Approval Given For The Expansion Of The Islamic Saudi Academy

Post below the fold so as not to distract too much from my Lizzie Borden Post!

At the madrassah's Popes Head Road location in southern Fairfax County. The narrow country lane is a deathtrap.

The site of this branch of the Islamic Saudi Academy was previously that of Fairfax Christian School, which was always denied any requests for expansion and even for rebuilding a small structure which had burned to the ground.

Atlas Shrugs has the videos.

Jihad Watch also has coverage, and the comments section is quite lively. I contributed to the fray at Jihad Watch, of course.

If the topic of this madrassah interests you, you'll want to check out the above links!

At least the vote for approval wasn't unanimous this time. And a couple of the Board members did go on record with their objections. Previous approvals at the local-government level have always been unanimous.

Last week, Radio Free Dar Al Harb dedicated this edition of the radio show on BTR to discussion of the Islamic Saudi Academy. Yeah, I was there as one of the interviewees.

Regular readers of my posts know that I've been watching the Islamic Saudi Academy for years. In fact, this April 2005 bus accident caused by ISA bus driver Abdelrazeg Abdalla is one of the reaons I jumped into the blogosphere with both feet.

I doubt that this post will be my last regarding the Islamic Saudi Academy. Furthermore, I've heard the law suits against the school are in the works, but I don't know the details.

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Video: Glenn Beck On The Islamic Saudi Academy

(Two postings today. Please scroll down)



A video from some time back and my commentary are below the fold.



As a native of Northern Virginia, I have done extensive research on the Islamic Saudi Academy. In fact, it was this 2005 bus accident which brought me into the blogosphere:

"In yesterday's crash of the private school bus, the driver, Abdelrazeg Abdalla, 31, of Falls Church, was charged with several counts, including operating the Islamic Saudi Academy bus on a suspended license."

"Investigators said Abdalla's driving privileges had been suspended at 12:01 a.m. yesterday because of insurance-related issues. He was fired by school administrators shortly after the charges -- including citations for reckless driving and driving a vehicle with faulty equipment -- were issued.

"They determined that the bus had little or no brakes at all and that the tires were in fact bald," said Alexandria Police Capt. John Crawford, adding that investigators found skid marks to suggest that Abdalla tried to apply the brakes.

[...]

Abdalla was hired as a driver in August after a comprehensive background check that he said included a search for any past convictions and "points on his license."

But a check of court records in Virginia revealed seven past charges, including several traffic violations for speeding and crossing a double yellow line. Several of the charges had been dismissed.

Abdalla also had a misdemeanor conviction in Fairfax for abducting his estranged wife and 3-month-old daughter at knifepoint. He had originally been charged with felony kidnapping, but friends and family -- including his wife -- wrote letters of support to the court on Abdalla's behalf, and he agreed to plead guilty in May 2003, after nearly three months in jail, to a reduced charge of misdemeanor assault and battery.

After his release, Abdalla was picked up by Department of Homeland Security officials and detained for about six months, according to court records. It could not be determined why he was detained.

There are plenty of skeletons in the ISA's closet and plenty of grounds not to allow the school's expansion.

Indeed, the school should never have been allowed here in the first place.

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Yet Another Update On The Islamic Saudi Academy (Links To Videos Added)

(Two posts again today. Please scroll down)

Photo Credit: the Washington Post
Background HERE and HERE - and plenty of it.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors hasn't yet made a decision about the school's expansion. The decision will be made on August 13.

But on this morning's news I heard that the Board will base its decision strictly on zoning regulations - not on the school's curriculum, which has been shown to be Wahhabist in orientation.
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Indeed, barely anyone at the governmental level want to do a damn thing about the school's curriculum. Not the state, not the Virginia Department of education, not the county, not the State Department. Each of those wants to pass the ball to someone else. Consequently, the Islamic Saudi Academy continues to operate with impunity.

The exception: U.S. Representative Frank Wolf. See this posting of September 28, 2008, over at Northern Virginiastan.

