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A welcome display of sanity. But to lay the foundation for a genuinely tolerant society, teachers and texts will need to deal with the legacy of dhimmitude and Islamic intolerance forthrightly, rather than simply insisting that Islam respects other religions. For example, they will have to deal with Qur'anic references to Jews and Christians as apes and pigs," and the Qur'an's assertion that nonbelievers are the "vilest of creatures." Without that, other preachers can simply come along at a later date and point out to students what their teachers did not address.
From McClatchy Newspapers:
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Judged solely by one of the big, bold words on its cover, the book that Fadel Mahmoud clutched in his hands would be considered blasphemous in many parts of the Muslim world.
Most people in Kurdish northern Iraq believe that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, is the final word on religious life. Mahmoud and other teachers, however, are preaching a message of religious tolerance in hopes of preserving the region's relative stability.
The book in his hands is an introduction to Judaism written by an Arab.
Last month, the Kurdish Regional Government's Ministry of Religious Affairs began requiring its 19 campuses, from grade school to college, to broaden their curriculums by including courses on comparative religion that better expose students to other religious thought, including Christianity and in some cases Judaism.
"We're trying to reach the point where all the religions can find common ground. We are not interested in talking about the points of disagreement," said Mahmoud, an instructor at the College of Kurdistan in Sulaimaniyah .
A decade ago, the government of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region shut down the religious madrasas, or schools, run by mosques amid unsettling signs that imams, some from outside the region, were fomenting a brand of Islam that threatened to undo the fragile peace that reigned here after a 1991 U.S.-backed uprising against Saddam Hussein.
Madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan that preach a radical form of Islam have been a huge concern to the United States , which has accused some of stoking anti-Americanism among the poor, who attend for a free education.
"We the Kurdish people, we believe in a peaceful kind of religion. We want to live in peace. We are not going to build a foundation for terrorists," said Sheik Mohamed, the region's minister of religious affairs.
Mohamed said the ministry's introduction of a comparative-religion class was intended to raise broader awareness of the other religions practiced by Kurdistan's ethnic minorities, which account for about 3 percent of the region's roughly 5 million people.
"Islam obligates Muslims to respect other religions," said Najim al Dine Kader Raheem , 47, who's studying at the College of Kurdistan so that he can lead his own mosque one day. "All of the prophets come from the same place— ours is Arab— and we believe in the same God."
Teaching about Jews in a predominantly Muslim country has its risks, conceded Araz Najmaddin Abdulla, the general director of curriculum for the regional Ministry of Education, which runs the public school system.
Posted by Marisol at November 24, 2007 8:26 AM
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Christ, there's hope for the world.
What about the West backing this sort of thinking to the hilt. Investing in the infrastructure, and providing a military corset for the autonomous region. I know we could give them some of the money were giving to our enemies, what a thought.
Perhaps if teaching moderation, and that the Koran has to be seen through the filter of the passed centuries, goes hand in hand with better health care and security, the people will go for it and throw out the Jihad minded loons.
Perhaps explaining that religious schools have a vested interest in not educating anybody would be a start, explaining that radical Islam will,
Sell your sons into poverty and disease
you daughters into slavery
and your country into desolation.
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at November 24, 2007 8:49 AM
"Islam obligates Muslims to respect other religions"
Thats a damn lie
Posted by: Elric66 at November 24, 2007 9:05 AM
from the article above:
"Islam obligates Muslims to respect other religions," said Najim al Dine Kader Raheem , 47, who's studying at the College of Kurdistan so that he can lead his own mosque one day. "All of the prophets come from the same place— ours is Arab— and we believe in the same God."
________
Did ya catch that? Almost too sly, and I almost missed it.
He says 'Islam obligates Muslims to respect other religions' (which is simply untrue at face value, as anyone who has read the koran knows), but takes care not to clarify that statement by mentioning the Dhimmi state of existance... Then he goes on to say that 'all prophets come from the same place,' and notice how sure he is to point out that 'ours is Arab.' In other words, ALL prophets, including Jesus, is 'Arab' - i.e. Muslim (which, again, anyone who has educated themselves about Islamic teachings knows that Muslims believe Jesus to be Muslim). He says we also all believe in the same God, which I'm sure everyone here understands him to mean Allah, not the Judeo-Christian God from the bible.
also, I just have to point this out cause it's killing me...
"Madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan that preach a radical form of Islam have been a huge concern to the United States , which has accused some of stoking anti-Americanism among the poor, who attend for a free education."
... And it KILLS ME that they just make that lil statement with all its anti-US-oh-what-a-big-bully-you-are-telling-those-poor-families-those-free-education-madrasas-are-bad so matter-of-factly and then trail off to the next point.
