As a CAIR official has mentioned before, these books would be like "Neo-Nazis writing books about Judaism for public schools"! Shame on people like Daniel Piples, Stephen Schwartz, and other Islamophobes. Read this right wing filth and see how evil they really are, all they are missing are the swastikas:
"CAIR Attacks American Educational Book Series
BY Stephen Schwartz
March 24, 2010 12:00 AM
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is the leading
Islamic extremist organization in North America. CAIR pretends to be
a civil liberties group but has a long record of promoting radical
ideology and of flimsy complaints of discrimination against Muslims.
On March 17, CAIR unveiled a new effort--not its first--to interfere
with educational publishing. At a press conference in Philadelphia,
CAIR accused the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), which is
located in that city, of fostering "incorrect information and
fear-mongering" by publishing a 10-book series, "World of Islam."
CAIR's attack is hardly a surprise. Its agenda has always focused on
gaining control over how Islam is discussed and taught in American
society. It published An Educator's Guide to Islamic Religious
Practices on the pretext of "help[ing] to create a
culturally-sensitive academic environment." It has called on public
school administrators to adopt a list of separate facilities and
provisions for Muslim students. These include adding Muslim holidays
to school calendars; accommodating Muslim prayer; separating out pork
products, which are forbidden to Muslims, on school menus; protecting
girl students who affect the head covering or hijab, and refraining
from offering handshakes when meeting Muslim women and girls. Further
reflecting its fundamentalist outlook, CAIR is particularly concerned
with co-ed physical education, especially swimming classes, from
which it asks that Muslim students be excused; it calls for full-body
covering of girls, and separate shower facilities, in gym classes.
CAIR also demands that Muslim children to be exempted from sex
education and family life classes, "strenuous physical activity"
during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and school dances.
CAIR has blamed U.S. public school textbooks for "incidents of
harassment and violence against Muslim children," though it says that
"availability of more accurate and balanced instructional material is
increasing"--i.e., that politically correct depictions of Islam had
gained currency in public school textbooks before the events of
September 11, 2001.
The FPRI "World of Islam" series is issued by Mason Crest, a
Pennsylvania educational publisher with a wide scope. Indeed, Mason
Crest publishes another series called "Introducing Islam" that is
favored by CAIR. The works under CAIR attack are not textbooks, but
brief supplemental manuals that may be used to enhance student
reading. None of the "World of Islam" booklets can fairly be
described as biased against Islam. Rather, the volumes seek to
balance the uncritical, pro-Islam bias of numerous public school
textbooks with a fairer assessment of the problems facing Americans
and other Westerners in understanding Islam.
One of its titles, The History of Islam, by Middle East scholar Barry
Rubin, evaluates Muslim achievements in science, navigation, and
architecture, while indicating the difference between
conservative-traditionalist Islam, which favors recognition of
Islamic law (sharia) as a source of legislation, and Islamist
ideology that seeks to make it the sole basis of legislation. Muslim
fundamentalists and radicals may resent such comments, but they are
simply descriptive of reality, and, if anything, express notable
sympathy for those Muslims who, according to Rubin, comprise "the
great majority [that] reject the Islamist interpretation of their
religion and are horrified by the idea of living under an extremist
Muslim society."
Other titles in the "World of Islam" series include Islam in Europe,
which ends with the warning that given high immigrant Muslim
birthrates, "many Europeans are afraid that they may become a
minority in their own countries. The fear, more often than not, has
been exaggerated and used by populist parties as an argument against
immigration." A companion booklet, The Muslim World: An Overview,
offers a positive assessment of the U.S.-led interventions to protect
Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. At the same time, it
describes the major Islamist terrorist attacks in Spain in 2004 and
Britain in 2005 and the agitation for sharia as public law in the
latter country. Yet another in the series, Islamic-Jewish Relations
Before 1947, includes recognition that Muslim history is mixed: Jews
lived well and were unmolested in some Muslim countries, but faced
restrictions and violence in others.
These texts are neither prejudicial nor ideological; they represent
established historical opinion and accurate reporting on present-day
challenges affecting Muslims and non-Muslims alike. CAIR is
attempting, as often in the past, to reinforce its claim to be a
privileged interpreter of Islam in the United States. At the press
conference CAIR called to condemn the series, its Philadelphia
regional "civil rights director," Moein Khawaja, admitted "he was not
aware of any discrimination against Muslim children due to the
books." As so often before, CAIR engages in deliberate distortion and
incitement against legitimate authors and educators. Its latest
offensive in the educational field should be firmly rejected.
Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor"
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