I do note this morning that FNC is covering the story. FNC interviewed Frank Gaffney about the Islamic Saudi Academy (aka "Terror High"). Mr. Gaffney recently wrote an essay about the school. The essay is entitled "Welcome to Faisal County." Read the essay HERE.

Must-see videos over at Atlas Shrugs.

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The Islamic Saudi Academy Seeks To Expand

(Note: Two posts today. Please scroll down)

Photo Credit: the Washington Post
I frequently blog about the Islamic Saudi Academy, owned by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia and situated in compound-like facilities in Fairfax County, Virginia. Previous Always On Watch postings about the Islamic Saudi Academy are HERE and HERE.

Tonight, July 10, 2009 @ 6:00 PM, the school will go before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, in the final step of approval for expansion of the school's Popes Head Road location.

Yesterday, the following arrived in an email to me:

The Fairfax County government recently sent invitations to a free dinner presentation on Islam as a religion of “peace and harmony” to county churches and to some who have testified against the Academy’s planned expansion in the past. County government personnel and resources were used to distribute the e-mailed invitations.

“The Fairfax County government has been compromised and the Saudis and their radical cohorts are getting their money's worth out of all of their political contributions,” said James Lafferty, chairman of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force. “Churches and synagogues here can’t even get the government to talk to them, let alone help them proselytize.

“Fairfax County government is already following the first rule of Shariah law – Islam is the state religion and the only religion. While brave American men and women are dying to defeat terrorists – spineless Fairfax County politicians turn a deaf ear to terrorism in its midst.”

The email also cited this essay at Townhall.com.

Dhimmiwits at the local-government level!

Considering that at the last hearing, the Zoning Board didn't want to hear anything whatsover about ISA's ideology, curriculum, and well-documented issues of the recent past, all of which you can find in the aforementioned links to previous postings, I predict that the Board of Supervisors will roll over once again and submit to the Wahhabist school, located a few scant miles from our nation's capital.

Some of us here in Northern Virginia are knocking ourselves out in what seems to be a futile attempt to stem the tide of Wahhabism. What we face is a leadership who refuses to face the facts. In fact, on one occasion, a member of that leadership, one Gerry Connolly who was Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and has now been elected to the United States House of Representatives, referred to those testifying against the Islamic Saudi Academy as "slanderous bigots." Lovely, just lovely.

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Convict And Terrorist Denied Access To BHO's Books

As pointed out yesterday by Pastorius and Z, BHO's books have been deemed as problematic by the most secure federal prison in the United States. Both Z have Pastorius cited this article from the AP in their postings. Excerpt from the AP article:

No Obama books for Supermax con

MCLEAN, Va. — The federal government's most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali [valedictorian graduate of the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County, Virginia] is serving a 30-year sentence at the federal Supermax prison in Florence for joining al-Qaeda and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush. Last year, Abu Ali requested two books written by Obama: "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." But prison officials, citing guidance from the FBI, determined that passages in both books contain information that could damage national security....

Although the prison ban of BHO's books relates to pages about foreign affairs, Pastorius also reminds us that BHO's books promote racism and cites the following brief excerpt from Dreams of My Father:



In other words, "white folks' greed" is the cause of all the world's problems.

More words from BHO:



A bit of speculation now on my part....No wonder that Ahmed Abu Ali, terrorist graduate from Terror High (aka the Islamic Saudi Academy) wants to check out BHO's books, even though Abu Ali is of Arab descent and not black. By reading BHO's books, Abu Ali can continue to feed his perpetual attitude of victimhood because the words "The West" could be easily substituted for "white folks," "white people," "white" anything. Or perhaps Abu Ali wants to reinforce his anti-American views by reading BHO's books.

Abu Ali may sue so as to get access to BHO's books:

He already has a lawyer, who spoke to the AP briefly about this episode. Abu Ali also filed a handwritten prison complaint form, saying the Obama book rejections “violate my 1st Amend. rights.”

An official at Abu Ali’s prison, in Florence, Colo., referred comment to the FBI, where a spokesperson said she was still looking into the matter.

