Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance - Hudson Institute

17
A MUSLIM CASE FOR SAUDI TOLERANCE
Within worldwide Sunni Islam, followers of Wahhabism and other hard-line movements are a
distinct minority. This is evident from the many Muslims who have chosen to make America
their home and are upstanding, law-abiding citizens and neighbors. It was just such concerned
Muslims who first brought world attention to the pernicious content of Saudi textbooks and
decried the Wahhabi doctrine they promoted as foreign to the toleration contained in Islam and
its injunction against coercion in religion.
These Muslims believe they would be forbidden to practice the faith of their ancestors in today’s
Saudi Arabia and value religious freedom. They affirm the importance of respecting non-
Muslims as well, pointing to verses in the Qur’an that speak with kindness about non-Muslims.
They raise examples of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad visiting his sick Jewish neighbor, standing
in deference at a Jew’s funeral procession, settling a dispute in favor of a truthful Jew over a
dishonest person who was a Muslim, and forming alliances with Jews and polytheists, among
others. They criticize the Wahhabis for distorting and even altering the text of the Qur’an in
support of their bigotry. 41 They say that in their tradition jihad is applicable only in defense of
Islam and Muslims.
Abdurrahman Wahid, 42 the former President of Indonesia and former head of the world’s largest
Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, and Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, 43 the
Lebanese-American Chairman of the Michigan-based Islamic Supreme Council of America, are
two Muslim world leaders who have courageously spoken out and written about the threats
posed by Wahhabi ideology and its global expansion. Saudi expert Ali Al-Ahmed, Director of
the Washington-based Gulf Institute, published his first evaluation of Saudi textbooks in January
2001. 44 Ali Alyami of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia, 45 scholar
Sheikh Ahmed Subhy Mansour, 46 and authors Stephen Schwartz 47 and Mai Yamani 48 are among
other Muslim leaders and intellectuals who, from outside the Kingdom, write strong and
persuasive human rights critiques of Saudi education.
Even within Saudi Arabia, some are beginning, despite intimidation, to make these points
publicly. A notable example is Dr. Hamza Al-Maziani, a linguistics professor at King Saud
University, 49 who was charged by a colleague with describing Islamic textbooks used at the
University as “radical.” He had written several pieces on problems in Saudi universities,
including an article in the Al-Watan daily that criticized the deteriorating quality of education at
King Saud University. He argued that the dominance of radical Islamists over university culture
had harmed the quality of cultural programs. 50 For speaking out, he was sued for defamation and
insult by a Saudi professor of Islamic culture. In March 2005, a sharia court found Al-Maziani
guilty of “mocking religion” and sentenced him to be flogged and imprisoned. 51 The sentence
was annulled by the King and his case transferred to an administrative panel within the Ministry
of Information, which ordered him to pay a fine in May 2006. 52 Despite this ordeal, Al-Maziani
continued to advocate educational reform, and, while giving an address on this issue in
September 2006, he was assaulted by a group of young men who called him an infidel. 53
In the schoolbook lessons examined in this report, the Saudi government discounts or ignores
passages supporting tolerance in the Qur’an and in the stories of the life of the Muslim Prophet