Spreading Islam in American Public Schools

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | November 24, 2004 | Daniel Pipes

[Ginifer]

Not only do Islamists want to censure the handling of Islamic topics at U.S. universities, as I noted in “Islamists Police the Classroom [at the University of South Florida],” but they also wish to do the same at grammar schools. More ominously yet, they wish to transform public schools at all levels into venues for spreading Islam.

An undated posting at www.SoundVision.com posts a page titled “18 Tips for Imams and Community Leaders.” The 15th tip, “Establish a parents' committee to monitor public schools,” has special interest. It starts by asking if the local public school is teaching 10-year-olds that Muslims are terrorists and misogynists? If so, parents are advised to set up a committee “to monitor public school curriculum and developments” and arrange for Muslims to deliver talks about Islam and Muslims. For instance, as Ramadan approaches, a parent should explain the holiday to the school or in a social studies class. When a high-profile “incident of terrorism where Muslims are the perpetrators” takes place, the committee should ask to discuss Islam and terrorism. More broadly, the committee should lobby on behalf of Muslim concerns.

Another website points to a far deeper agenda, that of da‘wa, or using taxpayer-funded schools to proselytize for Islam. www.DawaNet.com’s goals are summed up by an article it hosts: “How to Make America an Islamic Nation.” But what concerns us is a page, “Dawa in public schools,” that portrays public schools as “fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students. Muslim students should take ample advantage of this opportunity and present to their schoolmates the beautiful beliefs of Islam.” This, the website asserts, is best achieved through both direct and indirect steps. Direct means overt da‘wa:

· Host Islamic exhibitions.

· Start an Islamic newsletter.

· Set up “Dawa tables” offering Islamic literature.

· Carry “Dawa flyers” from the Islamic Circle of North America and pass them out to non-Muslims.

· Place advertisements in the school paper with a toll-free telephone number for non-Muslims to call to learn more about Islam.

· Establish one-to-one contacts with non-Muslim students (along gender lines: “It is advised that brothers work with non-Muslim boys and sisters work with non-Muslim girls”).

Indirect partially means creating a good image for Islam:

· Found Muslim groups that portray Islam “in a positive way,” such as a Muslim Students Association, Islamic Circle, or Quran Study Group.

· Engage in “simple actions that reflect living Islam,” such as saying “Insha Allah” (God willing), praying, and wearing Islamic-style clothing.

· Take advantage of disasters to set up a disaster relief assistance booth to give “a very positive picture of Islam and Muslims.”

Or indirect means increasing consciousness of Islam:

· Make use of the school newspaper: “Being a writer will give you ample opportunity to provide Islamically oriented articles which will Insha Allah [if God wishes] open the hearts and minds of readers.” Ideally, an article on Islam should appear in each issue. If the school does not allow overt preaching, “Alhamdu lillah, there are ways to circumvent this problem,’ such as reporting on Islamic events or writing about Islamic holidays. “This way, you are still presenting an aspect of Islam without coming across as a preacher.” DawaNet.com also coyly instructs its adepts “to have a good rapport with the editor and the writing staff of the paper.”

· Lobby to include Islamic dates on the school calendar.

· Add books and magazines on Islam written by Muslims to the school library; if the library does not purchase them, raise the money to donate them.

· Incorporate Islam into class projects. For example, “for a speech class, if there is freedom to choose a topic, an Islamic topic should be selected. Similar opportunities can be created in history, social science, writing and other classes.”

DawaNet.com concludes by reminding Muslims that the will of Allah, faith, and Muslim creativity combined to win victories in the past and can again in the future:

Schools and campuses are no exceptions as places where Islam can be victorious. … We should use every opportunity to sensitize non-Muslim peers and school staff to Islam and to establish an environment in which everywhere a non-Muslim turns, he notices Islam portrayed in a positive way, is influenced by it and eventually accepts Islam.

Comments:

(1) This is a total perversion of the American public space, a blatant effort to suborn it to serve Islamic missionary purposes.