For the record, the prison cited one questionable page in “Dreams from my Father” and 22 such pages in “The Audacity of Hope.”

He must really want those books, which he apparently asked for even before BHO was elected:

The report says the prisoner...requested Obama’s books last year before he won the presidency. After being denied, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali began a hunger strike (he has since started eating again).

I thought that felons automatically lost certain civil rights, particularly while in prison. Apparently not.

By the way, Arab racism toward blacks is well documented. It is unlikely that fundamentalist Moslem and aspiring Presidential murderer Abu Ali wants to read BHO's books out of admiration for the author.

Let me pose a question for my readers: Is it alarming that something in books written by a sitting President of the United States is so dangerous that Abu Ali has been denied access to those books?

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The Islamic Saudi Academy — In The News Again

Previous Always On Watch postings about the Islamic Saudi Academy are HERE and HERE.

Photo Credit: the Washington Post
Not a flattering recent development, to say the least.

From this article at The Investigative Project:

A Saudi Arabian man living in Tampa is being held without bond after being arrested June 4 for attempting to board a US Airways flight carrying a concealed weapon. Raed Abdul-Rahman Alsaif was trying to fly to Phoenix.

According to a criminal complaint by Gregory J. Mertiz, Special Agent with the Transportation Security Administration in Tampa, Alsaif submitted three bags for screening to TSA officers. A Transportation Security Officer saw a large butcher knife inside one of the bags. The knife was "artfully concealed between the outside fabric and the expandable pull handles of the bag," the complaint said, and the weapon was stored in a way that would have been "accessible to him [Alsaif] in flight."

[...]

Raed Alsaif is a 2003 graduate of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Alexandria, Virginia, the same high school that was the subject of a report in June 2008 by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) which alleged that ISA was using radical Saudi textbooks. According to the report, passages in the textbooks used at ISA justify violent actions and intolerance to the reader including killing Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, apostates (converts from Islam) and adulterers. School officials say they have deleted the offending passages.

In 2003, the same year that Alsaif graduated from ISA, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a U.S. citizen and ISA graduate and valedictorian was arrested in Medina, Saudi Arabia on terrorism related charges. In 2005, Ali was convicted on nine counts including providing material resources to Al-Qaeda and conspiracy to assassinate President George W. Bush. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Alsaif has been previously arrested on drug charges and driving without a license in Hillsborough County.

In addition to his current concealed weapon charges, authorities found that Alsaif has been living in the country illegally....

Go HERE to read the entire article, which has embedded links.

Meanwhile, on July 13 at 6:00 PM, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will hold a hearing to consider allowing expansion of the Popes Head Road location of the Islamic Saudi Academy, owned by the Roayl Embassy of Saudi Arabia.

When Fairfax Christian School held that same property, the Christian school was never allowed to expand nor even to rebuild one of the structures which burned to the ground in the early 1980's. Much of Popes Head Road remains a country lane, the reason given for previously denying expansion to Fairfax Christian School. Apparently, different rules now apply, never mind that the safety issues remain the same.

In fact, when the issue of the expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy came before the Zoning Board this spring, the board unanimously approved the expansion over the objections of the neighborhood. The Zoning Board wasn't the least interested in the Wahhabist ideology being espoused at the Islamic Saudi Academy, and the board so stated.

Will the Board of Supervisors even care at the upcoming hearing that yet another graduate of the Islamic Saudi Academy has shown himself to be something less that the supposedly wonderful students which the school graduates?

Furthermore, why is Fairfax County rolling over for a group whose 12th grade textbooks teach that it’s fine and dandy to kill homosexuals, adulterers, or anyone who leaves Islam?

Meanwhile, the Wahhabist school operates with impunity, just a few miles from our nation's capital.

As my best friend in Texas is wont to say about the Islamic Saudi Academy, "For all we know, Bin Laden is hiding in there in a burqa!"

