laid out in Muhammad’s Constitution of Medina, which presumably provided equal rights to both Muslims and Jews. Furthermore, Muhammad had tried to ingratiate himself with the Jews by initially instructing his followers pray facing Jerusalem, but his relations with these tribes were reportedly tense from the start. The Public Television website based on “Legacy of a Prophet” suggests “This was probably a matter of local politics” [4]. But it is difficult to imagine how any group of non-Muslims could feel at ease with a document that acknowledges Muhammad as “God’s apostle.” Since no Jewish account has been recovered, we may never really know their side of the story. The best we can do for now is to follow Muslim accounts leading up to this terrible event to put the Qurayzah’s actions in perspective.
In 624 two Arab poets, an old man and a young mother of five were assassinated in their sleep for insulting the prophet. Most sources agree that the murders of Abu Afak and Asma bint Marwan were carried out with Muhammad’s blessings, even though their poetry only ridicule and satire. In the same year, the Qaynuqah were expelled and Muhammad ordered the assassination of Ka’b Ibn Ashraf, a poet and Nadir chief who was trying to garner up support among the Meccans for deposing Muhammad.
The expulsion of the Qaynuqah started with a picaresque incident at an outdoor market whereby some Qaynuqah youths played a trick on a Muslim girl that exposed her private parts. In the resulting melee, one Muslim and one Jew were killed. Unable or unwilling to resolve this incident peacefully, Muhammad’s forces laid siege to the Qaynuqah until they agreed to leave with little more than their lives.
The expulsion of the Bani Nadir during the next year is even more peculiar. In a case of mistaken identity, Muslims killed two members of the Bani Amir, a Bedouin tribe that had recently formed an alliance with Muhammad. Consequently, Muhammad’s community was obligated to pay blood money to the Amir chief, and Muhammad asked the Nadir to share the costs. The Nadir leadership apparently agreed to this request, but with no explanation, Muhammad cut short his visit to their tribal elders. He later told his companions that the angel Gabriel had revealed to him a plot for his assassination organized by members of the Nadir. Based on this “evidence,” the Nadir were banished under the same conditions of the Qaynuqah that had preceded them [5].
The murder of two poets guilty of “intellectual attack,” the murder of one of their chiefs, and the poor handling of the vulgar incident involving the Qaynuqah gave the Nadir strong motives for eliminating Muhammad. However, motive alone does not make you guilty, and no decent tribunal can accept evidence provided by one man’s “divine revelation.” No doubt the Qurayzah saw the writing on the wall.
It could be argued that Muhammad’s annihilation of this tribe was a matter of self-preservation. After all, had the Qurayzah been merely expelled, they could have later re-grouped with the Qaynuqah and Nadir, who Muhammad’s forces were to confront the next year in Khaybar. In effect, the Qurayzah’s co-existence with the Muslims had become a zero-sum game, but in view of their de-facto second-class status, the Qurayzah’s collaboration with the Meccans could hardly qualify as “treason.” In fact, even the Constitution of Medina’s guarantee of “equal protection” is ambiguous at best. For example, point 15 of this document states that “Believers are friends one to the other to the exclusion of outsiders” [8]. Incredibly, the CIE still finds it appropriate to encourage students to draw an analogy between the Constitution of Medina and the Mayflower Compact [9]!
How do we counter the CIE’s flagrant distortions when most Americans know so little about the early history of Islam? No doubt senators, representatives, and even educators will be reluctant to do their homework on the Qurayzah’s circumstances leading up to the Battle of the Trench. This is not the kind of information that can be reduced to a sound-byte, and the narratives that are easiest to read are usually written by mealy-mouthed Islam apologists. In fact, Karen Armstrong’s “Islam: A Short History” now forms a part of the reading list that General John R. Vines has assigned to his top staff members now serving in Iraq [10]. It is troubling enough that officials who are on the frontline in the War on Terror are relying on the questionable scholarship of this self-described “free-lance monotheist,” whose spiritual disorientation is thoroughly demonstrated in her book’s total surrender to moral relativism [11]. But since American-based Islamist organizations like the CIE are too young to have influenced the general’s secondary education, things could be worse: Try to imagine the reading preferences of a CIE-indoctrinated generation of American leaders. Isn’t it time we gave our representatives some real history lessons?
