Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Saudi Academy Intimately Tied To Extremist Saudi Muslims
Saudi Academy Intimately Tied To Extremist Saudi Muslims
June 22, 2008
Saudi Academy Intimately Tied To Extremist Saudi Muslims
Saudi Academy Intimately Tied To Extremist Saudi Muslims
By BEILA RABINOWITZ and WILLIAM MAYER
June 22, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In a previous piece Traditional Values Groups Organizes Protest At Virginia's Islamic Saudi Academy we noted the school's bigoted curriculum.
A Fairfax, Virginia school, the Islamic Saudi Academy [ISA] which is operating as a religious indoctrination center - a madrassah - was today the scene of a spirited demonstration by a coalition of traditional values groups.
The protest was held to call attention to the nature of the school's educational methodology, its ties to Saudi Wahhabists and its use of bigoted teaching materials.
A federal commission recently reported the academy uses textbooks which advocate violence against and intolerance of non-Muslims and the U.S. Justice Department has been asked to investigate activities at the academy as well as the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors' role in leasing the county-owned building to the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
To complicate matters further, the school's General Director, Mr. Al-Shabnan was arrested two weeks ago and charged with Obstruction of Justice without Force (VA Code 18.2-460) in connecting with the Academy's failure to deal with child abuse at the institution.
Although the authors also took note of the questionable web links that appear on the academy website [see, http://www.saudiacademy.net/html/Links.html] including one that went to the Wahhabist Saudi religious ministry, since that writing we became aware of another troubling link on that same page, one terminating at a website called al-Islam [the official website of the "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Da'wah and Guidance," see, http://www.al-islam.com/arb/], which emphasizes a hard core fundamentalist interpretation of the Quran, one very much in line with the pronouncements of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, bin-Laden's second in command.
For example, on that website we find an in-depth discussion of "al-Jihad," which presents jihad not as the benign inner struggle that many Muslim apologists disingenuously claim, but as fighting and dying in the cause of Allah - religiously sanctioned warfare against unbelievers.
"Let those fight in the cause of Allah who sell the life of this world for the Hereafter, To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah - whether he is slain or gets victory - soon shall We give him a reward of great…" [source, http://quran.al-islam.com/Targama/dispTargam.asp?nType=1&nSora=4&nAya=72&t=eng&l=eng]
In a similar vein, Quranic verses admonishing those who refrain from engaging in jihad underline the fundamentalism that is being pushed.
"Not equal are those Believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons…" [source, http://quran.al-islam.com/Targama/dispTargam.asp?nType=1&nSora=4&nAya=95&t=eng&l=eng]
Given the nature of the Saudi Academy's Islamist indoctrination it is far from surprising that two alumni of the ISA - Mohammed Idris, and Hassan El Yacoubi - were denied entry to Israel, having been identified as potential suicide bombers [see U.S. v Idris, http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/26/us.v.idris]
Additionally another alumnus of the Saudi Academy Abu Ali, is now a convicted terrorist. Ali's father was an employee of the Saudi embassy. As Dr. Daniel Pipes wrote about the case.
"He [Ali] attended the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Va., graduating in 1999 as class valedictorian. As an outpost of Saudi values on American soil, the academy enjoys Saudi government funding, is chaired by the Saudi ambassador in Washington, and boasts a curriculum imported straight from Riyadh. Thus, the first-grade teachers' guide at the Islamic Saudi Academy instructs that Christianity and Judaism are false religions. When one realizes that the curriculum is overseen by Saleh Al-Fawzan, who in 2003 endorsed the institution of slavery, this comes as less than a grand shock." [souce, http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2434]
Our conclusion in the previous piece, that institutions on the order of the Saudi Academy have no place in American education, seems even more unassailable from the vantage point of this new information. Whether local Virginia officials have sufficient desire and most importantly, the fortitude to offend the sacred Saudi cow and close this institution down, remains to be seen. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=saudiid=62208%2Ehtm
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