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Eurabia And Amerabia: Two Videos

Meanwhile, closer to home, even as Brits in Luton plan to demonstrate against Al Qaeda on March 28, Fairfax County, Virginia, is considering allowing the expansion of the Islamic Saudi Academy, owned by the Royal Embassy of Saud Arabia. In the video below, you'll note the black bag walking around starting at time marker 1:29, the Islamic prayer session inside the Fairfax County Government Center, commonly referred to by us county residents as "The Taj Mahal," and all the kaffiyehs, symbols of Pseudostinian solidarity:



Some reading: article about Fairfax County's preferential treatment of the Islamic Saudi Academy. A must read!

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Textbook Revisions At The Islamic Saudi Academy

After years of asserting that no Wahhabist hatred fills the pages of their textbooks (more here), the Islamic Saudi Academy, owned by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, has done some backpedaling.
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From this source:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- An Islamic school in northern Virginia with close ties to the Saudi government has revised its religious textbooks in an effort to end years of criticism that the school fosters hatred and intolerance.

While the Islamic Saudi Academy deleted some of the most contentious passages from the texts, copies provided to The Associated Press show that enough sensitive material remains to fuel critics who claim the books show intolerance toward those who do not follow strict interpretations of Islam.

The academy, which teaches nearly 900 students in grades K-12 at its campus just outside the Capital Beltway, developed new Islamic studies textbooks for all grades after a 2008 congressional report called portions of the previous editions troubling. The school provided the AP copies of the new textbooks, which revise language on hot-button issues such as requiring women to cover their heads and how Muslims should relate to people of other religions.

[...]

The school was founded in 1984 and largely stayed out of the spotlight until the Sept. 11 attacks, which focused attention on the Saudi educational system. In December 2001, two former ISA students, Mohammed El-Yacoubi and Mohammed Osman Idris, were denied entry into Israel when authorities there found El-Yacoubi carrying what the FBI believed was a suicide note linked to a planned martyrdom operation in Israel.

In 2005, a former ISA valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was convicted in federal court of joining al-Qaida while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush.

Last year, the school's then-director, Abdalla al-Shabnan, was convicted of failing to report a suspected case of child sex abuse.

Last year also was when the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released a report saying the school's textbooks contained several troubling passages, including one saying it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam and another saying "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people."

The new books don't contain those passages. The AP reviewed them with assistance from Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, who has criticized the academy and the books used there and in schools in Saudi Arabia.

[...]

Al-Ahmed, whose group monitors politics and education in the Gulf, said the revised texts now being used at ISA make some small improvements in tone. But he said it's clear from the books that the core ideology behind them -- a puritanical strain of Islam known as Wahhabism that is dominant within Saudi Arabia -- remains intact.

"It shows they have no intention of real reform," al-Ahmed said.

Al-Ahmed cited other passages that, while not offensive, reflect what he sees as a medieval mentality despite the academy's efforts to modernize. One chapter deals extensively with sorcery, for instance, while another warns Muslims to be careful in accepting party and wedding invitations from non-Muslims.

"We don't live in the desert 1,000 years ago," al-Ahmed said. "It's disconnected from today because the authorities themselves are disconnected."

Not all agree wtih Al-Ahmed, as explained below:

Eleanor Doumato, a visiting fellow in international studies at Brown University who reviewed the textbooks at the academy's request, endorsed their contents.

These "books do not contain inflammatory material, nor do they encourage students to exhibit intolerance," she wrote in a letter co-signed by Gregory Starrett, an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "In addition, these books counsel patience, gratitude, kindness, honesty and other important moral qualities that are encouraged by Muslims and non-Muslims alike."

Doumato and Starrett were paid by the academy to conduct their review....

The problem all along in dealing with the ISA has been the school's conflict of interest with American values of freedom and democracy.

The school continues to operate. However, according to the article, a review

is being conducted by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a regional accrediting body. The association initiated a review of the school's accreditation status last year, and is looking at the new textbooks as part of its review. Spokeswoman Jennifer Oliver said the review is ongoing.

