Posted on 12/17/2008 2:09:47 PM PST by forkinsocket
A prominent Tajik cleric and politician has accused the country's education officials of misinterpreting many historical facts about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in Tajik schoolbooks.
In an open letter to the Ministry of Education and numerous media interviews, Hoji Akbar Turajonzoda has said that the textbooks' authors have taken an "unprofessional, irrational, and sometimes insulting and offensive stance" toward Islam and Islamic values.
Turajonzoda, who is a member of Tajikistan's upper house of parliament, said the textbooks portray the Prophet Muhammad as a creator of a new religion -- not as the messenger of God -- and suggest that Islam and the Koran were no more than "the product of the prophet's dreams and imagination."
According to Turajonzoda, some of the textbooks, including "The History of the Middle Ages" for sixth-grade students, distort the very principle of Islam, claiming some of God's messages and orders were in fact the prophet's suggestions.
"Among many others issues, there are three major matters in Islam that were divine revelation," the cleric says, "and they include the status of the holy city of Mecca as the center of Islam, the status of the Kaaba as the most sacred site in Islam, and making the hajj the fifth pillar of Islam."
Turajonzoda says he was "outraged and appalled" that the book alleges that the three issues were some sort of political agreement reached between the prophet and leaders of a tribe in Mecca.
"Even Soviet-era textbooks, which were openly atheistic, didn't deny historical facts like our current authors do," Turajonzoda tells RFE/RL's Tajik Service.
The Education Ministry has yet to officially respond to Turajonzoda's open letter. Education Minister Abdujabbor Rahmonov has told RFE/RL that the ministry has been planning for some time to "rewrite some of the textbooks." However, he said, "it's not our top priority; first of all, we have to think about providing textbooks to our schools."
Deliberate Misinterpretation?
But the former head of the State Committee for Religious Affairs, Said Ahmadov, has rejected Turajonzoda's claims about the misrepresentation of Islam in Tajik textbooks, saying the "material has been taken from appropriate Arab-language and other religious sources."
Speaking to RFE/RL, Ahmadov accused the prominent cleric of proposing the censorship of school programs.
For his part, Turajonzoda says that the history of Islam was misinterpreted deliberately in textbooks to give the young generation a distorted idea about Islam and poison their minds.
"I don't think the order has come from the president himself," Turajonzoda says. "Government officials who deal with education and ideological issues, most of whom came through the Soviet-era atheistic schools, are involved in it."
Turajonzoda insists it's a part of a wider government campaign to restrict the increasing influence of Islam in Tajik society.
Earlier this week, authorities in the capital Dushanbe's Sino district closed down a mosque, saying it lacked an official license. The mosque has been operating since 1928, despite the Soviet-era clampdown on religious institutions.
In the past two years, dozens of mosques have been closed down all over the country and at least two Dushanbe mosques were bulldozed after officials accused them of failing to register with local authorities. Some former mosques have been turned into pool halls, public baths, and beauty salons.
Many imams who have tried to register their mosques complain about a complicated bureaucratic procedure involving "a lot of unnecessary paperwork."
All In Good Time
At the same time, the wearing of Islamic hijab has been outlawed in public schools and government offices. Last month, shopkeepers in central Dushanbe told RFE/RL that female employees were ordered to remove their head scarves if they wanted to keep their jobs.
The government, however, insists that it maintains complete religious freedom in the country. Unlike during Soviet times, people are free to attend mosque prayers, fast during the holy month of Ramadan, and educate their children in officially registered religious schools.
The Education Ministry has said female students have the right to wear hijab outside schools, but they must observe secular schools' rules banning Islamic dress inside school buildings.
As far as the disputed textbooks and their content on the history of Islam are concerned, Education Minister Rahmonov says: "We're going to revise [the textbooks], but not now, because we have other priorities at the moment. All in good time."
The hadiths misinterpret the Koran
Mr. Neck meet Mr. Sword.
Years ago, I took a college course on the classical age of Islam and the Muslim students were quite animated in their objection to the textbook, written by a Western author, discussing the “Satanic verses” (not the Rushdie book but the issue from which he drew his title). The “Satanic Verses” are essentially passages that were once found in the Koran but which have since been removed, the explanation being that they were told to Muhammad by Satan rather than Allah but taken by some non-Muslims as Muhammad changing his mind.
I never under stood these jerks.
They say the Koran is the pure word of God and to alter it is a blasphemy.
Then they filter it all through the hadiths and the surah ***shrug***
Hey! “Turajonzoda” is my middle name.
Complex isnt it?
Perhaps Baraq will fly us to heaven to find the truth
Sounds like Tajikistan knows how to deal with these people.
I cant say.
Strange world we live in. FR is the only place where you see these kind of stories. You would think liberals/secularists would be sounding the alarms. Yet its only when something weird is said or done by a Christian that it becomes newsworthy. I think the failure of the masses to discern what s happening in the world is a form of divine judgment, IMHO.
I cant say.
But it certainly is true that islam is the last religion to get a vetting.
Christianity was able to survive the reformation.
I doubt Islam can
Sounds like the way muzzl'ems treat other religions.
” never under stood these jerks.
They say the Koran is the pure word of God and to alter it is a blasphemy.
Then they filter it all through the hadiths and the surah ***shrug***”
I never understood these fools either. They say that the Koran is the “pure word of God”, yet if that is the case, why is it that the Holy Bible, which these same fools say is corrupted, the number ( # 1 ) best selling book of all time?
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