Ministry of Education introduces amendments in religious programs taught in Saudi schools.
By Habib Trabelsi
July 26, 2010, Middle east online
Christians, communists, Zionists and seculars are all enemies that should be fought, not for the great glory of Islam (Wahhabi version), read Saudi textbooks that Riyadh now says is on track to clean up all hints of hatred of others and intolerance.
These books are also used in schools funded by Saudi Arabia in the West.
"The kingdom has introduced many amendments in the religious programs that are taught in Saudi schools abroad. All these programs will be completely overhauled over the next three years," said Saleh Al-Shayeh, executive director of programs at the Ministry of Education after the 7th annual meeting of the directors of overseas Saudi schools and academies, which took place July 7-8 in Jeddah.
"Some countries expressed reservations about these programs for political or social reasons," the official added, without specifying their nature.
Some samples of "hatred"
However, the textbooks used in Saudi schools in countries like the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Turkey, incite to hatred of Christians, Jews and followers of other religions, especially Shiites.
"Al-Tawheed (the Oneness" of Allah) manual, which is conceived for the third year of secondary education, states that "membership in the doctrines of atheism, as communism, secularism, capitalism or others, is an apostasy. The atheist doctrines are corrupted because they are based on lies. "
“Hadith and Islamic Culture” manual for the second year of secondary school (theological sciences and Arabic section - boys) speaks of the “faced danger” and evokes the origins of the conflict between Muslims and Christians and new processes used by them for evangelizing the first.
The chapter on "the Zionist movement" depicts the foundations of Zionist thought and objectives and “destructive methods” used to achieve them.
The "Jurisprudence" manual, for the first year of secondary education, speaks of sodomy "punishable by death", and "hadd" (the punishment for theft which consists of amputating the thief’s hand from the wrist).
"Ali Al-Ahmed" leads the campaign from Washington to Paris
The announcement of the revised curriculum coincided with a new campaign by the Saudi Shiite dissident Ali Al-Ahmed - who leads the Institute for Gulf Affairs, a think tank that calls itself independent - against the Saudi regime.
Taking advantage of the “war against terror” led by Washington since the attacks of September 11, 2001, which put Saudi Arabia under the spotlight (15 of 19 suicide bombers were Saudis), Al-Ahmed stepped up campaigns against the religious establishment, on which depends in part the legitimacy of the Saudi regime, denouncing its "discriminations" against the Shiites and women and its grip on the kingdom’s school curriculum.
Ahmed is regularly invited by international media, speaks at universities and testifies before the human rights organizations or the US Congress.
In early July, he co-organized with other London-based Shiite dissidents a conference on Saudi textbooks, before meeting the media in Paris, to "prove" that “these books incite hatred and call for murder and encourage violence and terrorism.”
According to Ahmed, such education, given to millions of students, is against moral and humanitarian principles. It is also in contradiction with host countries’ civil and criminal laws.
The beginnings of a purge
Saudi Arabia, pressed by Washington since September 2001 to clean its programs, claimed that, in the last few years, it has undertaken measures to reform education and that the purge would continue even if the regime cannot afford to alienate conservatives.
A previous promise made in 2006 in Riyadh to the State Department to purge the school curricula "from all intolerant passages" in the next two years, did not happen, according to the American press.
But this time it seems that purging of hatred and its supporters has begun.
First, some 2,000 teachers have been dismissed or asked to provide administrative functions over the last two years for having changed their lessons, which promoted Al Qaeda’s ideology, according to the Interior Ministry.
Secondly, school principals are now required to report (to authorities) "any deviant thoughts" in their schools, reported the daily Al-Watan.
Citing "informed sources in the ministry," the newspaper stated that "each director received a circular instructing them to record in detailed reports all comments on any cases of extremism or non-allegiance to homeland from a teacher or a student. These reports must be “immediately” submitted to the ministry.
Thirdly, analysts say the reform of the education system fits well with the overture initiated by King Abdullah, particularly with the appointment of the first woman (Noura Al-Fayez, Vice-Minister of Education for girl affairs) in the government in February 2009 and the inauguration a few months later of the first coeducational university (the "King Abdullah University of Science and Technology" - "KAUST) in the kingdom, a country where religion imposes a strict gender separation.
To the regret of the "bearded"
Resistance from hardline Saudi clerics, who consider the school as their turf, will surely emerge, as was the case after the inauguration of "KAUST."
Thirty extremists gathered last June at the Ministry of Education in Riyadh to protest against “the activities of certain ministry officials under the pretext that theyare contrary to Islamic Sharia,” the press reported.
These extremists were against Fayez’s visit made a few days earlier to a primary boys school in Al-Zoulfi region. The protesters felt that the visit was "a prelude to the Ministry's desire to achieve coeducation.
Sheikh Sulaiman al-Douish, a tenor of Salafism, scolded Fayez for having visited a "male school and sat between men."
"This is a stupid and clumsy act," railed Sheikh Douish, who regards gender mixing absolute evil and sedition, in a long article published on the internet.
A few days ago, Sheikh Youssef al-Ahmed, a professor of theology, threatened to seek file a lawsuit against the Department of Education for its decision to allow teachers to teach boys (less than nine years old) in the first three classes of primary private education.
