Taqiyya and American Education

Jed Gladstein

We are all familiar with the historical idea of hand-to-hand combat. Whether it is knights on chargers, samurai warriors, or American Special Forces operators, there is something palpable and visceral about traditional combat. It is an in-your-face reality that the mind readily grasps because the fundamental rules of engagement are self-evident and the existential hazards are clear. But there is a kind of warfare that doesn't fit that mold, a warfare that is much more subtle and far more difficult to recognize. Though its goal is destruction, it is characterized by deception rather than confrontation. It is called taqiyya.

Taqiyya is an Arabic word that refers to the practice of concealing from your enemy what is truly in your heart. [1] Muhammad used taqiyya to defeat non-Muslim tribes during the Battle of the Trench in 627 AD, and he authorized its use in connection with the murder of a poet he didn't like by the name of Kab bin al-Ashruf. According to Islamic scripture, Allah himself is considered to be the "best deceiver" (Koran 3:54), and the Koran specifically approves of deception as a way to conquer unbelievers whenever Islamic military power cannot achieve victory through open warfare (verses 3:28, 2:173; 2:185; 4:29; 22:78; 40:28). In the United States today, certain factions of Islam are actively practicing taqiyya.[2] They are well funded, politically protected, and deeply embedded in the fabric of our society. I don't mean the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam, who swagger across the national landscape because of their friendship with the Obama administration. Those organizations openly subvert our Judeo-Christian values, but they lack the subtlety to practice taqiyya. I mean the people and organizations that secretly front for the Saudis, whose toxic brand of Wahabi Islam is actively subverting both the public and private sectors of this country. [3]

Of particular importance is America's educational system, because that is our soft underbelly. Every parent knows that children learn by a process of monkey see monkey do, so it doesn't require a rocket scientist to understand that when children are exposed to propaganda they don't come away knowing the truth. In a frightening essay entitled What You Need to Know About Islamic Jihad, Madeline Brooks observes that in America today,

Access to our own history has been blocked by politically correct forces in our educational system. At the college and graduate level, there is deliberate misinformation, funded by the Wahabis. Ultra-rich Saudi Wahabists endow universities with billions of dollars in order to spread ideas that deny radical Islam, undermine American values, and teach a blind hatred of Israel ... Departments of Middle East studies and foreign policy were established with Saudi oil money ... Jihad is ludicrously misrepresented as "a sort of yoga"... The brain and central nervous system of America, its collective academic mind, has been targeted since the 1970's for infiltration ... The germ of disinformation about jihad was cultivated in professors and their students, who then spread it to the worlds of the media, secondary education, government and even the military. A fake tolerance, based on ignorance, has become the ruling paradigm ... Soft jihad infiltrates education. Whether it is textbooks, curriculum, classroom exercises, film screenings, speakers or teacher training, public education in America is under assault.


For proof of Ms. Brooks' charges, one need only look at the recent controversy in Texas, where the state Board of Education announced (in language of studied neutrality) that the history textbook used in public schools was guilty of offending "Texas law with respect to treatment of the world's major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage" in favor of Islam. In California, too, Islam and Islamic cultures are portrayed in favorable terms, while Western civilization and its Judeo-Christian traditions are deliberately disparaged. If these pro-Islamic schoolbooks were factual and truthful, there might be no ground for complaint. But they are chock full of the kind of lies and distortions that would make Hitler's propaganda minister sit up and take notice.

To a certain extent, the increasing sway of Arabs over our educational system reflects the lamentable influence of petrodollars in our economy. Textbooks are moneymakers and so are legitimate economic targets, but that doesn't explain the subversion of our history and social studies curricula. Publishers can make as much money publishing truthful accounts of Western civilization as they can by publishing pseudo-historical narratives. To understand the pro-Islamic perversions in our school textbooks, we must understand taqiyya.

Taqiyya is nothing less than stealth jihad, part of the traditional Islamic imperative to dominate all nations and all peoples. [4] Since the Wahabi Arabs are not in a position to defeat the United States militarily, they use taqiyya. Like Lenin, they recognize the strategic importance of molding the minds of the young if they are to beat the West. By insinuating half truths and untruths into our school curricula, they deprive our children of the knowledge they need to defend themselves from subversion and Islamic domination. As one member of the Texas State Board of Education put it, "If you can control or influence our education system, you can start taking over the minds of the young people."

As alarming as this statement is, it is not just the product of fanciful or paranoid thinking.

According to a 2008 study of American history textbooks by Gilbert Sewall of the American Textbook Council, the Arabs have acquired such influence over the content of American history textbooks that the "Islam-related lessons ... present an incomplete and confected view of Islam that misrepresents its foundations and [its] challenges to international security." In connection with the Texas school book controversy, for example, Sewall noted that Arab-influenced "textbooks routinely doctor the meaning of jihad (or fail to cover it) and that Muslim intolerance/military aggression, (is) soft-pedaled or excised."

In conjunction with this pro-Islamic deceit in our classrooms is the denigration of Western civilization and American history. The Western tradition of individual freedom to unfold one's life in the highest and best way possible is antithetical to the totalitarian doctrine of submission, from which Islam takes its name. [5] If America is to survive in freedom, it must shake itself out of the deadly lethargy that allows taqiyya to be practiced in our schools. Reclaiming our children's education is the precondition to securing our nation's future. As David Solway recently said, we must "instruct ourselves, recognize that we are involved in a war for our very survival as a civilization, know who the enemy is, and be prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent our ultimate eclipse." In the end, it is up to us to defeat the deception that can lead to our destruction.

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1. According to the authoritative Arabic text, Al-Taqiyya Fi Al-Islam: "Taqiyya [deception] is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it. We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it are out of the mainstream."

2. An example of Taqiyya in action can be seen in the assertions of men like Akbar Ahmed, the chair of Islamic studies at American University. He "counsels" U.S. government officials about Islam and makes false public pronouncements on CNN and the BBC, claiming that Islam was considered a legitimate religion by America's Founders, when in fact they considered it an abomination.

3. The role of Saudi funding of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is engaged in civilizational jihad in the West, is discussed in this article. Even left-wing comedians like Bill Maher are beginning to be alarmed at the encroachment of Islam in the West. In 1991 a Muslim Brotherhood document entitled An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America outlined a "Civilization-Jihadist Process," and stated that Muslims "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house." As Frank Gafney recently observed, "the Saudis are never held accountable for their role as prime-movers behind the 'stealth jihad' - the effort to insinuate shariah into nations like ours through the text books, mosques, Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, media ownership and other influence operations they underwrite. This dangerous practice is often lubricated by the Saudis' generous financial and other relationships with former senior U.S. government officials and prominent businesses, who can be counted upon to discourage probing questions or more prudential policies here."

4. Newt Gingrich hit the nail on the head in a speech he gave to the Institute for Public Policy Research: "Stealth jihadis use political, cultural, societal, religious, intellectual tools; violent jihadis use violence. But in fact they're both engaged in jihad and they're both seeking to impose the same end state, which is to replace Western civilization with a [radical] imposition of Sharia."

5. Even in India, where mainstream Islam is alleged to be moderate, we find this conclusion being drawn from a recent study of official Islamic sources: "It is of the very essence of a totalitarian ideology that it enforces its right to regulate the totality of life. The Koran, the Hadith, the fatwas represent one continuous endeavor in this respect: they aim at controlling every single aspect of life."

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