(2) Such an attempt by Islamists hardly comes as a surprise but rather complements their already in-place campaign to exploit textbooks and curricula supplements for da‘wa purposes.

(3) The “multikulti” spirit so prevalent in American schools today means that too many parents, teachers, and administrators find themselves virtually helpless to stand up to this assault on the traditional values of the public school.

[iconoclast]

I always get a kick out of this kind of comment, cause I married a Muslim.

Enjoy while you can.

Clearly, comes the revolution, one of both of you will be headless dead meat.

I give you the Irish humanitarian as exhibit A.

[Edgerunner]

McCarran Act or Internal Security Act of 1950
"The Internal Security Act of 1950, sometimes called the McCarran Act or the anticommunist law, is one of the most controversial and least understood laws in the history of the republic. Yet it is of high importance that Americans understand it, since it involves (1) our national safety and (2) individual liberties." So began Beverly Smith's inquiry "How Will Our Laws Against Traitors Work?" which appeared in the January 13, 1951, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. The Internal Security Act, popularly named for Nevada's Senator Pat McCarran, an aging hack who, in fact, commandeered the legislation from an earlier version by congressmen Karl Mundt and (of all people) Richard Nixon argued for the fingerprinting and registration of all "subversives" at large in the United States. As the SEP article reports, the act's passage by House and Senate was quite controversial. President Tr uman, who had himself imposed the Loyalty Order for federal government employees in 1947, immediately vetoed it, on the grounds that it "would make a mockery of our Bill of Rights [and] would actually weaken our internal security measures." But his veto w as overridden by a humbling 89 percent majority vote, and McCarran's newly formed Senate Internal Security Subcommittee working closely with Hoover's FBI set up shop and conducted hearings for the next twentyÄseven years. One of the more bucolic proviso ons of the McCarran Act was its authorization of concentration camps "for emergency situations." But the McCarran Act was only the tip of the inquisitorial iceberg. HUAC was still in operation, although it had been relatively quiet since its Hollywood Ten triumph, and it quickly had to spring back into action to prove its continuing validity. In 195 1, HUAC began its second wave of show business hearings, far outstripping its 1947 predecessor in scope, fanfare, and shamelessness. Needing a forum that would give full rein to his lust for the limelight, Senator Joseph McCarthy attached himself to the newly formed Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, assuming its chairmanship in 1953. It was under the glare of that subcommittee's 1954 probe of the Army that Tailgunner Joe would finally crash and burn. Add to the above the "Red squads" that the police departments of cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit all had established by this time, and it becomes clear that the number of actual Communist agents operating in the U.S. must have been infinitely less than the number of Feds, cops, and subcommittees bent on wiretapping, surveilling, exposing, interrogating, blackmailing, indicting, and imprisoning them. But then, as J. Edgar Hoover was fond of pointing out, "It only took twenty-three Commies to overthrow Russia." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Citation for this entry. Philip Morrison, a Cornell Professor of Physics, expressed doubts about atomic warfare and then had to face SISS in 1952. SISS had a special way of outing those named in anticommunist testimony.

[crail]

Revolution, what revolution? Have you heard something? If you've got plans to go out and kill a bunch of peaceful people who largely agree with you, then I'm now scared of your religion.
Listen, I hear all the time, all Muslims are bad, every one of them. Like come on, really. All I'm asking is that you acknowledge that those Albanians fighting in Iraq, maybe aren't. And if there are 71, maybe there are more. I mean do you really not support these troops? Would you refuse to drink a beer with one of the troops serving with the Americans in Iraq simply because they are Albanian Muslims?

[iconoclast]

Canada has a pretty negligible-sized Muslim community

600,000, I believe. That makes 'em the largest non-Christian group in the country. Isn't 600,000 Canadians proportionate to 6,000,000 (6 million) Americans?

BTW, you certainly seem to be taking a somewhat more liberal and unconcerned attitude than the typical poster. You're under no obligation of course but I'm sure many would be onterested to hear where you're coming from or what your agenda, if any, might be.

[iconoclast]

Have you heard something?