Notes:
1. http://www.textbookleague.org/111muha.htm
2. http://www.textbookleague.org/113centu.htm
3. http://www.historytextbooks.org/islam.htm
4. http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/ma_jews.shtml
5. Maxime Rodinson “Mohammed” (1971) Pantheon Books, pp 171, 172, 176, 191, 193, 211-213
6. http://www.cie.org/teachers/LessonPlans/Legacy/default1.asp?section=11
7. Karen Armstrong “Muhammad” (1992) Harper’s, p 208
8. http://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/con_medina.htm
9. http://www.cie.org/teachers/LessonPlans/Legacy/default1.asp?section=9
10. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/01/16/international/middleeast/16command.gif
11. http://www.meforum.org/article/115
Posted by Robert at February 22, 2005 8:55 AM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
Mr. Spencer,
I knew very little about Islam before reading your work. I remember first learning about this in massacre inRobert Spencer on Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet on National Review Online. It was one of those, "wait a minute... the spread of Islam is not like the spread of Christianity or Buddhism, is it" moments for me.
I find it very telling the CEI is trying very hard to whitewash that particular incident.
M
![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 22, 2005 9:25 AM
What a lucid and useful article.
Posted by: Hugh at February 22, 2005 10:10 AM
'It must suck to be you.' ~ kj
Yep, kj. It does suck to see what your side is teaching in our schools- that, and my knowledge of history even before I hit high school, was already better than what is coming off the leftist-overrun campuses of America today.
Aren't you just So pleased with these 'progressives'?
info on islam in public schools.
http://www.historytextbooks.org/
at February 22, 2005 11:31 AM
For all of you who think that Kantian nihilism is just some concern of some old guys in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches shut away somewhere in a dusty, book-filled room in the philosophy department of some overly-endowed Ivy League university, look again.
If the nihilists (via Kant and other [primarily] German philosophers hadn't begun their attempt to destroy this country by around 1810, during the lifetimes of our first three presidents and barely after our country had been designed and implemented, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today.
The schools were among their first targets, along with politics and the media. With those three professions in their pockets, and with unremitting energy, they have thoroughly paved the way for their fellow travelers of Islam to take us out.
Horace Mann, a product of the German philosophers, was the virtual creator of our government school system, and it was among his orignial goals to create a population compliant and submissive to government.
His effort was strongly supported by a couple of socialists named Robert Owen and Frances Wright, who said that government schools should have the children 24 hours a day, year around, from the ages 2 to 16, and that they should be treated utterly equally with respect to food, clothing, and curriculum; the curriculum they wanted was one that they hoped would achieve all their goals for society, including government-enforced equalization of property and income. And this was WAY before the Soviet Union, folks.
That was too extreme for most, but by the mid-1800s, when the government school system was up and running, the principles Owen and Wright espoused had been largely adopted by the "educationists."
Today, we have schools that have before and after school programs, medical programs, activity programs, and in many other ways resemble the Owen and Wright ideal.
The curriculum also resembles their ideal; it's goal is to "dumb down" the students so they don't know anything and even worse, don't care that they don't know, and to infuse them with their collectivist philosophy that so intensely opposes the philosophy of the Founders. In addition, they have successfully blocked any attempts any of us have to insert into curricula the means to counter their efforts. The entire textbook industry is under their thumbs. PC, multiculturalism, and "diversity" are all products of the Kantian Left.
The reason "everyone around the world hates America" is because America is the last place on earth that still has a small residuum of the Aristotelian philosophy that jump-started the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Age that enabled slavery and other gross injustices to come to an end. Aristotle is their enemy.
The reason we remain the most successful, prosperous, and happy nation on earth (except for the chronic whiners, the Kantian Left) is because although we have been prevented from access to philosophy in our schools, the tiny spark of Aristotelian thinking that we were born of remains as "The Great American Subconscious." We continue to thrive on the shred of our founding philosophy that remains. Unfortunately, many of see that it is slowly slipping away, and that the loss is unopposed by a population of many school generations deliberately rendered ignorant of its importance.
Folks, we must take the destruction of our schools seriously. We will never be able to change the system as it exists now. We must instead establish our own schools, formulate a rational Aristotelian curruculum, and see to it that our kids know reality and how to think about it.
That's how we'll win.
