WHAT JONNY NEEDS TO LEARN ABOUT ISLAM….SEE NOTE PLEASE
Alas but Stephen aka Suleyman Al-kosovar Schwartz also has much to learn about the shrinking difference between the various viruses of Islam…..rsk
What Johnny Needs to Learn about IslamTexas, Florida and California revise their textbook standards.
http://www.israel-commentary.org/
Redacted from an in-depth article
By STEPHEN SCHWARTZ
The Weekly Standard, December 7, 2009
Eight years after the atrocities of 9/11, Americans need to know what public school textbooks are teaching about Islam, radical Islam, and terrorism. The big three textbook states— those that set standards for content because publishers aim to capture their large sales, California, Texas, and Florida—are currently preparing for new textbooks, to be introduced in 2010-13. These books are likely to shape the content of public instruction for several years to come. At this point in a complex process of drafting and adopting “standards,†then “frameworks,†and finally texts, with time for public comment and revision at each stage, the outlook in both Texas and Florida seems quite encouraging while California’s effort appears regrettably stuck in a pre-9/1 1 mindset.
In the past, American textbooks were prone to two great pitfalls: Either they dealt with Islam superficially or they presented it in the manner preferred and promoted by well-funded defenders of Islamic extremism. A hallmark of that latter view is an emphasis on the unity of Islam, which is portrayed as simple, monolithic and benign. The wide range of belief and practice between Sunni, Shia, and Sufi Islam, to name only the best-known variations, is downplayed, and the problems of Islam, especially violent jihad, are simply left out. Some of the current efforts at revising textbooks avoid these mistakes.
The Texas Education Agency issued its proposed new standards for world history at the end of July. The revised standards mostly reflect a post-9/l 1 outlook. Previously Islam went virtually unmentioned. The new proposed standards, if adopted, will have pupils in Texas learn to
Identify major causes and describe the major effects of the following important turning points in world history from 600-1450: The spread of Christianity, the decline of Rome and the formation of Medieval Europe; the development of Islamic Caliphates and their impact on Asia, Africa and Europe. The new specifications not only broaden the study of Western culture, but also turn attention to the Islamic caliphates and the effects on them of the Mongol invasions. Study of the Ottomans is even more useful for dispelling the erroneous idea that Islam is simply “the Arab religion.â€
Describing Islam as “unifying†typically reflects the ideal of a single, indivisible Islamic global community or ummah, a concept consistently promoted by Muslim radicals. History, even as written by classical Muslim historians, shows that Islam cannot be described simply as “unifying,†unless unification refers purely to territorial conquest. Islamic societies have remained deeply divided, within and without, over theological differences, language, customs, political rivalries, relations with non-Muslims, and other issues. It is crucial that American students learn that, like the other “universal†religions, Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism, Islam has no single, homogenous, unitary; or exclusively legitimate expression. The term “unifying†would be better deleted from the standards.
… In addition, the new standards demand that students understand the impact of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism and the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis in the second half of the twentieth century. Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism are properly considered in the context of modern totalitarianism.
… Some Westerners have come to believe the Israeli-Palestinian wars are motivated by religious hostility and that actions by the West and Israel have brought about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. It is appropriate for American students to be exposed to the alternative view: That Islamic fundamentalism has been introduced into the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation by powerful radical interests, especially those financed by Saudi Arabia and Iran, aggravating the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
… These improvements in the Texas textbook standards may at first seem trivial, but their value is illuminated by comparison with the standards recently issued in Florida and California. Florida’s standards prescribe study of “the relationship between government and religion in Islam.†In addition, they require students to “determine the causes, effects, and extent of Islamic military expansion through Central Asia, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula†… Under these standards, students would be introduced to aspects of Islamic history that have generated critical literature. The concept of dhimmitude, for instance, as a description of the inferior social status of non-Muslims in an Islamic social system, is subject to considerable scholarly debate.
… California’s Department of Education, by contrast, seems to have made no progress. One senses an effort in the wake of the terrorist attacks to present Islam as utterly harmless. The proposed California framework includes clearly objectionable elements. Students would be instructed, for example, that “Islamic law … rejected the older Arabian view of women as ‘family property,’ declaring that all women and men are entitled to respect and moral self-governance.†This statement ignores the oppressed condition of women in many Muslim societies, exemplified by Saudi Arabia.
…At a later point, the new California framework states, “In Baghdad and other Muslim-ruled cities, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars collaborated to study ancient Greek, Persian, and Indian writings, forging and widely disseminating a more advanced synthesis of philosophical, scientific, mathematical, geographic, artistic, medical, and literary knowledge.†This rosy panorama of high culture in Baghdad neglects significant conflicts between Muslim factions, which led at times to violence, and extends a wide but unreliable umbrella of intellectual achievement over all Muslim cities. Other points in the California textbook framework clearly promote a bunkered view of Islam. These conceptions are anything but neutral.
… Islam is treated as an entirely benign phenomenon in California guidelines, and may well remain so in textbooks reflecting the new framework. This was, to a degree, predictable. California has been the state most susceptible to Islamist interference in education. … Education expert Diane Ravitch in her 2003 volume The Language Police accused various Islamic sympathizing organizations of improperly influencing the textbook publishers Glencoe, Houghton Mifflin, and Prentice Hall
… Americans, especially young Americans, need accurate information about Islam, as well as other aspects of global affairs. The more critical attitudes introduced in Texas and Florida will doubtless elicit dissatisfaction from Islamists. But, Texas and Florida are wise to teach students about crucial past and present interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims, including conflicts between them and even among Muslims.
California treats Islam as just one more hue in the multicultural rainbow. The country’s educators would do better to follow the new, sensible, and critical path blazed by the Lone Star State, which is intelligently tackling the issues of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, than to continue the habits still prevalent in an intellectually as well as fiscally weakened California.
Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to the Weekly Standard and is the author of The Two Faces of Islam and The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony.
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