David, I believe registration to the NYT online is free, but, on behalf af Art, here it is-
nytimes.com
and
nytimes.com
October 19, 2001
EDUCATION
Anti-Western and Extremist Views Pervade
Saudi Schools
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
RIYADH, Oct. 18 — The textbook for
one of the five religion classes
required of all 10th graders in Saudi public
high schools tackles the complicated issue of
who good Muslims should befriend.
After examining a number of scriptures
which warn of the dangers of having
Christian and Jewish friends, the lesson
concludes: "It is compulsory for the Muslims
to be loyal to each other and to consider the
infidels their enemy."
That extremist, anti-Western world view has
gradually pervaded the Saudi education
system with its heavy doses of mandatory
religious instruction, according to Saudi
officials and intellectuals. It has seeped
outside the classroom through mosque
sermons, television shows and the Internet,
coming to dominate the public discussions
on religion.
Tireless efforts to spread a fundamentalist view of Islam through
Saudi-financed charities have taken the message well beyond the borders of
the kingdom to places including Afghanistan.
"If you review the curriculum in Saudi Arabia, you would see that it promotes
any kind of extremist views of Islam, even in the eyes of very devout
Muslims," said Abdul Khadir Tash, the editor of Al Bilad newspaper.
This extremism, born of the local, puritanical Wahabi brand of Islam,
constrains life here, shaping the way people live and the way Saudi Arabia
greets the world. The United States seeks to build a coalition against terror
with the kingdom, long a Western business and military ally, and yet the
country has revealed itself as the source of the very ideology confronting
America in the battle against terrorism.
These anti-Western views aid Osama bin Laden or other extremists in finding
recruits, some Saudis believe, because they can mold the imperfectly formed
religious creed of young, easily influenced men, convincing them that their
faith condones violence against non-Muslims. Even Saudi Arabia's famous oil
wealth — Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, earned $80 billion
last year — has been no insurance against economic and political unrest.
As a result, many fear that the pool of potential recruits is swelling as tens of
thousands of young Saudis emerge with an education that leaves them
unqualified for work — an estimated 50,000 per year cannot find jobs. With
half the 14 million native population under age 25, some estimates say
unemployment among the youngest job seekers is as high as 30 percent.
"They exploit some of the half- educated people and uneducated people and
they give them the illusion that this is the real Islam," said Adnan Khalil
Basha, secretary general of the International Islamic Relief Organization.
The F.B.I. list of 19 suspected hijackers in the attacks in New York and
Washington includes the names of at least six missing Saudi Arabian men
who left their country ostensibly to join the Islamic fighters battling the
Russians in Chechnya, plus four others whose parents lost contact. They
included a seminary student and recent college graduates.
Investigators are convinced that the sudden movements of the Saudis
believed involved in the attack, with up to 10 young men all departing within
a couple months of one other, indicate that they were likely recruited here,
according to an American official.
The attacks have rekindled a debate within Saudi Arabia about the amount
of religious instruction in schools. Parents say up to one third of every child's
schooling is on religious topics.
In the early years the curriculum focuses on simple things like the rules for
prayer. By the time Saudi students reach high school, though, they have at
least one period in six devoted to study of religious topics including
interpreting the holy texts and ways of keeping their faith pure.
Some parents worry that the system overemphasizes religion. A student
cannot move onto the next grade if he flunks a religion class, unlike other
topics. Learning is by rote, with questions discouraged
"It looks innocent, they are just trying to teach religion, but in a subtle way it
is a recruiting mechanism," said a humanities professor at King Saud
University in Riyadh. "If a pupil shows enthusiasm, he is recruited into their
circles and then suddenly, bang! — he takes a gun and goes to Afghanistan
to fight for Islam."
Those who support religious instruction contend that students need more.
"Don't put the blame on the curriculum but on the misinterpretation of the
Koran and the Sunnah," or the sayings and actions of prophet Muhammad,
said Hamid al-Majid, a professor of education at Imam Mohammed Ibn
Saud University, the country's leading seminary. "I believe the way to
minimize extremism is to put greater emphasis on religious education, but in a
good way."