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CAIR Flunks Out

And at taxpayers' expense, too.
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From this September 1, 2008 article by Patrick Poole:

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) released their annual school report cards this week, and the results show that two taxpayer-financed Islamic charter schools operated by officials of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have failed miserably yet again. But protected by powerful political connections, including Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, and apparently indifferent to their exploitation of the Somali children that comprise the vast majority of their students, the Islamic extremists running the operation appear to have no fear of losing their cash cows. In fact, Ohio educrats have renewed one school’s contract after five years of complete academic failure.

The two schools, International Academy and Westside Academy, are run by a group of local Islamic leaders, including CAIR national board vice chairman Ahmad Al-Akhras, CAIR-Columbus president and CAIR-Ohio board member Abukar Arman, and Islamic Society of Greater Columbus president and imam Mouhamed Tarazi (who serves as principal of one of the schools). At one time or another, all have served on the board of the local private Islamic school in Central Ohio, Sunrise Academy. [about which I recently posted at Infidel Bloggers Alliance and thereby created quite a stir in the comments section there]

[...]

...[S]ince International Academy opened, it has never met the state’s required “adequate yearly progress” standard and has never met more than two of the state indicators. Looking at the past three years of academic performance data, we find in four of the seven tested areas, test scores declined last year from the previous year.

The second school, Westside Academy, appears to be following in its older brother’s failing footsteps. Their state report card shows that they met state standards in one area — attendance. Across all grade levels and subjects, less than 20 percent of their students rated proficient or better. In one subject area, 3rd grade math, the school achieved zero percent proficiency....

Both schools do excel in Islamic extremism, however. Read page 2 of Patrick Poole's article HERE. How much of the same hate-filled ideology is being taught in other Islamic schools all over the United States?

We Americans look across The Pond and think to ourselves, often smugly, that the UK's dhimmitude and lack of measures to control Wahhabist infiltration are the height of stupidity and that we will never let the same happen here. But some signs indicate that we already are allowing the same to happen here.

Additional reading - Textbook Appeasement: The State Department and the Islamic Saudi Academy

(Hat-tip to Brooke for the article by Patrick Poole)

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Arabic Classes In America

[Image source]

Since 9/11, we have heard of the importance of more of us learning to speak Arabic. Indeed, more and more people today are studying the Arabic language, many of these students enrolled in community colleges and prestigious universities as well as uncounted others studying by using software such as Rosetta Stone. I personally know a few young people who have attempted such classes, only to abandon their study of Arabic; the reasons they gave me, their former teacher, were vague but typically included a level of discomfort with the material or the instructor.
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A July 5, 2008 Washington Post commentary, written by a student at Harvard Law School, provides disturbing information about the material offered in such classes:

To study Arabic in America today is to be inducted into a world of longing, abandonment and regret. And that's before you even touch the political issues.

Most maps of the Middle East in "Al-Kitaab" [the curriculum used] do not include Israel, though a substantial minority of Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, are native Arabic speakers. Alongside simple Arabic poems, students read about anti-Western heroes such as Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The DVD that comes with "Al-Kitaab" includes footage of Nasser's mass rallies in Cairo -- including slogans in Arabic and French such as "Brother Nations in Struggle, We Are By Your Side." These scenes of totalitarian rage are fondly described by the narrator as "dreams of his youth."

The accompanying lesson describes the highlights of Nasser's career, including the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the formation of the United Arab Republic. No mention is made of Egypt's defeat in the Six-Day War or of Nasser's brutal, repressive rule. In my class, we were asked to recite a passage about Nasser to practice our vocalization. (I refused.)

The last lesson in the book -- which we skipped -- features Maha's mother speaking wistfully of her childhood in Palestine: "My childhood was taken from me!" Over mournful music on the DVD, she talks about returning to Jerusalem, as if she were a refugee, but the images suggest that she left voluntarily after the Six-Day War, when Israel offered citizenship to the Arab residents of East Jerusalem. The fact that Israel also claims Jerusalem as its capital is ignored.

My class watched three movies this semester, all with political themes. One was "West Beirut," which cast Christians as the prime bad guys in Lebanon's civil war (though, to be fair, there was plenty of hatred all around). Another was "The Tale of Three Jewels," an allegorical film about Palestinian nationalism that portrayed Israeli soldiers as bloodthirsty child-killers.

