How Textbooks Become "Islamicized"

By A. E. Rowley

Since its creation in 1990, The Council on Islamic Education (CIE) has worked education officials and middle and high school textbook publishers to ensure that textbooks' coverage of world history and world religions is "complete and balanced" according to their standard. The CIE headquarters are at 9300 Gardenia Ave., B-3, PO Box 20186, Fountain Valley, California, 92708 and is directed by Munir Shaikh, Executive Director. Phone (714) 839-2929. Their website can be located at http://www.cie.org.

The Council presents itself as a mainstream Muslim organization connected with the education establishment as Islam's liaison with U.S. public schools and textbook publishers. This role it seems to have assumed for itself. It is not a recognized tax-exempt organization and appears to be funded by Islamic donors and possibly foreign support. It is in fact a political advocacy organization.

Its' founder/director, Shabbir Mansun, boasts that he is waging a "bloodless revolution" promoting cultures and faiths in America's Classrooms. One might guess, whose culture and faith? The CIE has warned scholars and public officials who do not sympathize with its requests that they will be perceived as racists, reactionaries and enemies of Islam.

The Council acts as a content gatekeeper with virtually unchecked power over publishers, working to ensure they meet the Council's standard of sensitivity. It basically acts as an agent of censorship, demanding interaction with publishers and warning it may "decline requests for reviewing published materials unless substantial revisions are planned." For more than a decade history textbook editors have done the Council's bidding with the result that history textbooks accommodate Islam on terms that Islamists demand, a view of the nations and world according to a history they want to rewrite. According to one Prentice Hall editor who objected to the CIE's policies on Islam-related content, opposition is silenced and Islam is given a free pass. Publishers fear that labels of xenophobia, racism, nativism, or ethnocentricity may be affixed to their products, thereby affecting adoptions and sales. The end result is that American children are being given a misshapen view of past history and present situations in Muslim countries.

Visit the Council's website and you will find that it generates course materials for K-12 teachers including:

Supplemental materials to correlate with documentary films shown dealing with world history or religions to ensure students draw the "correct" conclusions and grasp key issues.

Materials to insure students understand the great role played by Islam in saving and transferring learning from the Greek and Roman empires through the dark ages to the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Materials to help students to understand the tremendous contributions of Islam to art and the many cultural connections linking Medieval Europe and the Muslim world.

Lessons inviting students to create an imaginary character and write a travel journal in which they journey along the Silk Road and visit ancient Cairo with its market and universities, one of the great cities of Muslim civilization..

Discussions of the hijab, the veil, to sensitize students to accept Muslim reluctance to assimilate into contemporary American society and become comfortable with this and other aspects of Islam.

Guidelines to assist teachers in developing lesson plans which will contain "correct" Muslim definitions, terminology, spelling, and points of view, including that the Arabic word "Allah" refers to the One God common to Muslims, Jews and Christians and not a separate god of Muslims. It suggests that teachers use the word "God" when discussing Allah.....which of course conveys to students the view that Islam's Allah is God and worthy of their recognition and acceptance as such.

Other course materials deal with the Crusades as examples of Christian aggression, the conversion of Christians and Jews in lands conquered by Muslims as entirely voluntary, how Christians and Jews in conquered lands were permitted to observe their faith "without hindrance", and other misrepresentations of historical fact......all carefully designed to improve the image of Muslims and Islam. Teachers are even encouraged to teach students to spell Mecca as "Makkah" and Medina as "Madinah", the way they are spelled in Arabic rather than in English. "Jihad" is defined as meaning "struggle," "striving," and "exertion;" all for the "sake of God"; and understood by Muslims to mean one's effort to follow the teachings of Islam, to live a good and ethical life, to resist temptation or harmful inclinations, to better oneself in the face of challenge or adversity. The use of "jihad" to describe military expeditions is "by early Muslims who sought to defend Muslim lands or extend Muslim political rule in various regions" while denying that "jihad" can be used to refer to efforts to convert non-Muslims or translated as "holy war" or used in connection with "terrorism" which is defined as a "punishable crime in Islamic teaching and law."

So why aren't terrorists being punished in Muslim nations under Islamic law?

It behooves patriotic Americans to check and see what course content about Islam our teachers are using and what our students are being taught. It appears clear that the Council on Islamic Education has established itself as Islam's appointed censor and propaganda czar to make certain that only their version of Muslim history, religion, and life prevails. This needs to be stopped!

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