The introduction of such material into the textbooks is being promoted by members of the Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami. Yet in the West it is an official dogma that violent jihad has nothing to do with Islam, and anyone who believes otherwise is a racist, bigoted Islamophobe. How is it that Jamaat-e-Islami has succumbed to “Islamophobia”?
“Islamisation of schoolbooks in KP sparks debate,” AFP, December 10, 2014 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
PESHAWAR: As teenage education activist Malala Yousafzai prepares to receive her Nobel Peace Prize, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — her hometown — is pushing for Islamic content in school textbooks that critics claim promotes violent jihad….
But the biggest debate surrounding education in KP is not how to improve attendance, hire more teachers or repair dilapidated infrastructure: instead, the regional government is attempting to determine how best to reclaim the curriculum in the name of Islam.
The move is being led by Jamaat-e-Islami, the junior member of the coalition led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI).
“There are errors in current text books which go against our values,” Inayatullah Khan, local governance minister, told AFP.
The project foresees, for example, reintroducing verses of the Koran that deal with jihad (holy war), and adding passages on the divine creation of the universe into science textbooks.
It also envisages rolling back changes made during the last period of reform, 2006, when authorities “removed religious chapters on social science texts” to replace them with “chapters on Nelson Mandela, Karl Marx, Marco Polo, Vasco de Gama and Neil Armstrong,” according to the minister.
They also want to pull primary school textbooks that depict girls without veils.
“We live in an Islamic society, women don’t wear skirts here,” said Khan.
The project, confirmed by provincial education minister Atif Khan, pertains to public schools as well as those private schools which do not have the means to procure their own texts — covering the vast majority of students in the province.
Emphasis on Islam in non-religion related school texts began as early as the 1960s, but increased in the 1980s under the rule of hardline military dictator Zia-ul-Haq. The PPP and the PML-N, project a more moderate vision….
Sardar Hussain Babak, a spokesman for the Awami National Party that sits in opposition in KP, blamed PTI for striking a deal with the Jamaat-i-Islami to ensure its fragile ruling coalition survived.
“There is a compromise between Tehreek-i-Insaaf and Jamaat-i-Islami. Now Jamaat-i-Islami points will be part of curriculum,” he said.
“Jamaat-i-Islami is a radical religious party which is provoking jihad, definitely now jihadi elements will be part of curriculum.”
A recent US study of 100 Pakistani school texts found that minorities — especially Hindus — were depicted as “second-class” citizens and “enemies of Islam”.…
Even the country’s Western donors, who give millions of dollars in education aid, are privately worried about the “re-Islamisation trend”.
Others see it as simply a populist move with little chance of succeeding in the short term. After the last set of reforms in 2006, authorities took seven years to print new editions, according to one Western diplomat.
Mac-101 says
I just watched that Paki girl on TV git an award for Human Rights who was shot and beat for wantin an education. I was thinkin back in da day when they had a Female President, who I later believe, was assassinated two weeks after Obola KILLED Bin Laden after sayin Bin Laden died in his cave back in 2002. How Fundamental was Pakistan then? If it wasn’t so Islamic when did it flip?
zebo says
Just like islam,anything us foreign policy touches turnes into shit.
Bhouto was prime minister in the 90ies,but since the usa went in 2002 to fight radicalism in Afghanistan islamic radicalism just grew stronger and stronger,not just in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan.
Considering Bin Laden:This guy must have been a cat with 7 lifes.
Since 2000 he suffered from Kidney failure and deadly illness marfan -even with special high tech medicine he should have lived max. 2005 .(and high ranked us government employee steve piescznick confirmed his death in 2001).
Sadly people don’t even ask how it is possible to be one of the most famous people on planet earth with a 50 mio reward-and still hide succefully for more than 10 years.
zulu says
ISIS throw man off roof to his death for being gay
An Islamic court ruled that he should be flung from the highest building
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2868419/Thrown-roof-gay-ISIS-release-chilling-new-images-brutal-execution-man-guilty-sodomy.html#ixzz3LVV4Ifor
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ECAW says
Even in Koran classes in British schools, when they come to the bits about slaying unbelievers etc and a kid asks “Does that mean now as well” I wonder what the teacher answers. The kids going off to Syria must have got their understanding from somewhere and as far as I can find out the mediaeval scholars and orthodox tradition would deny a time limit on those verses.
Does any one know of an authoritative source which claims it meant only then (apart from Mehdi Hasan and Reza Aslan that is)? I’m not being sarcastic, it’s a genuine question.
Salah says
“Does any one know of an authoritative source which claims it meant only then..”
Yes. Most if not all today’s Muslim scholars agree that this does not apply to our modern world anymore.
Problem is, they’re wrong and they know it, and True Muslims (radicals!!!) know it too; the Qur’an is supposed to be the words of Allah, it is good everywhere all the time.
This is the reason why “radicals” don’t give a $**tt about what “moderates” has to say.
In other words: there is no such thing as “an authoritative source” in Islam.
ECAW says
Thanks. I didn’t know that most modern scholars put a time limit on it. I only ever seem to come across those who are called reformers (and the obvious deceptive apologists) saying this. Between them and the literalists saying there is no time limit there must then be a multitude of scholars saying the former (and possibly believing the latter) but I never seem to hear from them. Perhaps that’s because, as I have heard some imams complain, the media is only interested in the extremes.
Salah says
“Islamisation of schoolbooks in KP sparks debate,”
In Egypt, they don’t waste time on “debates.”
147 Muslim Brotherhood schools to be seized by Egypt’s Education Ministry.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/88651.aspx
ECAW says
Thanks Christy. We all know you’ve mastered the art of cut and paste but it’s always the same balls isn’t it? Anyone who equates the inconvenience of security checkpoints in Israel, set up for reasons entirely unconnected with Christianity, with the persecution of Christians in Muslim lands precisely because they are Christians is scraping the bottom of the barrel don’t you think?