The third movie, "Destiny," told the story of the great medieval Islamic philosopher Averroes and his struggles against Islamic religious fundamentalism. It was a bit more nuanced than the first two. But the film omitted the fact that it was only through the Hebrew transcription of Averroes's writings by Jewish scholars in Egypt that his works were preserved for posterity.

Friends and relatives who have used "Al-Kitaab" at other American universities report similarly morose experiences.

[...]

...[T]here is something fundamentally wrong with this indoctrination into misery. Most introductory language classes avoid controversial political subjects. In fact, they often highlight the brighter side of different cultures. Particularly with the growing importance of Arabic, can't we do better?

The U.S. government has funded studies on anti-Semitism in Palestinian textbooks. Fairfax county officials have asked the State Department to investigate the teaching materials at a Saudi-funded school. "Al-Kitaab" is published by Georgetown University Press, with some assistance from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Perhaps we should also be looking into the content of the federally funded materials used in Arabic programs at our own universities.

According a friend of mine who studied Arabic as a second language in Saudi Arabia, lessons in The Kingdom included material much unlike primer readers to which most of us are accustomed. Specifically, beginning lessons used phrases such as "The sword is on the table," "The sword is under the table," and "The sword is behind the curtain." Certainly those phrases and their message are quite different from the early readers I encountered as a child, those primers including phrases such as "The cat is on the mat" and "See Spot run"!

Via a Google search of how language shapes thinking, I found the following essay entitled "Semanticide," by William Murchison at Human Life Review 1999:

George Orwell's stress on the distortive possibilities available in language remains fresh because of his descriptive and prophetic powers. Nineteen Eighty-Four sears the recollection, notwithstanding that when the title-year in question actually got here, the distorters-the Soviets-were stumbling toward ruin. Orwell's lesson is clear: Language shapes thinking; thinking shapes action. When language means other than it must, for a particular possibility to reach fruition, somebody is going to propose a new way of talking, and of understanding.

As the West rightly pursues the study of Arabic, precautions must be taken that the classes are not those of indoctrination and propagandizing. Instead, we have institutions such as the Islamic Saudi Academy instructing our military in Arabic. What else is being taught in those Arabic-language classes?

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More Problems For The Islamic Saudi Academy

Previous Always On Watch postings about the Islamic Saudi Academy are HERE and HERE.

The problems with the school just keep adding up!

Photo Credit: the Washington Post
From this June 27, 2008 article by Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media (via Jihad Watch):

The controversial school funded by the Saudi Embassy had its corporate charter revoked in 2004 and has never filed required tax forms with the IRS.
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...[A] review of the corporate records on file with the Virginia State Corporation Commission finds that the Islamic Saudi Academy’s corporate charter was terminated by the state on December 27, 2004. There is no indication from state records that the incorporation has been revived or renewed, and the last corporate report the school has filed with the state of Virginia that we could find was 2004 — the same year its corporate charter was terminated. A check of corporations in neighboring District of Columbia and Maryland found nothing for the academy.

[...]

...As the academy has forfeited its Virginia incorporation and is now operating as a d/b/a of the embassy, and considering that the school is funded by the embassy, operates on property owned and leased by the embassy, the embassy speaks publicly on its behalf, and it uses Saudi government curriculum, it seems impossible to conclude anything but that it is solely an entity of the Saudi government controlled entirely by the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC — a position directly in opposition to the present claims of the State Department.

Our investigation also found that at no time has the Islamic Saudi Academy ever filed an IRS Form 990, which is required of every tax exempt organization, including private schools. And according to IRS Publication 78, at no time has the school ever requested or received a tax exemption letter from the IRS. Nor, apparently, has it ever filed corporate taxes with the US government as would be required if it were an entity independent from the Saudi embassy, as it has no recognized tax exemption.

