SCANDAL IN WELLESLEY: PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS ASKED TO PRAY, PROSTRATE IN TRADITIONAL MUSLIM PRAYERS
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A scandal in Wellesley
By Charles Jacobs
Many of my liberal Jewish friends react negatively to religious Christians and especially to any attempt by Christians to insert religion – prayer in particular – into the public square. Jews generally have had a phobia about Christians proselytizing in public schools; it’s a reasonable fear given the history of European Christian attempts to convert the Jews to accept Christ as their savior.
How would Jews react to the news that on a visit by public school students to a church, the priest invited them to join him in prayer? Imagine the outrage from the ACLU, the ADL and First Amendment activists. Imagine the reaction from our civic, political and religious leaders. What
would the Globe headline be?
Well, in a way, we are about to find out – except the real incident did not take place in a church, but in the Saudi funded mega-mosque in Roxbury, Boston.
In late May, Wellesley Middle School students visited the controversial mosque run by the Muslim American Society. As time came for the Muslim mid-day prayer, the students were separated by gender, and the boys were asked to join the Muslim adults in prayer. Several of the public school boys took part. They stood with the Muslim men at the mosque and then, along with them, bowed and prostrated themselves with their heads touching the floor in the traditional Muslim prayer ritual.
None of the public school teachers who were escorting the boys intervened. The school asked parents for written permission for children to visit the mosque – to study its architecture and to give the students “an authentic experience” by observing Islamic religion first hand.
According to a parent escort, a mosque spokesperson gave a presentation that distorted history and sought to make Islam’s past appealing to modern sensibilities. The presentation was far from “educational.” To this parent, it seemed to come close to proselytizing.
Quote: “At the time of Prophet Muhammad women were allowed to express their opinions and vote. In this country women didn’t get that right until less than a hundred years ago.”
In reality, 7th century Arabia at the time of Muhammad was a theocracy, and Muhammad was a supreme ruler who claimed divine sanction from Allah. No one, not even men, were allowed to vote, and in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia today, both men and women have few political rights. Indeed, women still aren’t even allowed to drive. But it’s not surprising that the Boston mosque would seek to minimize the oppression of Saudi women – more than half of the mosque’s final $15 million price tag was paid by donors living in Saudi Arabia.
Next, the students were told that “holy war” is a false definition of jihad and that it actually only refers to an internal “personal struggle” to improve character. But scholars identify more than 100 violent verses in the Koran that seem to define jihad as an armed struggle in the name of Allah against “unbelievers.” For the past 25 years, we have seen radical Muslims call for jihad against Russia, Israel, India, Southern Sudan and America.
How can this happen? How many public school children are being invited to pray in mosques and taught that women under Mohammed were freer than under Theodore Roosevelt? We know that across the country, there are reports of radical Islamic groups targeting schools to engage in dawa, which literally means “proselytizing for Islam,” by taking advantage of poorly considered social studies curricula and ideologically driven “educational” non-profits.
One such Dawa organization, Dawa Net, even offers a helpful guide for proselytizing in public schools, noting that students are “receptive to new ideas” and that “schools are therefore fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students.”
Indeed, the Boston mosque’s top donor and trustee, Walid Fitaihi, has boasted about the increase of proselytizing opportunities in Boston. There definitely seem to be many such opportunities. So will my liberal friends be outraged by this? Or will they continue to make apologies, denying
the obvious so as not to undermine their politically correct narrative?
It will be most interesting to see what the ACLU will do: Its New England education director, Nancy Murray, is a strong supporter of the Muslim American Society. Will principle and integrity trump ideology?
In any case, this incident is a wakeup call for schools and elected officials. Our schools must provide honest and unbiased teachings about Islam and take a more vigilant approach in screening for extremist groups like the MAS, which might use educational trips to proselytize to
our public school students.
We call on Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and responsible school officials to launch an investigation into the relationship between the Roxbury mosque and Massachusetts public schools, as well as to take immediate corrective action.
