THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 98, April 7, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TEXTBOOK LIES ABOUT ISLAM
By Raymond Ibrahim
THE U.S.A. PHILOSOPHICALLY UNPREPARED TO DEFEND ITSELF AGAINST THE FORCES OF RADICAL ISLAM: SERIOUS
FLAWS IN AMERICAN TEXTBOOKS & INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS DEALING WITH ISLAM & ISLAMISM -- KNOWLEDGE OF
AMERICA'S ISLAMIST & JIHADIST ENEMY SHACKLED BY THE BONDS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS & WISHFUL THINKING --
THE FIRST STEP TO FORMULATING AN EFFECTIVE LONGTERM STRATEGY TO COUNTER & DEFEAT OUR ENEMY IN THE
FOURTH WORLD WAR: OBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE REGARDING ISLAMIST IDEOLOGY, STRATEGY, & WAR-FIGHTING
DOCTRINE
FULL STORY:
In recent U.S. House hearings dedicated to examining Islamic extremism, I stressed that the fundamental stumbling block
to effective policymaking is educational and epistemological. What people are taught about Islam needs a serious
overhaul before we can expect to formulate strategies that make sense.
Worth heeding is former top Pentagon official William Gawthrop's 2006 lament:
". . . the senior service colleges of the Department of Defense
have not incorporated into their curriculum a systematic
study of Muhammad as a military or political leader. As a
consequence, we still do not have an in-depth understanding
of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by Muhammad, how it
might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic
groups, or how it might be countered."
Three years later, the situation appears worse. After the War College published something of an apologia for the terrorist
organization Hamas, defense analyst Mark Perry concluded:
"It's worse than you think. They have curtailed the curriculum
so that their students are not exposed to radical Islam. Akin to
denying students access to Marx during the Cold War."
Why, at a time of war, are students at top U.S. military schools denied an objective treatment of Islam's war doctrines? A
report by the American Textbook Council sheds light by showing how these academic failures have much deeper roots.
After reviewing a number of popular textbooks used by American junior and senior high schools, the report found that,
due to political correctness and/or fear of Muslim activists, "key subjects like jihad, Islamic law, [and] the status of
women are whitewashed." Regarding the strikes of 9/11, one textbook never mentions Islamic ideologies, referring to the
19 al-Qa'ida hijackers as "teams of terrorists" — this, despite the fact that al-Qa'ida has repeatedly articulated its hostile
worldview through an Islamist paradigm, with a stress on hating "infidels" and waging holy war (see The Al Qa'ida
Reader).
Speaking of jihad, one seventh-grade textbook explains:
"Jihad represents the human struggle to overcome difficulties
and do things that are pleasing to God. Muslims strive to
respond positively to personal difficulties as well as worldly
challenges. For instance, they might work to be better people,
reform society, or correct injustice."
By not informing students that all these aspects mean something different for Muslims — killing an apostate is considered
"correcting injustice" and spreading Islamic law is "reforming society" — the textbook misleads by projecting Western
interpretations onto Islam.
Compare this textbook's definition of jihad with that of an early (non-PC) edition of the venerable Encyclopaedia of
Islam. Its opening sentence simply states:
"The spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims
in general. . . . Jihad must continue to be done until the whole
world is under the rule of Islam. . . . Islam must completely be
made over before the doctrine of jihad [warfare to spread Islam]
can be eliminated."
Muslim legal manuals written in Arabic are even more explicit.
The report of the American Textbook Council finds other disturbing aspects regarding Islam's whitewashing in textbooks:
the well-documented Muslim military conquests demarcating most of what is now known as the "Islamic world" are
glossed over or distorted; Islam ambiguously "spread" or was "brought." Well-defined aspects of Islamic law — the
subordinate status of women and non-Muslims, execution of the apostate and homosexual, and other issues that appear
almost any given day in headlines — are either ignored or obfuscated. History is distorted to portray Muslims as tolerant
and progressive, Christians as intolerant and backward.
In my testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, I wrote:
"It should be acknowledged that educational failures
exacerbate epistemological ones, and vice versa,
leading to a perpetual cycle where necessary
knowledge is not merely ignored, but not even
acknowledged as real in the first place. When
American universities [or high schools] fail to teach
Islamic doctrine and history accurately, a flawed
epistemology permeates society at large. And, since
new students and new professors come from this
already conditioned-towards-Islam society, not only
do they not question the lack of accurate knowledge
and education; they perpetuate it."
The American Textbook Council report demonstrates the validity of this vicious cycle. In fact, every last one of those
flagrant textbook errors used to indoctrinate America's youth is an indisputable "fact" for many of America's Islam
"experts," particularly those advising the government. The effects are dramatic. For instance, far from objectively
examining Islam, the government is now pushing to ban Arabic words connotative of Islamic ideology from formal
analysis — such as "mujahid," "umma," "Sharia," "caliphate" — asking personnel to rely primarily on generic terms,
such as "terrorists."
The greater irony is that, not only do children's textbooks in Muslim countries openly teach hatred and hostility for
non-Muslims, or "infidels" — those same people fervently trying to whitewash Islam in the U.S.A. — but so do
Muslim schools operating on American soil.
At any rate, from American junior high texts obfuscating the motivation of 9/11 to censored intelligence analysts who
cannot prefix more meaningful adjectives to the word "terrorist," until Islamic ideologies are addressed forthrightly,
the U.S.A. — leadership and lay alike — will remain philosophically unprepared against the threat of radical Islam.
Objective knowledge — properly taught and disseminated — is the first step to formulating any longterm strategy.
When knowledge is unshackled from the bonds of political correctness and wishful thinking, strategies will naturally
present themselves as common sense.
Bottom line: If children are sheltered from ugly truths today, how can they ever be expected to confront them as
adults tomorrow?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Education, Training, & America's Schools:
Institutions of Elementary, Secondary, & Higher Education
Military Defense & National Security:
Military Education & Training, Military History & Doctrine,
& Military Readiness & Capability
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim is the Associate Director of the Middle East Forum and the author of The Al-Qa'ida Reader,
translations of religious texts and propaganda.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in Pajamas Media, April 5, 2009, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2113/textbook-lies-about- islam)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
April 7, 2009
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity