Islamic groups hit curriculum at Saudi school

Two Islamic groups say a private Saudi school in Alexandria is teaching first-graders an extreme version of Islam that fosters contempt for other religions, a charge denied by the Saudi government, which creates curriculum for such schools.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a District-based Islamic civil rights and advocacy group, has joined with the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism in calling for an Arabic textbook to be removed from classes at the Islamic Saudi Academy.

One page in the manual for the first-grade textbook instructs teachers to tell students that any religion other than Islam is false.

“These first-grade students are very impressionable,” said Kamal Nawash, a Palestinian and practicing Muslim who runs the six-month-old Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism.

“The extremist version of Islam encourages violence. We don’t need to be teaching that anymore in this diverse world. We need to teach people to get along.”

The Islamic Saudi Academy referred inquiries to the Saudi Embassy, which dismissed Mr. Nawash’s assertion as an attempt to restart a failed political career.

Embassy spokesman Nail Al-Jubeir compared the textbook to any other religious teaching and said it was “shameful” of Mr. Nawash “to be using this as a source of bigotry.”

“They are making a big thing out of nothing,” Mr. Al-Jubeir said. “If that’s the only thing they have to bring up, how pathetic the argument is. Judaism does not recognize Christ as the Messiah. Christians say the only way to salvation is accepting Christ in your heart.”

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said the textbook page conflicts with the teachings in the Koran, which says Jews, Christians and all “who believe in God” will “have their reward with their Lord.”

“The [page of the] textbook is inaccurate in terms of portraying Islam’s relationship with other faiths,” Mr. Hooper said. “I would suggest either removing the textbook or inserting a notation that something is being changed in the textbook.”

Mr. Nawash began a campaign this week criticizing the school. CAIR studied the textbook page and backed his stance.

According to the academy’s Web site, its educational curriculum and materials are established by the Saudi Ministry of Education.

“We strive to educate and develop every aspect of a student’s life, including spiritual, moral, intellectual, and physical,” the site states. “Simultaneously, the Academy aspires to create an atmosphere that motivates students to strive for academic excellence, take personal responsibility, and become productive citizens in their communities.”

A few years ago, Mr. Nawash said, the Saudi government revised 5 percent of its textbooks and classroom material considered offensive. Mr. Nawash thought that the Islamic Saudi Academy’s materials had been edited, but he found the disputed page recently in the 2003 edition of the school’s manual for first-grade teachers.

Mr. Al-Jubeir suggested that Mr. Nawash is taking advantage of recent attacks on Saudi Arabia by filmmaker Michael Moore in “Fahrenheit 9/11” and by others. Mr. Al-Jubeir also suggested that Mr. Nawash is criticizing the school for political gain.

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