An education expert is warning that some American textbooks present a biased view of Islam and offer a sugarcoated picture of Islamic extremism, a trend that has parents worried about what's being taught in public schools.

   In numerous history textbooks, "key subjects like jihad, Islamic law, the status of women are whitewashed," said Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the American Textbook Council, an independent group that reviews history books and other education materials.

   Cindy Ross, the mother of a junior high school student in Marin County, Calif., said she couldn't believe her eyes when she read her son's textbook last school year.

   "I was very shocked by what I saw, looking through the book," she said — shocked at how Islam was portrayed in her son's seventh grade history text.

   "What did strike me was that all the other religions seemed to be lumped together, where there is an inordinate emphasis on Islam specifically," Ross said.

Sewall claims that publishers have been pressured by Islamic activists to portray the religion in the most favorable light, while Islamic terrorism is downplayed or glossed over.

   "The picture is incomplete ... and the reason for this is that publishers are afraid of the Islamist activists. They don't want trouble," he told FOX News.

   Sewall, who authored a report on how textbooks teach and present Islam, singled out one book that he said failed to explain what the story of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

   In a section discussing Islamic fundamentalism, the textbook "World History: The Modern World," published by Prentice Hall, omits direct mention of the 9/11 hijackers' religion, referring to the 19 Islamic fundamentalists as "teams of terrorists."

   "On the morning of September 11, 2001," the book reads, "teams of terrorists hijacked four airplanes on the East Coast. Passengers challenged the hijackers on one flight, which they crashed on the way to its target. But one plane plunged in to the Pentagon in Virginia, and two others slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. More than 2,500 people were killed in the attacks."

   In his report on the text, Sewall called the passage "dismaying" in its flatness and brevity. "In terms of content, so much is left unanswered. Who were the teams of terrorists and what did they want do to? What were their political ends? Since 'The Modern World' avoids any hint of the connection between this unnamed terrorism and jihad," he wrote, "why September 11 happened is hard to understand."

   But Muslim advocacy groups say students need to learn more about Islam to correct misconceptions and help turn away a wrongheaded focus on extremism.

   "It's wrong to show an entire faith community from the lens of a small extremist community, which is really a fringe. It's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the Muslim community, and that's not how Muslims want to be framed," said Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement.

"I think there is an unbalanced portrayal of Islam seen mostly through a political lens, but that is not the reality of who a majority of Muslims are," she told FOX News.

   Khan said when it comes to teaching about Islam, "I think the more important issue is American values of tolerance, respect and mutual understanding," which can best be imparted with accurate information about the religion.

But the content of those religious lessons also has Sewall concerned, particularly on the controversial topic of jihad.

   Sewall says the violent aspects of Islamic jihad are glossed over and that it is presented as an internal struggle or a fight for protection in books like "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond," published by the Teachers Curriculum Institute.

   "Jihad is defined as a struggle within each individual to overcome difficulties and strive to please god. Sometimes it may be a physical struggle for protection against enemies," the book reads, noting that Islam teaches "that Muslims should fulfill jihad with the heart, tongue and hand. Muslims use the heart in their struggle to resist evil."

It's a lesson that Sewall says needs to change.

   "What is frustrating is that repeatedly the textbook publishers have been called on their bias on the sunny, doctored view of Islam" but have refused to balance their books, he said.

   None of the textbook publishers contacted by FOX News regarding their books responded to requests for statements or interviews.

   Parent Cindy Ross told FOX News she is concerned that unpleasant facts are being ignored for the sake of political correctness in her son's textbooks.

   "When you are talking about a history textbook, that is supposed to be talking about historical facts and they are talking about jihad in terms of spiritual terms ... I think it would be completely inappropriate for a public school."

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I hate to  do this but.

did they whitewash the Jews? any mention of their genocidal past? (Amekelites, Benjaminites etc) How about the Catholics slaughtering over thirty thousand French Huguenot Calvinists? or any plethora of christian or non christian religions, who killed on mass scale? or had or have texts speaking of killing the unbelievers? You can find texts in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old and New Testaments what call for extermination (yes I know they are historical and not current commands like the Muslims have)

that said I am not a fan of the cult of Mohammed.

In other words, when we encounter Islam's intolerance, say, to Western notions –– "tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding" –– we should rely on those same notions to overlook the fact that Islam does not.