Posted by: cubed at February 22, 2005 11:59 AM
Quote from textbook:
"Although the Qur'an allows war, it sets specific terms for fighting. Muhammad told his followers to honor agreements made with foes. Muslim fighters must not mutilate (remove or destroy) the dead bodies of enemies or harm women, children, old people, and civilians. Nor should they destroy property, orchards, crops, sacred objects, or houses of worship. "
What, no rape, torture, beheadings, destruction of holy sites or booty collection? They are so niiicein war, no? They even honor agreements in this fairytale!
I'm certain that if challenged on the content they would respond with, "Being Arab speakers we are more qualified than non-Arabic speakers to interpret the Koran and disseminate the whitewash, er, translation. That being the case, why don't they allow Americans or Jews to author/sanitize their history books?
The Islamification of our youth and ultimately America is their long term goal. They have said that it may take 50 years but they will take this country non the less.
We know Americans generally want things done like they are in television. A crisis and solution all resolved in a thirty minute time frame. Fast food, fast sex, relationship over and on to the next. Disaster, tragedy, grief and back to normal all in the blink of an eye. Do we have the persistence and dogged determination, the dedication that they do? I pray to G-d we do ...
Posted by: Kemaste at February 22, 2005 12:13 PM
Cubed says:
"We must instead establish our own schools, formulate a rational Aristotelian curruculum, and see to it that our kids know reality and how to think about it."
Cubed:
Your comment has peaked my interest and given me hope. Can you go more in depth into your solution?
Posted by: Kemaste at February 22, 2005 12:20 PM
Shouldn't be any suprise that our troops are now getting letters from U.S students like this:
http://nypost.com/news/worldnews/40259.htm
at February 22, 2005 12:26 PM
I'm sorry, I didn't read all of the article, but when we're talking about the cold blooded murder of Jewisn non combatents I presume they were referring to Hitler's Einzatzgruppen?
Posted by: Celsius at February 22, 2005 12:55 PM
I find Cubed's argument a piece of intellectualistic extremism that does not work and is apt to mislead people (such as the majority of the human race) who are not familiar with the history of philosophy. To call Kant a nihilist is miserably inadequate and misleading; to lump him in with the German philosophy that followed - Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer - is frankly absurd. For the record, Kant was a liberal and a mild republican. As for Aristotle "jump-starting the Renaissance", it would be closer to the truth that the Renaissance was jump-started by the anit-Aristotelian revolt of the (mainly Florentine) Neo-Platonists, whose rise in the fifteenth century matches the period of highest artistic achievement, the one conventionally known as the Renaissance. Aristotelianism was a component of Thomism, which was the dominant though scarcely the only philosophical current of the High Middle Ages.
But the basic point is this: that this misguided kind of intellectual Puritanism, that seeks for strands of our own culture to punish and blame, is contrary to what we should be doing. Do you not think that the average jihadist Muslim intellectual would rejoice to hear us cut off whole branches of our own tradition as unwholesome, nihilistic, tyrannical? The discovery would be served to the readers of twenty Muslim dailies, piping hot: "German philosophy is nihilistic and tyrannical. Only in Islam is there salvation."
We are fighting for as much of our culture as we can. At least, I am.
Posted by: Paolo at February 22, 2005 12:58 PM
Cubed says:
"We must instead establish our own schools, formulate a rational Aristotelian curruculum, and see to it that our kids know reality and how to think about it."
Cubed:
Your comment has peaked my interest and given me hope. Can you go more in depth into your solution?
Posted by: Kemaste at February 22, 2005 12:20 PM
Hi, Kemaste,
I'm glad you find some encouragement; it's true, there is a way out of the problem. We must act quickly, though--as we can see, even our Protectors, such as our President, are having a hard time dealing with the reality of the situation.
I am dealing with an explanation for the problem as fast as I can (which is pretty slow--my apologies) on a website I contribute to (6th Column Against Jihad.com). The articles are very long, and begin with the problems of our system and before too long will begin to explain how it is that Islam creates the Units in its own Borg system. It's probably the "transition" paper, soon (I hope) to be posted that you will be interested in.
I refer you to them rather than try to go into detail here because of their length.