There was a time when the mosque was the only place to learn to read and
write. More secular topics were introduced, though, as Saudis educated
abroad came back to run the schools. By the 1960's, a Saudi high school
graduate would have been exposed to topics like Roman history and the
Protestant Reformation.
In those years, however, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt preached
Arab unity, fought the Muslim Brotherhood and sought to undermine King
Faisal. In response, the king offered political asylum to thousands of Muslim
Brotherhood members. Most ended up as teachersand junked the Saudi
curriculum.
"They said this is infidel knowledge and gradually their teaching crowded out
all useful information," a former government official said.
With every challenge to Saudi family rule — like the 1979 seizure of
Mecca's Grand Mosque by a group of Islamic militants led by Juhaiman
al-Utaibi — the dynasty ceded more ground on social affairs to shore up its
own Islamic credentials.
Its princes generally viewed such matters as unimportant anyway, far inferior
to glamorous ministries like defense, where government contracts generated
lucrative commissions. But social affairs ministries have been dominated by
descendants of Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahab, and they seek to advance
his austere teachings.
Senior members of the ruling family reject the idea that they somehow
allowed the education system to help shape extremists. "People can get
deluded into doing acts of horrendous consequence and Saudi Arabia is not
immune to having some of its citizens deluded in this way," said Prince Saud
al-Faisal, the foreign minister. "We may have a different education system
from other countries, but that doesn't make them more susceptible to
delusion."
But other Saudis suggest the environment
does exist within the kingdom because of the
constant barrage of messages that Wahabi
teachings are the purest form of Islam.
The attack has left the government looking
for options. "Embracing the Islamist forces
was a way to channel fervor and to distract
criticism," one Western official said. "Now it
is the Islamists who are a threat. It has
become problem No. 1."
Saudis and Western diplomats said the
Saudi government seemed to have
inadvertently exported that attitude through
large investments in spreading the faith. The
kingdom has built hundreds of mosques
worldwide, but many propagate the anti-
Western, Wahabi attitudes because their
prayer leaders were trained on scholarships
at religious institutions here or in
Saudi-financed schools.
Inside Saudi Arabia, at least through the 1970's, mosques were strictly for
prayer, with one sermon each Friday. Now speeches unroll almost nightly in
some of them, long after prayers end.
Nor is the anti-Western extremism limited to mosques. Sheik Yusuf al-
Qaradawi, a religious sheik with a popular Al Jazeera television show, often
adopts an anti-Western stance.
Recently he entertained a question from a viewer named Ali in Saudi Arabia
asking whether American civilians working in Islamic lands should be
considered warriors and warned to leave or be killed. The sheik did not
flinch at the idea, giving a legalistic answer that all those invited in deserved
protection. A guest columnist in Al Watan, Saudi Arabia's answer to U.S.A.
Today, wrote that Islam and the West are natural enemies, disputing a writer
who said the religion was peaceful.
"He says that Islam means peace, while I say no interpretation ever said so,
and God said to fight all the infidel," wrote Mohammed al-Rameh of the
Supreme Institution for the Judiciary. The dissenting response came from
someone in Spain, not Saudi Arabia.
The arguments also roll forth on the Internet. Hamoud al-Shuaibi, an elderly
sheik who issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, condemning the American
attacks on Afghanistan, answered a question on the Net about when jihad,
or holy war, is permissible. "Jihad is allowed against infidels like the Jews,
Christians and atheists," he answered in part.
The extremely religious people focus much of their attention on social
matters, handing out colorful pamphlets with bold type at shopping malls.
One pamphlet said it was a sin even to vacation in the West, and another
condemned those who wish non-Muslims well on their holidays.
The very same lessons were echoed in the nearly 20 pages in the high school
textbook devoted to the involved principle known as "Al Wala and Al Bara,"
or showing loyalty to Muslims and shunning outsiders.
"One of the major requirements in hating the infidels and being hostile to them
is ignoring their rituals and their festivities," the textbook says.
Later in the chapter it is recommended that Saudi youth do nothing to imitate
non-Muslims in the way they dress, walk, eat, drink, or talk.
"It is social fanaticism," said Jamal Khashoggi, the deputy editor in chief of
The Arab News, "but it takes just a few small adjustments to turn it into
political fanaticism." |