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In other words, when we encounter Islam's intolerance, say, to Western notions –– "tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding" –– we should rely on those same notions to overlook the fact that Islam does not.

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Thats not unique to Islam; Conservative Chritianity is every bit as intolerant as conservative Islam is.

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Thats not unique to Islam; Conservative Chritianity is every bit as intolerant as conservative Islam is.

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I hate to  do this but.

did they whitewash the Jews? any mention of their genocidal past? (Amekelites, Benjaminites etc) How about the Catholics slaughtering over thirty thousand French Huguenot Calvinists? or any plethora of christian or non christian religions, who killed on mass scale? or had or have texts speaking of killing the unbelievers? You can find texts in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old and New Testaments what call for extermination (yes I know they are historical and not current commands like the Muslims have)

that said I am not a fan of the cult of Mohammed.

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I'm a conservative Christian. The difference between me and a conservative Muslim is that I'm not going to try to kill you if you don't want to join my church.

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Thats not unique to Islam; Conservative Chritianity is every bit as intolerant as conservative Islam is.

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I'm a conservative Christian. The difference between me and a conservative Muslim is that I'm not going to try to kill you if you don't want to join my church.

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Thats not unique to Islam; Conservative Chritianity is every bit as intolerant as conservative Islam is.

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Thats not unique to Islam; Conservative Chritianity is every bit as intolerant as conservative Islam is.

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And that end's that lame attempt at Christian bashing.

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What is scarier is that school kids today are not taught to think but to re-act.  The critical thinking process is no longer part of the cirriculum in their education.  This makes them susceptible to propaganda.

Too much TV, too much bad music, too much dumbing down of society.

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I hate to  do this but.

did they whitewash the Jews? any mention of their genocidal past? (Amekelites, Benjaminites etc) How about the Catholics slaughtering over thirty thousand French Huguenot Calvinists? or any plethora of christian or non christian religions, who killed on mass scale? or had or have texts speaking of killing the unbelievers? You can find texts in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old and New Testaments what call for extermination (yes I know they are historical and not current commands like the Muslims have)

that said I am not a fan of the cult of Mohammed.

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Thats not unique to Islam; Conservative Chritianity is every bit as intolerant as conservative Islam is.

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It wasn't Christian bashing, it was stating the facts. If you look at Christianity at the same point in its history that islam is now, it was every bit as repressive as Islam is now. Even more recently, its not uncommon at all, especially for evangelicals, to try to dictate everyones personal conduct while bashing every other faith out there, including other  branches of the very same religion .
I say "religion", when in alla ctuality, its just another form of mythology....all religions have no basis in fact, but are simply different myths that their believers take to heart as being fact, and then want to kill each other over. Its sheer lunacy.

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I hate to  do this but.

did they whitewash the Jews? any mention of their genocidal past? (Amekelites, Benjaminites etc) How about the Catholics slaughtering over thirty thousand French Huguenot Calvinists? or any plethora of christian or non christian religions, who killed on mass scale? or had or have texts speaking of killing the unbelievers? You can find texts in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old and New Testaments what call for extermination (yes I know they are historical and not current commands like the Muslims have)

that said I am not a fan of the cult of Mohammed.

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It wasn't Christian bashing, it was stating the facts. If you look at Christianity at the same point in its history that islam is now, it was every bit as repressive as Islam is now. Even more recently, its not uncommon at all, especially for evangelicals, to try to dictate everyones personal conduct while bashing every other faith out there, including other  branches of the very same religion .
I say "religion", when in alla ctuality, its just another form of mythology....all religions have no basis in fact, but are simply different myths that their believers take to heart as being fact, and then want to kill each other over. Its sheer lunacy.

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So the fact that a religion is about 600 years younger it's allowed to live as though we are still in the 15th century?

c. What about the violent passages in the Bible?

First, violent Biblical passages are irrelevant to the question of whether Islam is violent.

Second, the violent passages in the Bible certainly do no amount to a standing order to commit violence against the rest of the world. Unlike the Quran, the Bible is a huge collection of documents written by different people at different times in different contexts, which allows for much greater interpretative freedom. The Quran, on the other hand, comes exclusively from one source: Muhammad. It is through the life of Muhammad that the Quran must be understood, as the Quran itself says. His wars and killings both reflect and inform the meaning of the Quran. Furthermore, the strict literalism of the Quran means that there is no room for interpretation when it comes to its violent injunctions. As it is through the example of Christ, the "Prince of Peace," that Christianity interprets its scriptures, so it is through the example of the warlord and despot Muhammad that Muslims understand the Quran.

a. What about the Crusades?

