“’Islamic State ideology is there, in our textbooks,’ said Zogan Obiedat, a former Education Ministry official who published a recent analysis of the texts. If Jordan were to be overrun by the militants, a large majority ‘will join IS because they learned in school that this is Islam,’ he said.”
How did the textbooks in Jordan get filled with this completely un-Islamic understanding of Islam? Will one of the Western non-Muslim authorities who assure us that the Islamic State is un-Islamic kindly explain? How long are they going to continue to lie to us and ignore reality? The answer to that is that they will do so as long as they aren’t held accountable. And yet no one is asking about the ridiculous positions they are taking on these matters, and both parties hold to the same soothing fictions.
“Jordan tries to stem IS-style extremism in schools, mosques,” Associated Press, August 8, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — In pro-Western Jordan, a leader in the fight against Islamic State militants, school books warn students they risk “God’s torture” if they don’t embrace Islam. They portray “holy war” as a religious obligation if Islamic lands are attacked and suggest it is justified to kill captured enemies.
Christians, the country’s largest religious minority, are largely absent from the texts.
The government says it’s tackling the contradiction between official anti-extremist policy and what is taught in schools and mosques by rewriting school books and retraining thousands of teachers and preachers.
Critics say the reforms are superficial, fail to challenge hard-line traditions, and that the first revised textbooks for elementary school children still present Islam as the only true religion.
“Islamic State ideology is there, in our textbooks,” said Zogan Obiedat, a former Education Ministry official who published a recent analysis of the texts. If Jordan were to be overrun by the militants, a large majority “will join IS because they learned in school that this is Islam,” he said.
Government officials insist they are serious about reform.
The rewritten books will teach “how to be a moderate Muslim, how to respect others, how to live in an environment that has many nationalities and different ethnic groups,” said Education Minister Mohammed Thnaibat.
Thnaibat refused to discuss hard-line passages in the unrevised books, but said there are limits to reform. Jordan is an Islamic country, he said, and “you cannot go against the culture of the society.”…
There are limits to reform, eh? Logged and noted.