Sorry, Paolo, you are wrong. Study a little more philosophy. Begin with Plato, his student Aristotle, the nature of the disagreement they had, and how it affected the history of mankind. Plato led to Plotinus who led to al Kindi and Augustine, who led to Kant who led to Hegel both of whom led to Marx--well, you know the rest.
Aristotle led to Ibn Rushd who led to St. Thomas Aquinas, who led to John Locke who led to a bunch of guys we know as the Founding Fathers of the United States--well, you know the rest.
Posted by: cubed at February 22, 2005 1:29 PM
Kemaste,
Quote from textbook:
"Although the Qur'an allows war, it sets specific terms for fighting. Muhammad told his followers to honor agreements made with foes. Muslim fighters must not mutilate (remove or destroy) the dead bodies of enemies or..."
Have you read this?
"The Massacre and Destruction of Damour"
Arafat's PLO and Syria's Sa'iqa brigade slaughters men, women, and children.
http://www.flaym.org/Occupied%20Lebanon/damour.htm
" An entire family had been killed, the Can’an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. No legs and no arms. It was awful."
"In all, 582 people were killed in the storming of Damour. Father Labaky went back with the Red Cross to bury them. Many of the bodies had been dismembered, so they had to count the heads to number the dead. Three of the men they found had had their genitals cut off and stuffed into their mouths."
Remember they create their own reality at will to assuage their agenda.
I see in GWB's speech in Europe which New Sisyphus comments on
http://newsisyphus.blogspot.com/2005/02/our-man-in-brussels.html
that kowtowing to that crowd's sensitivity to humiliation continues:
"And by pointing out that the “arc of reform” embraces what the USG euphemistically calls the “Greater Middle East” (since we can’t say the “Muslim world”), the President..."
Posted by: Cynic at February 22, 2005 1:51 PM
Occasionally, someone deviates so far from facts that he or she attracts attention to his or her ignorance. The comments offered by a "Paolo," February 22, 2005, 12:58 PM must be corrected since they reveal that self-absorbed pomposity about those "not familiar with the history of philosophy" includes "Paolo."
If anyone wants a superbly clear, plain language presentation of modern philosophy from Kant to the present, one can find it in Prof. Stephen Hicks' book, Explaining Postmodernism (2004). We have recently reviewed this book on our website, 6th Column Against Jihad . Prof. Hicks is a full professor of philosophy and committed to the facts. Prof. Hicks makes obtuse philosophers such as Kant and Hegel crystal clear, and that is a feat in itself. He shows the lineage of ideas spawned by Kant through the 19th century, into Nazism and Communism, and into contemporary postmodernism. It is a good read.
"Paolo" slings terms and names around in a variant of ad hominem argumentation, but these efforts are akin to slinging a boomerang which returns to do in the slinger. In fact, what "Paolo" wrote is not only factually incorrect, it is no more than blowing smoke to make points known only to himself or herself.
Read Hicks, not "Paolo," if you want the real facts. And, if these are typical productions from this individual, take him or her caveat emptor.
Posted by: George Mason at February 22, 2005 1:53 PM
Hey, only goes to show what hicks know...
Sorry, saw opening, took opening.
at February 22, 2005 2:07 PM
OT and PS:
If anyone wants documentation "from the horse's mouth" that our school system is DELIBERATELY "dumbing down" our kids, I'd like to refer you to a remarkable book by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt: "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America" (Conscience Press, 1999; second printing, 2000). The author describes her work as "a chronological paper trail".
She was turned on to the problem by the late congressman John Ashbrook of Ohio. She says that it was his work while in Congress during the 1960s and 1970s uncovering this "treasonous" plan to lead to the internationalisation and deliberate dumbing down of American education.
Iserbyt collected these documents in secret, then quit her government position in order to publish them for all to see.
And while another book, Andrew Coulson's "Market Education" was published long before 9/11 attracted out interest in Islam, his book nevertheless shows how it is the mechanism of a private system that can lead to a reversal of the "dumbing down" problem.
Coulson used to be a programmer for Microsoft, but has for many years focused on the dangers that a one-size-fits-all behemouth of a government system leads to, and how it is the flexibility of a private system that produces the means of corrections of problems as they arise, before they can affect an entire population.
Posted by: cubed
at February 22, 2005 2:17 PM
Cubed;
Thanks for the referral to your website. I'll check it out.
