Posted on 11/21/2005 5:31:54 PM PST by SJackson
It's like that American Indian thing where they say they were always here. Right. They came from somewhere else and pushed other people out. How can you explain those poor Peruvians living on top of a pile of rocks? They moved there by choice?
Textbook on Arabs removes blunder
By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
An Indian tribe has forced distributors of an Arab studies guide for U.S. teachers to remove an inaccurate passage that says Muslim explorers preceded Christopher Columbus to North America and became Algonquin chiefs.
Peter DiGangi, director of Canada's Algonquin Nation Secretariat in Quebec, called claims in the book, the "Arab World Studies Notebook," "preposterous" and "outlandish," saying nothing in the tribe's written or oral history support them.
(none)
The 540-page book says the Muslim explorers married into the Algonquin tribe, resulting in 17th-century tribal chiefs named Abdul-Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik.
Mr. DiGangi said the guide's author and editor, Audrey Shabbas, and the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC), a Washington advocacy group that promoted the curriculum to school districts in 155 U.S. cities, have been unresponsive to his concerns since November.
But Ms. Shabbas said this week the passage was removed immediately from subsequent copies, and that she was "giving careful and thoughtful attention" on how to notify the 1,200 teachers who have been given copies of the book in the past five years.
"As the editor of the 'Notebook,' when I heard from Mr. DiGangi that a citation in the work was not borne out by either Native American written records or by oral traditions, I was grateful that the statement could so easily be removed," she said.
She did not explain how the false information got into the curriculum.
"There was no [scholarly] peer review," said Mr. DiGangi, who says he was never contacted after lodging his complaint. "It was so outlandish. It never should have gone to press."
Jon Roth, MEPC's program manager, yesterday said the group has decided to remove the two-page chapter called "Early Muslim Exploration Worldwide: Evidence of Muslims in the New World Before Columbus."
"It is not, nor has it ever been, our intention to spread lies or untruths," Mr. Roth said.
Meanwhile, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation this week issued a report that is critical of "Arab World Studies Notebook."
The study, titled "The Stealth Curriculum: Manipulating America's History Teachers," reviewed many curriculum supplements and "professional development" programs aimed at schoolteachers.
"It appeared that the creation and dissemination of these materials, often through professional development institutes and [teacher] in-service programs, had fallen into the eager hands of interest groups and ideologues yearning to use America's public school classrooms to shape the minds of tomorrow's citizens by manipulating what today's teachers are introducing into the lessons of today's children," the Fordham study concluded.
Mr. Roth said the "Arab World Studies Notebook" is the primary reference text used in the council's program of teacher workshops conducted by Ms. Shabbas, which have numbered more than 268 in 155 cities since 1987.
The book, offered at a markdown of $15 from $49.95, has 90 readings and lesson plans covering the history and culture of the Arab world, the broader Middle East and Islam worldwide. "A lot of teachers use it," Mr. Roth said.
Chester E. Finn Jr., Fordham Foundation president, said the new "cottage industry" of "predigested supplemental materials" and professional development for history and social studies teachers was intended to help teachers who had little or no background in certain areas, and because textbooks are often insufficient.
"How could we expect them to handle complicated and emotionally charged subjects like the Holocaust and figure out what lessons to learn about it? To escort youngsters safely through the thicket of political correctness and ethnic politics that now surrounds such benign holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving?" he asks in the preface of the foundation's report.
The void in teachers' knowledge and instructional materials has been filled by publishers, universities, research groups and think tanks, advocacy groups, cable networks, film producers and itinerant teacher trainers, Mr. Finn said.
"We know staggeringly little about how good these materials and workshops are — how accurate they are, whether the information they present is balanced and accurate. We know even less about the efficacy, value or intellectual integrity of innumerable workshops, institutes and training programs in which teachers participate," he said.
The report, written by Sandra Stotsky, former senior associate commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education, described the "Arab World Studies Notebook" as "propaganda."
The chapter written by Ms. Shabbas and Abdallah Hakim Quick claims that Muslims from Europe were the first to sail across the Atlantic and land in the New World, starting in 889, the report says.