Yeah, I heard and saw two huge towers tumbling, and innocent citizens leaping to their deaths.

I saw radicals travel from Afghanistan to Serbia to assist in destroying my Christian brothers and an ancient Christian civilization.

I've seen more innocent heads sawed off with dull knives by 6th century barbarians than I could have dreamed of in my worst nightmare.

And Ive heard just about squat from your "peaceful people who largely agree with (me)".

Stuff your dangerous propaganda where the sun don't shine!

[Modernman]

600,000, I believe. That makes 'em the largest non-Christian group in the country. Isn't 600,000 Canadians proportionate to 6,000,000 (6 million) Americans?

The 600,000 number is probably a little high, but its not out of the ballpark. That's still only about 1.8% of the Canadian population. I wouldn't call that a very significant number.

BTW, you certainly seem to be taking a somewhat more liberal and unconcerned attitude than the typical poster. You're under no obligation of course but I'm sure many would be onterested to hear where you're coming from or what your agenda, if any, might be.

I'm really not concerned that Muslims will take over the US or Canada any time soon. That's why these doomsday articles don't really scare me. There aren't enough Muslims in either country to have that much of an effect.

[ArmedNReady]

"'There is no separation between islam and radical islam.'

'Oh I assure you there is.'"

There is no separation. They pray in the same mosques, read the same koran, listen to the same clerics encourage them to kill, attend the same schools, make excuses for each others behavior, etc.

I asked you to provide tangible evidence that islam is a "religion of peace" but you were not able to provide any evidence, then stated that my stereotype was wrong. You state that you are not a muslim and know little about islam so I am not sure why you feel that you can make such a statement regarding my "sterotypes". There are muslims who will never murder anyone and who will never become suicide bombers just as there were many Germans in Nazi Germany that did not kill any Jews nor raise a gun to anyone. But when a group of people want acceptance by the world as a group, they must come to terms with the actions of members of their group and work to eliminate barbaric behavior. There is no such movement within islam. The actions of must muslims shows acceptance of radical islam if not outright support. There are a pitiful few muslims who speak out against radical islam and even fewer clerics who do so.

What if President Bush decided to overrun Europe? What if he sent troops to Europe, bombed the factories, destroyed the cities, destroyed the infrastructure, killed millions of innocent people? What if everyone in the US (and the world) knew that this was taking place? What if Congress and the American people said nothing and did nothing to stop this? Would anyone in the world not blame the American people for these actions? While it is far-fetched to think that something like this would happen, the American people would stop this from continuing to take place and would accept responsibility for the actions. Islam exists in a state of denial.

And you use the example of Albania sending troops to Iraq.....so was this a mosque that sent these troops? Or was this the Islamic Republic of Albania that sent troops? Were they sent to fight islamic terrorists? Or were they sent to free Iraq? I would like to see their marching orders that say: "Go fight islamic terrorism".

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Leaving children in schools now a days is more cutting off your nose to spite your face.

But then, of course, everyone here on FR who has their kids in public schools always believe their school is not like other schools. I'm glad they can make them selves feel better about leaving their kids in those hell holes believeing that.

(nothing like sticking your head in the sand)

Becky

[Search4Truth]

"I can testify before the Lord that the greatest single evil influence in my young years was the public school system. I didn’t get much of an education in intellectual disciplines, because the “dumbing down of America” was going full steam ahead in the 1960s, but I got a massive education in worldliness. I made friends that I should not have made and I learned things that I should not have learned.

The Bible plainly warns, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33), meaning that evil associations defile and injure and destroy a godly way of living. How true that is!

The Bible says: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2)."

http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/sbc-homeschool.html

[crail]

make excuses for each others behavior
Not the ones I know. They're first in line to shout someone, anyone, down for being an idiot.

attend the same schools
Do you mean public schools?

encourage them to kill
Oh really? Well I better sleep with one eye open. You're insane if you believe this.