Cynic:
I am aware of the massacre of Christians at Damour by the PLO.
http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/hobeika_damour/hobeika_damour.html
http://www.lebaneseforces.com/blastfromthepast006.asp
http://www.lgic.org/en/help_syria.php
I was being facetious when I made my statement.
I am fully aware of the devious underhanded, lying, cheating tactics of our enemy. One of Arafat's (Yamach shmo w’zikro, may his name be blotted out forever)infamous quotes was,
" I'd die for my cause. Wouldn't I be willing to lie for it?"
at February 22, 2005 2:22 PM
Thanks Robert, it is an honor to have one of my articles cited on this cutting edge website. And thanks Hugh, your acknowledgement carries a lot of weight.
I owe this in part to Susanb for asking me to write articles for the education section of co-jet. Thanks Susan!
Posted by: Rublev at February 22, 2005 3:35 PM
Well, dear me. Goes to show that, instead of reading Plato and Aristotle and Diogenes Laertius and Plotinus and Anselm and Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham and Kant and Schopenhauer and Popper, I should have read Hicks. Dear dear me. How I wasted my time. But I would say that someone who says "obtuse" when he means "obscure" should tread lightly when criticizing others' readings. And that you might be aware that there is always more than one way to read things. You are a classic vir unius libris, someone who has read one book only and finds himself so satisfied by it that your intellectual curiosity is quenched and your poltical will throws itself into the executions of nostrums deduced from your "one book". I suggest you read, at least, Karl Popper, who knew something about fighting Fascism.
The rest of you: beware of people who make things "crystal clear". As a rule, they aren't.
Posted by: Paolo at February 22, 2005 4:36 PM
Kant was a liberal and a mild republican
Posted by: Paolo at February 22, 2005 12:58 PM
"Youve got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything". Aaron Tippin/Buddy Brock
info on islam in public schools.
http://www.historytextbooks.org/
Posted by: Gary at February 22, 2005 11:31 AM
My little guy(11) will soon be in this criteria and I want him to know the truth.
Thanks for that link man I cant wait to look through it with more time.
Say; a while back you were waiting on work papers and now it appears as though you found employment already?
at February 22, 2005 6:23 PM
Chuck~ glad to be of help. As to papers, yes, I got them end of January. Not sure how soon to be working but it will be soon, I've got a lot of irons in the fire.
I am sure there are other sites relating to islam taught in public schools, I shall search them out.
Posted by: Gary at February 22, 2005 6:35 PM
Dear all: There's also a textbook _Across the Centuries_ published by Houghton-Mifflin which is a PC travesty of the first order on Islam. My 13-year-old uses it in his school in Maryland. I went so far as to write a letter to HM about it.
By the way, I'm going to float my CV to some school districts in MD to see about teaching High School.
Posted by: Kepha at February 22, 2005 11:42 PM
Chuck~ here is some more material on islam in public schools. I realize some of these sites are religous- but this is a religous war, is it not?
I would love to see kj's take on any of these, but he seems to be avoiding the Clearly Obvious. From the likes of giaour, I expect Nothing. His credibility is shot.
Islam in public schools:
http://www.blessedcause.org/TOC/Comparative%20Religion%20Religious%20Freedom.htm
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=10613&catcode=11
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/shroder/040930
http://www.jeremiahproject.com/prophecy/teachingislam.html
Here is a muslim site about it, might be some interesting material:
http://www.islamicedfoundation.com/public.htm
at February 23, 2005 8:54 AM
I followed the last link to www.islamicedfoundation.com. From there I started following the links to a series of posters and pamphlets at:
https://secure19.softcomca.com/discoverislam_com/gallery.asp?page=1
These are beautiful posters, and full of subtle deceit. When the ignorant are exposed to these, they can't help but be swayed by them, swayed to a sense of what a venerable, gentle, reasonable religion Islam is, however unbased on fact such a a general sense of Islam might be.
I'm usually full of hot air, but I'm floored at how well done these are, and why we don't have comparable posters and pamphlets available to us. Why aren't our churches full of these competing posters and pamphlets to enlighten them? Why are we so far behind the counter-dawa power curve? And who is going to do what about it?
Posted by: longtime lurker at February 23, 2005 12:22 PM
C'mon, keithjoy. NOthing to say on this subject?
Posted by: Gary at February 24, 2005 6:38 AM
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)