"The idea that English explorers met native Indian chiefs with Muslim names in the middle of the Northeast woodlands sounds almost like something a Hollywood film writer dreamed up for a spoof," the report says.
The current 1998 edition of the "Notebook" has "no evidence or documentation to support key historical 'facts' that serve to advance their political views or religious beliefs," the report says.
"One can only wonder if this has ever been questioned by the teachers who use its materials, or if they feel they must agree to any claim made by Muslims as an 'alternative perspective' or risk being labeled insensitive, Eurocentric, or racist."
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040416-120208-4455r.htm
(sarcasm) I didn't know David and Solomon were time travelers.
It's a good really considering the muslim religion was not found until around 700 AD.
(sarcasm) I didn't know David and Solomon were time travelers.
It's really a good trick considering the muslim religion was not found until around 700 AD.
Interesting, since I thought the Prophet who started the "religion of peace" was on the earth about 900-1100 AD.
LOL... yes!
Surely they jest, or have they buggered each other blind?
See my #53
Their inbreeding and all that cousin lovin' will do that to them...
They been claiming that for sometime now.
Islam is the origninal bait-and-switch cult. Be nice, tell lots of good lies, and take over when you reach critical mass.
On Halloween they pumpkin..
Thanks... now I finally understand why they wear those bizarre costumes every day of the week.
If you substitute the name YHWY for Allah in that quote, I have to agree with him. God's timetable is God's timetable. We are arrogant to believe we can hasten or slow His timeline apart from humble prayer.
On Louis Farrakhan's space ship, you infidel.
In an odd way this is an admission that the Jews have a claim to the land. Muslims denied for decades that David and Solomon even existed. Now, Muslims admit the two men lived, but claim, rather foolishly, that the tow men were sort of proto-Muslims.
BINGO!!
Proof that DEMs aren't the only ones re-writing history.
The Muslims Discovered Australia
Sheikh Al-Hilali also claims that Afghan Muslims preceded Captain Cook in his discovery of Australia:(11) "Australia is an old-new continent. The Europeans issued a false birth certificate for it when the British seafarer Captain James Cook reached it. However, Australia already had the most ancient race of men on the face of the earth - the Aborigine people... They continue to live their primitive lives to this very day.
"But when you become acquainted with their traditions among their tribes, you find that they have customs such as circumcision, marriage ceremonies, respect for tribal elders, and burial of the dead - all customs that show that they were connected to ancient Islamic culture before the Europeans set foot in Australia.
"That is, Islam had roots deep in the Australian soil and read the Qur'an and called to prayer before the bells of the churches rang in Australia. The best evidence of this is the hundreds of mosques in the center of Australia built by the Afghans. Some of them were destroyed, and others were turned into Australian archeological museums, and still others remained unharmed, and they bear a history that proves that Islam has roots and ancient connections to Australia.
"But because they did not have the proper conditions to continue to exist, such as schools, propagation of the religion, and connection to the Islamic world, the first generation of our Afghan ancestors dissolved...
"I visited the town of Alice Springs in central Australia, and found there a map [of Alice Springs] under the name Mecca. Alice Springs is surrounded by high black mountains, similar to the mountains of Mecca. Summer there lasts 10 months, and winter only two months. The temperature is above 50 degrees Celsius.
"There are several kinds of dates and palm trees there. We did not believe that dates could grow there. Now that we know the reason, we no longer wonder. We found that our ancestors the Afghans were among the first Muslims, and they settled this area and called it Mecca.
"The strange thing was that when our muezzin [who accompanied Sheikh Al-Hilali on his visit to Alice Springs] stood up to call for prayer, the old people of the town came out, and so did men and youths, and they looked different than the black Aborigines. They were a mixture of Afghan and Aborigine, as a result of marriages of Afghan men and Aborigine women. When the muezzin called 'Allahu Akbar,' they said, 'We have heard this song from our ancestors...' When they asked us 'What is this song you are singing?' we told them that this was an announcement of prayer time. When we asked them their names, they answered John, or Steve, but their names ended with Saraj Al-Din, Abdallah, or Muhammad...."(12)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12226
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