Some Islamic-only schools in Britain are promoting fundamentalist views and encouraging children to despise Western society, a new report from the Civitas social policy think tank has warned.
The report found that websites of some of the UK’s 166 Muslim schools are spreading extreme teachings, while a handful had links to sites promoting jihad, or holy war.
Examples include web forums forbidding Muslims from reading Harry Potter books, playing chess or cricket and listening to Western music.
The Civitas report, entitled “Music, Chess and Other Sins”, claims Ofsted inspectors are incapable of scrutinising Muslim faith schools properly, and demands an inquiry by MPs.
Many of the websites featured in the report were shut down or edited in the hours before it was published.
Islamic schools educate thousands of Muslim children. Most operate in the private sector although increasing numbers are seeking state funding.
The study, overseen by Dr Denis MacEoin, a university lecturer in Islamic studies, looked at material found on Islamic schools’ websites, either content or via links.
Examples include the website of the Madani Girls’ School in East London which stated: “Our children are exposed to a culture that is in opposition with almost everything Islam stands for.
“If we oppose the lifestyle of the West then it does not seem sensible that the teachers and the system which represents that lifestyle should educate our children.”
The website comments have since been edited and parts deleted.
Dr MacEoin stressed that the problems were not found in all Muslim schools, but said some were instilling a disturbing “ghetto mentality.”
Some Muslim schools are threatening the social cohesion of Britain by promoting a fundamentalist version of Islam that encourages children to despise the British society in which they live and to confine themselves to enclaves. In “Music, Chess and Other Sins”, Denis MacEoin presents the findings of his study of websites belonging to Muslim schools in Britain and their links.
The Civitas report asks how society is supposed to respond to the following instances of education of Islamic schools:
- When a fatwa bank linked from a school tells a boy that dreaming of playing cricket for Pakistan is forbidden because it is a sacrilegious waste of time;
- When it is stipulated that reading Harry Potter books is prohibited;
- When it is stipulated that pupils must not read fiction books;
- When Ludo, Monopoly, draughts and chess are forbidden because “the Holy Prophet stated the person who plays chess, is like the one who dips his hands in the blood of a swine;”
- When the “evil system of the Western culture” is rejected in guidelines for Muslims;
- When a site run by an educational institution writes an article stating “One should abstain from evil audacities such as listening to music” and when a graduate of that institution speaks of the “evils of music,” calls the Royal College of Music “satanic,” and claims that music is the way in which Jews spread “the Satanic web” to corrupt young Muslims.
“Nor is it only the artistic culture of the country that some schools are criticising, continues the Civitas report.
“On the website of the Madani Secondary Girls’ School, East London, we read: ‘Our children are exposed to a culture [i.e. British culture] that is in opposition with almost everything Islam stands for.’”
This should be taken seriously in light of the 7/7 bombings, where hatred of what non-Muslims stand for was adduced as an excuse for massacre, said the Civitas report.
In a small number of cases, the report found evidence of links between Muslim schools and those advocating jihad, for example in the case of Feversham College, Bradford, of which the website links to islamworld.net, which contains a section of papers on jihad.
In one of these papers, Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, writes: “Jihad is an obligation from Allah on every Muslim… [Jihad] involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship and smashing their idols… Today, my brother, the Muslims as you know are forced to be subservient before others and are ruled by disbelievers… Hence in this situation it becomes the duty of each and every Muslim to make jihad… Therefore prepare for jihad and be the lovers of death.”
Themina Ahmed, the creator of the history curriculum for the two Islamic Shaksiyah Foundation schools, in Slough and Haringey, North London, has written: “The world will witness the death of the criminal capitalist nation of America and all other [infidel] states when the army of jihad is unleashed upon them,” according to the report.
The report also deals with Muslim attitudes towards women. “A worrying concern is about the relatively low status that is ascribed to women by a number of those associated with fundamentalist Muslim schools, which may not prepare girls and young women for life in mainstream British society in which women are regarded as the equals of men,” says the report.
“Ask-Imam is an online site providing authoritative rulings on all matters pertaining to Islam which can be accessed through the website of al-Jamiah al-Islamiyyah Darul Uloom, Bolton (which has now closed down its website following queries relating to this report). It carried extensive rulings on women, such as:
* Women may not attend mixed-gender universities. Men should try to avoid them.
* Rather than study, women should remain at home unless forced to go outside.
* A woman who has been raped is jointly responsible for the crime with the man who raped her if she “does not cover properly and wears revealing clothing, which seduces men.”
* Men have authority over women. A woman is not permitted to serve as the head of any organisation.
* A Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim man.
* Men are more intelligent than women.
The entire Civitas report can be downloaded here.
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