Mon, Nov 26, 2007 page7

• Virginia's `Terror High' comes under fire, again

  • AP
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  Its most virulent critics have dubbed it "Terror High" and 12 US senators and a federal commission want to shut it down.

  The teachers, administrators and some 900 students at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia's Fairfax County have heard the allegations for years -- after the Sept. 11 attacks and then a few years later when one class's top scholar admitted he had joined al-Qaeda.

  Now the school is on the defensive again, with a report issued last month by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom saying the academy should be closed, pending a review of its curriculum and textbooks.

  Abdalla al-Shabnan, the school's director general, says the criticism is based not on evidence, but on preconceived notions of the Saudi educational system.

  The school, serving grades kindergarten through grade 12 on campuses in Fairfax and Alexandria, receives financial support from the Saudi government, and its textbooks are based on Saudi curriculum. Critics say the Saudis propagate a severe version of Islam in their schools. While there are other Islamic high schools in the US, the academy is the only one with this kind of a relationship to Saudi Arabia.

  But al-Shabnan said the school significantly modified those textbooks to remove passages said to be intolerant of other religions. Among the changes, officials removed from teachers' versions of first-grade textbooks an excerpt instructing teachers to explain "that all religions, other than Islam, are false, including that of the Jews, Christians and all others."

  At an open house this month in which the school invited reporters to tour the school and meet students and faculty, al-Shabnan seemed weary of the criticism.

  "I didn't think we'd have to do this," he said at the open house. "Our neighbors know us. They know the job we are doing."

  Indeed, many people familiar with the school say the accusations are unfounded. Fairfax County Supervisor Gerald Hyland, whose district includes the academy, has defended it and arranged for the county to review the textbooks to put questions to rest. That review is under way.

  Schools that regularly compete against the academy in interscholastic sports -- many of them small, private Christian schools -- are among the academy's strongest defenders.

  Robert Mead, soccer coach at Bryant Alternative High School, a school in the Alexandria section of Fairfax county, said the academy's reputation has been unfairly marred by people who have not even bothered to visit the school.

  "We've never had one altercation" with the academy's players on the soccer field, Mead said. "My guys are hostile. Their guys keep fights from breaking out."

  The controversy surrounding the school has been mirrored elsewhere in the US.

  In New York, the Khalil Gibran International Academy -- a public school named after a Lebanese-Christian poet who wrote about peace -- quietly opened its doors in September following criticism that it would indoctrinate its young students in a manner akin to the hardline madrasah, or religious schools, in some parts of the Muslim world.

  The school -- the first Arabic-themed public school in the US -- was forced to change venue before it opened. A new head was also appointed after its first principal, a Muslim of Yemeni descent, resigned amid complaints about her refusal to condemn a youth group's use of the word "Intifada," which commonly refers to the Palestinian uprising against Israel. The new principal is a Jewish woman who does not speak Arabic.

  The Virginia academy opened in 1984 and stayed out of the spotlight until the Sept. 11 attacks. Criticisms were revived in 2005 when a former class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was charged with joining al-Qaeda while attending college in Saudi Arabia. He was convicted on several charges, including plotting to assassinate US President George W. Bush, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

  Most recently, the religious freedom commission -- an independent federal agency created by Congress -- issued its report, saying it was rebuffed in its efforts to obtain textbooks to verify claims they had been reformed.

  The commission recommended the school be closed until it could review the textbooks to ensure they do not promote intolerance.

  Since the commission's report, the academy has given copies of its books to the Saudi embassy, which then provided them to the State Department.

  Michael Cromartie, the commission's chairman, said he does not question the character of the student body or the faculty, most of whom are Christian.

  The commission is focused specifically on the school's textbooks, and has legitimate concerns given the problems that have been endemic in the Saudi curriculum, he said.

  "It's not about whether the students are civil to their opponents on a ball field. It's about the textbooks," he said.

  At the open house, seniors said they worry news accounts will hurt their college applications.

  Omar Talib, a senior at the school, said that it caters to students from across the Muslim world, not just Saudis. It makes no judgments on other religions or against Shiite Islam, as some critics have contended, he said.

  "I have four children at this school. I've never heard them say `Mom, today we learned we should kill the Jews,'" said Malika Chughtai of Vienna. "If I heard that kind of talk, I would not have them here."
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