Remember like a week ago when "sly", that liberal DJ called Rice and Powell racist names, and we were outraged, because who is some *white* DJ to tell black people what kind of boxes they all should fit into? Well who are you to say what kind of box *all* Muslims fit into? A majority, maybe, I won't have a problem if you say majority. But all? This is just ignorance. It's only the liberals out there saying "Muslims can't handle freedom or democracy, they're opposed to it fundamentally." Bush is gonna prove them, and you, wrong. The Muslims in Albania already are proving them wrong.

There are a pitiful few Muslims who speak out against radical Islam and even fewer clerics who do so.
Then we agree there is a movement. Sure it's small, but telling it's members "F-off and get in my 'all Muslims are radical' box" won't help it any.

so was this a mosque that sent these troops
What are you talking about, did a church send the Americans. I don't see a point here.

Or was this the Islamic Republic of Albania
Like America, Albania is not homogeneous, nor under the rule of a theocratic government. Eighty percent or so Muslims, ten Catholics, and some Orthodox Greek for flavor, form the three largest religions. The government of Albania sent the troops based on their assessment of what will make the world safer, without consulting any religious groups, much as happened in America.

Were they sent to fight Islamic terrorists?
Yes. Albanians were outraged over 9-11 because they remember fighting for their own freedom from a radical murderous communist government, and who was on their side.

I am not sure why you feel that you can make such a statement regarding my "stereotypes".
Because I've seen the exception to your stereotypes, which is what we're talking about. You say "all Muslims bad", I say "No, not all, look at these ones." You can't fit people in boxes. There are always ones who don't fit, I'm pointing some out for you. I'm not sure why you feel you can make such a blanket statement regarding the people I'm related to. I mean really, how many radical Albanian Muslims do you know? Better yet, how many Albanians? When you meet one, be sure to thank them for their contribution to the mission in Iraq.

just as there were many Germans in Nazi Germany that did not kill any Jews nor raise a gun to anyone
And some of them helped Jews escape, and are widely recognized as heroes, right? Shouldn't we regard the ones who stand up against evil, at their own risk, AND ALONGSIDE OUR TROOPS, as heroes? Or lump them with the people who look the same, pray the same or come from over there?

[crail]

I've seen more innocent heads sawed off with dull knives by 6th century barbarians than I could have dreamed of in my worst nightmare.
And did you see the other Muslims heading of to Iraq to kill those terrorists?

And Ive heard just about squat from your "peaceful people who largely agree with (me)".
Have you listened? There aren't many Albanians, but I've heard them. (Of course I'm married to them... I've heard them over, and over, and over ;) )

So listen, let me introduce you to some of my Muslim friends.

Listen: Albania has been a steadfast supporter of U.S. policy in Iraq, and one of only four nations to contribute troops to the combat phase of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Listen:Only in the USA itself, in Albania, and in UN administered Kosovo do citizens feel the world is a safer place since the recent military action (48%, 64% and 59% respectively).

Listen: For instance our traditional ally, Albania, is sending a contingency of 70 troops. Poland is anteing 200 troops and Romania, not to be outdone by a bunch of Poles, is raising the 200 by 78 more.

Listen: Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano stated that Albania was considering increasing its military contingent in Iraq, in view of Spain's decision to pull its 1,300 troops out of the country. Albania's troops are serving in Mosul in northern Iraq, under U.S. command.

Listen:Albania, a predominantly Muslim country, was one of the most vocal backers of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.


Seventy Albanian soldiers, here training at Zallherr military base, will be postwar peacekeepers. "We are proud to stand side-by-side with our allies in the fight to end the reign of terror in Baghdad," Prime Minister Fatos Nano said.


Albania has done their part, and done it when they didn't have to. They stepped up to the plate, and I'm tired of seeing people rail against all Muslims when Albania is there proving them wrong. I don't really blame people for never having heard of Albania, but how about a pat on the back for Albania... that's all I'm asking. They stuck their neck out for us.

[iconoclast]

I pray you are right. And, I hope the Albanians are not an aberation in the muslim world, but the terror around the world and the accompanying silence of your "moderate" muslims yields me frail hope.

[CriticalJ]

No more mid riffs either. Get that burka on now.