The obvious response to this question is, "Well, what about them?" Violence committed in the name of other religions is logically unconnected to the question of whether Islam is violent. But, by mentioning the Crusades, the hope of the Islamic apologist is to draw attention away from Islamic violence and paint religions in general as morally equivalent.

In both the Western academia and media as well as in the Islamic world, the Crusades are viewed as wars of aggression fought by bloody-minded Christians against peaceful Muslims. While the Crusades were certainly bloody, they are more accurately understood as a belated Western response to centuries of jihad than as an unprovoked, unilateral attack. Muslim rule in the Holy Land began in the second half of the 7th century during the Arab wave of jihad with the conquests of Damascus and Jerusalem by the second "rightly-guided Caliph," Umar. After the initial bloody jihad, Christian and Jewish life there was tolerated within the strictures of the dhimma and the Muslim Arabs generally permitted Christians abroad to continue to make pilgrimage to their holy sites, a practice which proved lucrative for the Muslim state. In the 11th century, the relatively benign Arab administration of the Holy Land was replaced with that of Seljuk Turks, due to civil war in the Islamic Empire. Throughout the latter half of the 11th century, the Turks waged war against the Christian Byzantine Empire and pushed it back from its strongholds in Antioch and Anatolia (now Turkey). In 1071, Byzantine forces suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in what is now Eastern Turkey. The Turks resumed the jihad in the Holy Land, abusing, robbing, enslaving, and killing Christians there and throughout Asia Minor. They threatened to cut off Christendom from its holiest site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, rebuilt under Byzantine stewardship after it was destroyed by Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in 1009.

It was in this context of a renewed jihad in the Middle East that the Roman Pope, Urban II, issued a call in 1095 for Western Christians to come to the aid of their Eastern cousins (and seems to have harbored the hope of claiming Jerusalem for the Papacy after the Great Schism with Eastern Christianity in 1054). This "armed pilgrimage," in which numerous civilians as well as soldiers took part, would eventually become known years later as the First Crusade. The idea of a "crusade" as we now understand that term, i.e., a Christian "holy war," developed years later with the rise of such organizations as the Knights Templar that made "crusading" a way of life. It worth noting that the most ardent Crusaders, the Franks, were exactly those who had faced jihad and razzias for centuries along the Franco-Spanish border and knew better than most the horrors to which Muslims subjected Christians. At the time of the First Crusade, the populations of Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, though ruled by Muslims, were still overwhelmingly Christian. The "Crusading" campaigns of the Western Christian armies were justified at the time as a war liberating the Eastern Christians, whose population, lands, and culture had been devastated by centuries of jihad and dhimmitude. Conquering territory for God in the mode of jihad was an alien idea to Christianity and it should not be surprising that it eventually died out in the West and never gained ascendancy in the East.

Following the very bloody capture of Jerusalem in 1099 by the Latin armies and the establishment of the Crusader States in Edessa, Antioch, and Jerusalem, the Muslim and Christian forces fought a see-saw series of wars, in which both parties were guilty of the usual gamut of wartime immorality. Over time, even with reinforcing Crusades waged from Europe, the Crusader States, strung out on precarious lines of communication, slowly succumbed to superior Muslim power. In 1271, the last Christian citadel, Antioch, fell to the Muslims. No longer having to divert forces to subdue the Christian beachhead on the Eastern Mediterranean, the Muslims regrouped for a 400-year-long jihad against Southern and Eastern Europe, which twice reached as far as Vienna before it was halted. In geostrategic terms, the Crusades can be viewed as an attempt by the West to forestall its own destruction at the hands of Islamic jihad by carrying the fight to the enemy. It worked for a while.

Significantly, while the West has for some time now lamented the Crusades as mistaken, there has never been any mention from any serious Islamic authority of regret for the centuries and centuries of jihad and dhimmitude perpetrated against other societies. But this is hardly surprising: while religious violence contradicts the fundamentals of Christianity, religious violence is written into Islam's DNA.

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I was surprised to hear that there are still Catholics and Protestants lobbing molotov cocktails at each other over the Peace Wall in Belfast. They still lock the gates at night to try to prevent violence between the two groups.

