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TechnoratiThe new Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal, while on a nationwide speaking tour earlier this year, asserted: “We eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system.”
Last week, on May 18, the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal stated that “the whole system of education is being transformed from top to bottom. Textbooks are only one of the steps that have been taken by Saudi Arabia.”
The Center concludes by urging the U.S. government to raise the issue at the highest levels the continued teaching of hate and intolerance within Saudi Arabia.
The Wahhabi sect of Islam is the “foundation of the Saudi state’s political ideology, and at the core of its educational curriculum.” According to the Saudi embassy in Washington, the Saudi public school system has 25,000 schools, educating some 5 million students. Saudi Arabia also runs academies in 19 world capitals, including one outside Washington in Alexandria, Va., which uses some of these same religious texts. Moreover, Saudi Arabia also distributes its religious texts around the world to some Islamic schools and madrassas that it does not directly operate, reported the Center.