Moreover, Wellesley Middle School principal Joshua Frank, Wellesley School Superintendent Bella Wong, and the town’s School Committee and Board of Selectmen need to investigate this incident, hold those responsible accountable and ensure that it will never happen again.
Charles Jacobs is president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance.
School trip to mosque includes prayer
Video shows boys from Wellesley bowing
By Cara Hogan Special to the Advocate
Wellesley students at prayer services at Roxbury mosque. Sixth graders from Wellesley Middle School took a trip to the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury in May to learn about Islam as part of their Social Studies curriculum. The students heard a presentation on the history and culture of Islam and then the girls were separated from the boys to observe the daily prayer at the mosque.
Five boys from the class appear to have taken part in the prayer, bowing and touching their foreheads to the floor, according to a video shot by a parent chaperone. The boys were flanked by mosque members. One of them was Jewish, according to the chaperone. The chaperone, a Wellesley mother whose identity has not been revealed, gave the video to Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a Boston nonprofit that acts as a watchdog for radical Islam in America.
“None of the teachers or school officials at the mosque intervened to stop them from participating in a Muslim ritual prayer,” said Charles Jacobs, the group’s co-founder and executive director. “One can only imagine if students were taken to a church and the priest had them kneeling and crossing themselves or taking the wafer; it would cross a line.”
Wellesley boys appear to be praying in this screen shot from a video of a school field trip to the Islamic Society of Boston’s Cultural Center. Jacobs said after receiving the video in May, his group researched the incident. It edited the raw footage and made a video with a voiceover by a professional actor speaking the part of the anonymous source.
Jacobs, a columnist for the Advocate, writes about the incident in today’s paper (page 9). Wellesley School Superintendent Bella Wong said she was aware of the field trip but not of students praying.
“No students took part in the prayers,” said Wong. “The prayers are in Arabic, and the students only observed from the side. They might have just been [bowing] on their own, but they weren’t really participating in the prayer.”
When asked if the students might have been imitating the motions of the prayer, Wong said she didn’t know.
“It could have been just a gentle motion,” Wong said. “I think probably if it was brought to someone’s attention, they would have stopped them. But someone may have talked to them; I don’t know.”
Bilal Kaleem, president of the Muslim American Society of Boston, which operates the cultural center, said it often hosts tours from church groups, synagogues and schools. Groups come specifically to witness a daily prayer, he said.
“During the tour, we make it clear that all our activities are open to the public, including prayer,” said Kaleem. “When someone asks us if they can take part, we say yes.”
He said they wouldn’t stop anyone who wanted to pray, but he was surprised to hear that non- Muslim students took part.
“Obviously the school has to decide when they’re visiting a religious place that they make the expectations clear to the students about what they should and shouldn’t do,” said Kaleem. Wellesley Middle School Principal Joshua Frank did not respond to requests for comment, neither did the Social Studies Department head Adam Blumer, who organized the trip.
The video also shows a mosque representative making a presentation. She told the children: “At the time of the Prophet Muhammad, women were allowed to express their opinions and vote. In this country, women didn’t get that right until less than 100 years ago.”
Jacobs said this statement was false as no one had the right to vote – male or female – during the time of Muhammad. He said the presentation was intended to distract attention from the current mistreatment of women in Islamic societies.
“There are feminists around the world who are up in arms over the stoning in Iran and the honor killings which even have taken place in America,” said Jacobs. “Do we need to be so politically correct that we are going to abandon the plight of these women? That’s not the American way.” The Advocate attempted without success to contact the woman who made the presentation. A representative for the mosque said the guide was a volunteer. However, the mosque said the volunteer was notified that the paper was trying to reach her.
Jacobs said that the Wellesley school should hold an assembly to correct inaccuracies in the presentation on the history of Islam.
To see the full video, visit
www.peaceandtolerance.org
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