 

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Wow, a Socialist who's also an Atheist.  I'm so shocked.  At least you're consistent.

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I was surprised to hear that there are still Catholics and Protestants lobbing molotov cocktails at each other over the Peace Wall in Belfast. They still lock the gates at night to try to prevent violence between the two groups.

 

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I am neither.

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We all know what you are

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When I was a kid it seemed like I was always being beat up by the Italians, never had a problem with the Protestants.
 

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Apparently some are mistaken if they think I am either a socialist or an athiest.

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American Textbook Council: Islam being whitewashed in American school books

What is frustrating is that repeatedly the textbook publishers have been called on their bias on the sunny, doctored view of Islam' but have refused to balance their books." Why? Simple: "publishers are afraid of the Islamist activists. They don't want trouble."

"Critic Says Islamic Extremism Gets Whitewashed in American Textbooks," from Fox News, March 4:

   

Moreover, this "inordinate emphasis" isn't meant to demonstrate Islam's uniquely intolerant tenets, but rather how wonderful Islam is.

   

I'm sure they don't, but what does the desire of Muslims to be "framed" in positive terms have to do with reality, facts?

   

In other words, when we encounter Islam's intolerance, say, to Western notions –– "tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding" –– we should rely on those same notions to overlook the fact that Islam does not.

 

Well, Duke professor Bruce Lawrence says that jihad –– what all schools of Islamic jurisprudence have determined is offensive warfare to spread Islam –– is basically striving to be "a better student, a better colleague, a better business partner. Above all, to control one's anger"






EDIT BY RETZAM: PLEASE DO NOT SAY ANY IGNORANT OFF TOPIC COMMENTS, EVEN WHEN THE ISLAMIC SUPREMACY APOLOGISTS THAT FREQUENT THE BOARD BRING IT UP. THEIR TACTICS ARE TO TRAMPLE THE FREE SPEECH AND GET MY THREADS LOCKED.

KEEP IT COC!


INTELLIGENT DEBATE ONLY ON THE POST.

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maybe not, but you are A consistant Christian basher

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No, I simply question many of the assumptions that many adherents of that particular faith hold, take for granted, and who assume that we should take their matters of faith as fact. Too many Christians cannot handle people questioning the Christians' religious assumptions, even though they are among the first to attack another persons faith in an attempt to gain a convert.

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I don't want to convert you, I just want you to shut the fuck up and quit talking out your ass.

Leave people to their entitled opinions and quit belittling people who do have faith. Christians have their downfalls, but they are peaceful and contribute a lot to morality and family values, not like we couldn't use more of those right now.

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I don't "talk out my ass" on that issue; I post my personal opinion based on what I observed from a lifetime of growing up with that type of person. Christians ...some of them....may be peaceful and not want to convert others, but there are a  LOT..Evangelicals in particular,,,who see any other choice of religion as a failure that needs to be "corrected" and who try to legislate their version of morality into civil societies laws at every given opportunity with no regard for the fact that they are living in a society of many beliefs.

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Both religions are called to seek converts.  One exclusively by preaching and teaching,  the other by the sword and by subjugation,  as ordered and exemplified by Jesus and Mohamed respectively.

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You really downplay the role of subjugation by force  in historical Christianity. If the religious Conservatives were in power, I have no doubt they would turn the legal system into their own littler playground, and thats hardly a matter of simple preaching and teaching.

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Let's talk about all the Hindu, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist religiously motivated suicide bombers and hijackers.

Besides the LTTE, in Sri Lanka. I mean there must be dozens of others, yeah?

Lets talk about the internet decapitation videos produced by Hindu, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist extremists.

There must be LOTS of those, right?

Right?

[cricket noises]

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You really downplay the role of subjugation by force  in historical Christianity. If the religious Conservatives were in power, I have no doubt they would turn the legal system into their own littler playground, and thats hardly a matter of simple preaching and teaching.

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I don't "talk out my ass" on that issue; I post my personal opinion based on what I observed from a lifetime of growing up with that type of person. Christians ...some of them....may be peaceful and not want to convert others, but there are a  LOT..Evangelicals in particular,,,who see any other choice of religion as a failure that needs to be "corrected" and who try to legislate their version of morality into civil societies laws at every given opportunity with no regard for the fact that they are living in a society of many beliefs.