Saudi textbooks 'demonise west'

I don't believe it! The Guardian actually printing an anti Islamic article. Now I know pigs can fly.

Saudi schoolchildren are being taught to disparage Christianity and Judaism in a textbook issued by the education ministry, a report said yesterday.

The book forms part of the kingdom's revised curriculum - supposedly cleaned up after complaints that demonising the west had become endemic in Saudi schools.

A lesson for six-year-olds reads: "All religions other than Islam are false." A note for teachers says they should "ensure to explain" this point.

The Guardian try and claw back some of the bad press they are giving the Saudis.

The Saudi Institute, a Washington-based pro-reform group, said yesterday the book, Monotheism and Fiqh, contradicted the Koran.

"The Saudi contention that Judaism and Christianity are false religions is clearly refuted by the Koran," it says in a report, quoting a verse.

"Quoting a verse". Which verse? Since quoting the Koran seems to be the main defense here, you would think the Guardian would at least give us the verse so we could judge for ourselves.

But Jihad Watch isn't letting the Guardian get away with that.

Hmm. I have great respect for the Saudi Institute, but it is odd that they would insist that the contention that Judaism and Christianity are false religions is contradicted by the Qur'an. I wonder how that squares with verses like Qur'an 9:30: "The Jews call 'Uzair [Ezra] a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!" Common Muslim teaching, based on verses like this one, is that what are known as Judaism and Christianity today are actually corruptions of the true religions revealed through Moses and Jesus — and that the true form of both is, you guessed it, Islam.

Back to the Guardian...

The main author of the religious curriculum is Sheikh Saleh al-Fawazan, described as a Wahhabi extremist who advocates slavery and believes elections are un-Islamic.

Right. Now, tell me again how Islam is the religion of peace.
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