BY DAVID TWERSKY

- Following a lesson on the monotheistic faiths, Saudi Arabian schoolchildren are asked to discuss “With what types of weapons should Muslims arm themselves against the Jews?” That question is part of an official textbook for 8th grade students which also emphasizes that “Jews and Christians were cursed by Allah and turned into apes and pigs,” and that “The hour [the Day of Judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”

The content of the Saudi school curriculum has been the focus of mounting scrutiny ever since it was disclosed that 15 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the four airplanes on September 11, 2001 were Saudi citizens.

Saudi officials insist their nation cannot be blamed for having produced an overwhelming majority of the September 11 perpetrators and for the consequences of promoting a radical version of Islam all over the globe.

But a starkly different view emerges from a preliminary report on Saudi schoolbooks released by the Washington, D.C.,-based Middle East Media Research Institute, which specializes in providing translations of Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew media.

In the aftermath of 9/11, attention is being drawn to the global reach of the SAUDI continued from page 1

Saudi educational effort aimed at promoting its particular version of Islam.

The report cites a book published in 1995 by the Saudi Cultural Mission, “Education in Saudi Arabia,” which explains that Saudi education policy is based on the uncompromising and anti-modern fundamentalist teachings of the 18th century Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab.

According to the MEMRI report, the March 1, 2002, edition of Ayn-Al-Yaqeen, a weekly news magazine published online by the Saudi royal family, the Kingdom has committed “many billions of Saudi riyals” to building schools around the world. The article claims “some 210 Islamic centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, more than 1,500 mosques and 202 colleges and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia, and Asia.”

A document published by the Saudi Higher Committee for Educational Policy contains 236 principles that exhort students to “promote loyalty to Islam by denouncing any system or theory that conflicts with Islamic law.” Students are also taught “to plant and spread Islam throughout the world,” and “to fight spiritually and physically for the sake of Allah.”

From an early age, schoolchildren are taught about “Jihad for the sake of Allah.” A textbook for 8th graders instructs students that according to the prophet Muhammad, “Jihad for the sake of Allah” ranks third as a “labor…most favored by Allah” following “Prayers on time,” and “love thy parents.”

MEMRI reports that “the textbook interprets the conversation between the prophet and his companion as follows: the most important activity is Jihad for the sake of Allah and the convocation of Allah’s religion on this earth.”

By ninth grade, students are ready for “The Promise of the Stone and the Tree” — the story of Abu Hurayra, one of the prophet’s companions who quoted the prophet as saying: “The hour [the Day of Judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. A Jew will [then] hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will call upon the Muslim: ‘O Muslim, O slave of Allah! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!’ — except for the gharqad tree, for it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

Since September 11, Saudi officials are increasingly sensitive to criticism of their culture and educational system. In an October 21, interview, Adel al-Jubeir, foreign policy advisor to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Adbullah, argued that blaming the Saudi education system for producing 15 of the September 11 hijackers was the equivalent of faulting Harvard for having instructed “the Unabomber.”

Mr. al-Jubeir also said Islamic terrorists no more belong to the Saudi mainstream than “Timothy McVeigh represents America.”

But in Saudi Arabia, speaking in Arabic, leaders appear to be more supportive, and unashamed of the status quo. One religious leader, Sheikh Majed Abd Al-Rahman Al-Firian, told worshippers at Riyadh’s Suleiman Bin Muqiran mosque: “Muslims must... educate their children to Jihad. This is the greatest benefit of the situation: educating the children to Jihad and to hatred of the Jews, the Christians, and the infidels; educating the children to Jihad and to revival of the embers of Jihad in their souls. This is what is needed now...”

Still, the cognitive dissonance between their insular system and the wave of post September 11 criticism has led to a defensive attitude. Officials regularly blame problems in the Saudi-America relationship on American Jews. And the Minister of the Interior, Prince Naif Ibn Abd Al-Aziz, blames the September 11 attacks on Israel.

In an interview in the Saudi-owned London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Mr. Al-Aziz asked, and answered, his own question. “We put big question marks and ask who committed the events of September 11 and who benefited from them. Who benefited from events of 11/9? I think they [the Zionists] are behind these events.’”

Mr. Naif also stressed that Saudi ties to the American government were “strong” notwithstanding the best efforts of “the Zionist-controlled media that manipulated the events of September 11 and turned the U.S. public opinion against Arabs and Islam.”

Mr. Naif further said, “I cannot still believe that 19 youths, including 15 Saudis, carried out the September 11 attacks with the support of bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization. It’s impossible. I will not believe that these people have the power to do so horrendous an attack.”

The interior minister also made clear that the Kingdom’s 50,000 plus religious leaders at mosques throughout the country toe the official line. “If they deviate from this line and persist doing so, they will have to find other jobs.”

-- Anonymous, December 23, 2002