When they could have taken just one moment to CLARIFY that these madrases that the big-bad-US-bully hates so much teach only recitation of the Koran for 12 hours a day; no other subjects are taught; and a good percentage of the boys in those 'free schools' are molested by the radical imams that run the place; then the kids 'graduate' at age 18 or whatever and all they have learned, in all that time, is how to recite the koran in arabic. He doesn't know how to read or write, except perhaps his name and the name of his tribe. He lives at home with his parents, who are desperately checking out all the 11 yr old girls in the tribe to be a wife for him. He has nothing to do all day except go to a friend's house to look at jihadi propaganda all morning followed by an afternoon of rioting and burning stuff. And he definitely knows that the enemy are the apes and pigs of the Koran - the Christians and the Jews.
Posted by: JenBee at November 24, 2007 9:28 AM
The Iraqi Kurds' struggles against both the Sunnis and Shi'a of Iraq has led them to adopt a fairly secular outlook--for now. I fear that increased stability will only lead them to "regress" back to Islam.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 24, 2007 10:12 AM
I thought that Moslem schools taught about Jews and Judaism already. Just not in a way we would recognize.
Posted by: Seymour Paine at November 24, 2007 10:31 AM
Go Kurds, go!
Posted by: tanstaafl at November 24, 2007 11:25 AM
Hold on, it's time for a REALITY CHECK here!!!
So Kurdistan is going to allow something positive to be taught about Jews. Why???
Because there are NO JEWS LEFT IN KURDISTAN. They were all forced out years ago. However, the new Kurdish authorties do recieve massive amounts of aid from Israel and they don't want to endanger this flow of money, supplies, and arms. Since they don't have to worry about any remaining Jews of their own, they have nothing to lose.
Notice, also, that the article says nothing about promoting goodwill toward the over one million Assyrian Christians living under Kurdish rule, against whom the Muslim ethnic cleansing continues unhindered. Being non-Kurdish, these Christians aren't even counted. Thus they claim non-Muslims as accounting only "for about 3 percent of the region's roughly 5 million people" meaning only those few ethnic Kurds who are Yezidis or Ismailis.
The only real proof that the Kurds had changed would be if they gave full equal rights to Christians and allowed the Kurdish Jews now in Israel to freely return and reclaim their property. Don't hold your breath for that to happen.
Posted by: Provoslavni at November 24, 2007 12:50 PM
Expect to hear this school is bombed, its teachers
decapitated in near future.In the Islamic way of course with masked gunmen wielding 'beheading knives'& screeching obligatory "Allahu Akbar!"
All the pupils and parents traumatised by witnessing this will be good little Muslims forever more...
at November 24, 2007 2:25 PM
And those who teach religions other than Islam will be beheaded publically in short order.
Posted by: awake at November 24, 2007 11:26 PM
This interest towards Judaism may have to do with the scientific discovery that Jews' DNA is much similar to the Kurds' than to Arabs'.
Posted by: highbg at November 25, 2007 12:32 AM
I hope that if this teaching program succeeds, someday, converts from Islam to other faiths will not be persecuted but respected and treated with dignity. If that happens, then I can believe that there may be some hope for the future of the Islamic world.
Posted by: Christian at November 25, 2007 3:19 AM
"And those who teach religions other than Islam will be beheaded publically in short order."
Not likely in Iraqi Kurdistan. Their outlook has traditionally been quite secular--as opposed to the Kurds of Turkey, who (in fighting the secularism of Ataturk) have used Islam as a weapon.
...that said, this could change if they're not careful. Islam is like a cancer--give it any leeway at all, and it takes over. They'll have to be vigilant. I believe they will succeed, but I won't be too surprised if this turns out to be an erroneous prediction--one of many I've made, alas. Johnnie Walker isn't the best of psychics, I'm afraid.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 25, 2007 6:16 PM
I suppose there are bad apples in every basket but I know Kurds are not immune to pernicious islam and the practice thereof. Mullah Krukar comes to mind, and others with strong ties to al Qaeda. At least the Kurds are cognizant of being Kurdish and wish to be distinguished from the Arabs, for which I do not blame them a bit. But they're still suffused with islam and its Arabic components, which makes them a volatile bunch. I always thought they were more secular than the average muslim but they seem to be succumbing to radicalism en masse.
I do not believe this worthwhile endeavor will succeed because muslims are scared to death of religious competition. The other religions will either be twisted and maligned beyond recognition to make islam look better, or the entire project will end when the teachers are slaughtered for proselytizing Christianity and Judaism. I wish I could simply believe and celebrate this as a postive and progressive step in the right direction. But I can't.
Posted by: Susanp at November 25, 2007 10:15 PM
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