Muslims protest a positive depiction of their Prophet

[Darius871]

This thread be funny.

[Dinner]

Saudi Arabia is a barbaric place. One look at those "text books" proves that.

[Dr Strangelove]

Didn't some Persian artists draw images of Mohamed? Were they condemned to death, and why are these works of art still in existence?

[Dinner]

I know that in the middle ages the Persians did draw pictures of Mohamed because suposedly the Persians were more lax about religion then other muslim groups.

[Datajack Franit]

Originally posted by molly bloom

BLAH BLAH BLAH please somebody stop me, I can't stop talking to prove how good I am in looking for google pictures and posting them.

[Dinner]

Aneeshm, where did you get those quotes from the Saudi textbooks? I'd like to see some sort of source so that I can better weight if it is true or just a rumor.

[Dinner]

Never mind I have found out that it is an article published by the Washington Post. After reading the entire article I must confess that I feel Saudi Arabia is an evil place which combines the worst parts of Facism and Theocracy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html

The Washington Post Article is long but well worth the read.

This is a Saudi textbook. (After the intolerance was removed.)

By Nina Shea
Sunday, May 21, 2006; B01

Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change.

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour to several U.S. cities. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic last December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a 74-page review on curriculum reform to show that the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels").

This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to "spread the faith."

Freedom House knows this because Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident who runs the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs , gave us a dozen of the current, purportedly cleaned-up Saudi Ministry of Education religion textbooks. The copies he obtained were not provided by the government, but by teachers, administrators and families with children in Saudi schools, who slipped them out one by one.

Some of our sources are Shiites and Sunnis from non-Wahhabi traditions -- people condemned as "polytheistic" or "deviant" or "bad" in these texts -- others are simply frustrated that these books do so little to prepare young students for the modern world.

We then had the texts translated separately by two independent, fluent Arabic speakers.

Religion is the foundation of the Saudi state's political ideology; it is also a key area of Saudi education in which students are taught the interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism (a movement founded 250 years ago by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab) that is reflected in these textbooks.

Scholars estimate that within the Saudi public school curriculum, Islamic studies make up a quarter to a third of students' weekly classroom hours in lower and middle school, plus several hours each week in high school. Educators who question or dissent from the official interpretation of Islam can face severe reprisals. In November 2005, a Saudi teacher who made positive statements about Jews and the New Testament was fired and sentenced to 750 lashes and a prison term. (He was eventually pardoned after public and international protests.)

The Saudi public school system totals 25,000 schools, educating about 5 million students. In addition, Saudi Arabia runs academies in 19 world capitals, including one outside Washington in Fairfax County, that use some of these same religious texts.

Saudi Arabia also distributes its religion texts worldwide to numerous Islamic schools and madrassas that it does not directly operate. Undeterred by Wahhabism's historically fringe status, Saudi Arabia is trying to assert itself as the world's authoritative voice on Islam -- a sort of "Vatican" for Islam, as several Saudi officials have stated-- and these textbooks are integral to this effort. As the report of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks observed, "Even in affluent countries, Saudi-funded Wahhabi schools are often the only Islamic schools" available.

Education is at the core of the debate over freedom in the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden understands this well; in a recent audiotape he railed against those who would "interfere with school curricula."

The passages below -- drawn from the same set of Saudi texts proudly cited in the new 74-page review of curriculum reform now being distributed by the Saudi Embassy -- are shaping the views of the next generation of Saudis and Muslims worldwide. Unchanged, they will only harden and deepen hatred, intolerance and violence toward other faiths and cultures. Is this what Riyadh calls reform?

religion@freedomhouse.org
FIRST GRADE

" Every religion other than Islam is false."

"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."
FOURTH GRADE

"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."
FIFTH GRADE

"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."

"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."

"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy in religion."
SIXTH GRADE

"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."
EIGHTH GRADE

"As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

"God told His Prophet, Muhammad, about the Jews, who learned from parts of God's book [the Torah and the Gospels] that God alone is worthy of worship. Despite this, they espouse falsehood through idol-worship, soothsaying, and sorcery. In doing so, they obey the devil. They prefer the people of falsehood to the people of the truth out of envy and hostility. This earns them condemnation and is a warning to us not to do as they did."

"They are the Jews, whom God has cursed and with whom He is so angry that He will never again be satisfied [with them]."

