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Returning madrassa student: “Not one Jew died [on 9/11]. That is what they say.”

Jul 12, 2008 12:13 am By Marisol Seibold

Just a sample of what Noor and Mahboob Khan heard in Pakistan. How much they took to heart and brought home with them is an urgent question. The fact that they are able again to skateboard and watch The Simpsons does not preclude their having embraced the madrassa’s teachings on jihad, and on women and unbelievers.

More on this story. “Teens return from immersion in radical Islam,” by Moni Basu for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 11:

Fazal Khan wanted his American-born sons to recite the Quran from memory. So he sent them to a religious school in his native Pakistan in 2004.

Noor, now 17, and Mahboob, 16, didn’t like it at Jamia Binoria, a prominent madrassah in Karachi, describing it as a world of black and white compared to the color of Atlanta.

“I want to go home badly,” Noor said in a 2005 interview that appears in a new documentary film about the school. “I think about what I could be doing and what I am doing.”

After four years and publicity that focused on the boys’ desire to go home and the madrassah’s alleged connections to radical Islamic groups, the two boys returned to Atlanta late Thursday.

Their release from the madrassah was won with the help of documentary filmmaker Imran Raza, a Pakistani-American who discovered the boys in 2005, saw them again in 2007 and sent a camera crew earlier this year.

“Karachi Kids,” co-produced by Atlanta public affairs professional Ericka Pertierra, shows the boys change from naive schoolchildren to solemn teenagers who assert that no Muslims were involved in 9/11.

The Khan family recently tried to get the boys out of Pakistan but were unable to obtain exit visas. “I sent a ticket. But I couldn’t get the paperwork,” Fazal Khan said Wednesday.

In broken English mixed with Urdu, he said he would be happy to have his boys back. “I am responsible for my children.” […]

Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) announced that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf assured the release of the Khan brothers.

McCaul cited a Pakistani law that prohibits foreigners from enrolling in madrassahs. However, the principal of the school, Mufti Mohammed Naeem, is shown on film saying that 29 nations, including the United States, Britain and France, are represented at his school. He also said his madrassah does not promote hatred or militant activity.

In Atlanta, the Khan brothers loved to watch “The Simpsons” and skateboard. They said in the film that their father grew angry with their habits and once threw the television out of the house. They said their father decided to send them to Pakistan after he discovered dust on their Quran, a sign they had failed to pick it up in a while.

The brothers arrived in Pakistan in 2004, unable to speak Urdu and communicate with others. They faced the daunting task of memorizing a 600-page Quran. Noor estimated it would take him eight years.

“My dad told me, ‘I am not bringing you back until you memorize the Quran,'” he said on camera.

In the last on-camera interview in March, Noor said he is glad his father sent him to the madrassah. “I’m a better person,” he said.

He goes on to say that he believes no Muslims were behind the attacks of 9/11. “Not one Jew died that day. That is what they say,” he said.

Christine Fair, a senior political scientist with the nonprofit research organization RAND Corp., said children in Pakistan’s Islamic schools are not subjected to math, English, social studies or other secular topics emphasized in public schools in Georgia.

“When you are out of school for that long, and you are not doing course material your peers are, it’s difficult,” said Fair, who met the Khan brothers in Karachi. “I don’t think their father had ill intentions but what are the consequences?”

Indeed.

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