"Some of the people of the Sabbath were punished by being turned into apes and swine. Some of them were made to worship the devil, and not God, through consecration, sacrifice, prayer, appeals for help, and other types of worship. Some of the Jews worship the devil. Likewise, some members of this nation worship the devil, and not God."

"Activity: The student writes a composition on the danger of imitating the infidels."
NINTH GRADE

"The clash between this [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as God wills."

"It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour [of judgment]."

"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him."
TENTH GRADE

The 10th-grade text on jurisprudence teaches that life for non-Muslims (as well as women, and, by implication, slaves) is worth a fraction of that of a "free Muslim male." Blood money is retribution paid to the victim or the victim's heirs for murder or injury:

"Blood money for a free infidel. [Its quantity] is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, whether or not he is 'of the book' or not 'of the book' (such as a pagan, Zoroastrian, etc.).

"Blood money for a woman: Half of the blood money for a man, in accordance with his religion. The blood money for a Muslim woman is half of the blood money for a male Muslim, and the blood money for an infidel woman is half of the blood money for a male infidel."
ELEVENTH GRADE

"The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others."

"If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims."

"Do not yield to them [Christians and Jews] on a narrow road out of honor and respect."
TWELFTH GRADE

"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."

Nina Shea is director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Pekka
fanatics can DIE for all I care. Let the bombs fly. Unfortunately we don't have smart bombs that only kills fanatics, if that was realistic, I'd be putting all my money on those bombs so we can afford launching them. Kill every single one of them fanatics, regardless of side.

You have become fanaticly anti-fanatic.

[Elok]

This is completely off-topic but we've had this same topic (more or less) in every Aneeshm thread, so....have Hindus ever tried to sue Marvel comics for plagiarizing them? Look at Durga, then at "Spiral," and tell me you don't see the resemblance! Except Durga could whoop Spiral any day of the week with her cosmic weapons. The question is, could she handle Ganesha?

EDIT: I think we all see the plain answer to this. Somebody call Capcom and tell them there's demand for a new beat-em-'up.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit

Aaah. Empty vessels make the most sound.

As I said before, and as you've confirmed:

Poor Datajack- nothing to say, and with so many opportunities to say it, over and over and over and over again....

Didn't some Persian artists draw images of Mohamed? Were they condemned to death, and why are these works of art still in existence?

Dr. Strangelove


Not only Persian miniaturists but artists in the (quite strict) Ottoman Empire too.

The idea that Islam or the Qu'ran absolutely prohibits the depiction of living beings is erroneous; as I've already mentioned the successors to Mohammed in the Umayyad Caliphate patronized the Hellenistic artists of the areas of the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires that they conquered.

The main difference between Islam and Judaism on the one hand and Christianity on the other, is that most Christian sects do not eschew depictions of sacred personages or god whereas both Judaism and Islam have tended to shy away from portraying god or individual prophets, especially in synagogues and mosques.

Of course certain Christian movements such as the Byzantine iconoclasts (perhaps influenced by Judaism and Islam) Calvinists and Presbyterians in the British Isles have also reacted against what was seen as idolatry and excessive devotion to imagery and statuary.

However even Muhammad has been depicted unveiled (I think there's a miniature in the National Gallery of Scotland which shows his face) as well as (more customarily) veiled.

Respecting the religious sensibilities of Indian Muslims has in any case nothing to do with Islam not being a state religion of India. Hindus both in India and the rest of the world can get mighty upset when they feel their faith and imagery is being slighted:

We the people find it offensive and derogatory when companies and individuals seek to exploit and defame Hinduism and Hindu traditions for material gain or personal fame. To see Durgamata, our Divine Mother, in a compromising position with an animal, to see Draupadi stripped naked, to see a naked Sita with a naked Lord Hanuman’s tail between her legs and other obscene images of Hindu Goddesses including bestiality is deeply hurtful. Further, it is this sort of exploitation of Hinduism that leads to the negative portrayal of Hinduism we see here in the Western media and causes the apathy we witness when it comes to recognising the persecution of Hindus in parts of the world. We see this effect here in Britain where Hindu children are teased about their “funny Gods”.

http://www.hinduhumanrights.org/

[Datajack Franit]

MEOW!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Datajack Franit
MEOW!

Wrong sound for an ass...


Datajack goes casual.

[Datajack Franit]

I want OTBOT back