If the school was a separate corporation as State Department officials have repeatedly claimed, it would have to have an active corporate charter (which it doesn’t appear to have since December 2004), and it would either have to file IRS Form 990s if it were operating as a tax exempt organization, or file tax returns if it were operating for-profit. That has not happened in either case according to our investigation. Rather, all evidence indicates that the Saudi Embassy is in full corporate control of the school, and it is operating entirely under its agency, which makes the school subject to the Foreign Missions Act and under the authority of the State Department. If it isn’t part of the Saudi Embassy, it seems that the academy is operating illegally.

This new evidence doesn’t give much leeway to the State Department to shirk the matter.

Read the entire article.

Apparently, in addition to the school's other problems, the school's charter was revoked and some required IRS filings were not done. Surprise, surprise! NOT!

Meanwhile, go HERE to see the MEMRI clip of Al-Jazeera's report on the Islamic Saudi Academy. At marker 2:28 on the clip, you will hear the word "madrassah," defined as follows by the American Heritage Dictionary:

A building or group of buildings used for teaching Islamic theology and religious law, typically including a mosque.

Those who have read this web page by Daniel Pipes, also know about other connotations for the word "madrassah."

The Islamic Saudi Academy (a madrassah) is coming under long-needed scrutiny. At this point, a Google search of the school yields over 9000 hits, and the number of hits increases every day.

Predictably, Moslems are complaining about the scrutiny of the school, never mind ISA's broken promises about revising the offending textbooks as well as various other problems at the school. From the MEMRI transcript for the above-linked video:

[T]his is a nightmare for the families of the students enrolled in the academy. This pressure is exerted by several Congressmen, known for their great hostility towards Arabs and Muslims.

[...]

What should be said about a commission that some say is unconstitutional and contradicts the very meaning of its name? This commission [which recently issured the report on the textbooks] calls upon all countries of the world to respect freedom of religion there, while the commission itself violates this freedom on its own land.

Um, ISA supporters, remove the beam from your own eye before trying to remove the speck from another's eye.

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The Islamic Saudi Academy: Fairfax County Backpedals On The Lease (Updated June 25)

Photo Credit: the Washington Post


Background: Previous Always On Watch postings about the Islamic Saudi Academy are HERE and HERE.

From this article in the June 24, 2008 edition of the Washington Post:

Fairfax County leaders asked U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday to determine whether the county should continue leasing property to the Islamic Saudi Academy following controversy surrounding the school's teachings.

With unanimous support from the county's Board of Supervisors, Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) sent a letter to Rice "formally requesting" that the State Department provide direction regarding the county's one-year lease renewal, approved last month, with the Saudi Arabian government for operation of the academy.

You might recall from earlier postings about the Islamic Saudi Academy that previously the County supervisors voted unanimously to renew the school's lease and called citizens who voiced concerns about the school "bigots engaged in slander." You can watch the May 19 pro forma hearing at the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors HERE; select "Public Hearings" from the May 19 links.
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Continuing now with the above-cited Washington Post article:

At issue are recent reviews of teaching materials concluding that some textbooks used by the Islamic school in Fairfax contain language intolerant of Jews and other groups as well as passages that could be construed as advocating violence.

Read the entire report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom HERE. The report is damning!

Please watch this NBC 4 video of June 23, 2008. The video is approximately three minutes in length.

(Crossposted to Infidel Bloggers Alliance and Northern Virginiastan and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS)

UPDATE FROM THIS ARTICLE IN THE JUNE 25, 2008 EDITION OF THE WASHINGTON TIMES:

Federal officials unable to act
State cites lack of authority

The State Department has no authority to close a Saudi-supported school criticized for violent teachings, a spokesman said Tuesday, despite an official request for guidance from the Northern Virginia county that leases space for the school's main campus....

[...]

"My understanding at this point is that this doesn't come under State Department jurisdiction," Mr. McInturff said. "It would have to be credentialed by the State Department as an embassy or as a consulate. That to my knowledge has not happened to this school."

However, the commission contends the act could give the secretary of state authority to take action to close the school. The act defines a foreign mission in part as "any mission to or agency or entity in the United States which is ... substantially owned or effectively controlled by a foreign government."

Read the entire article at the link for this update.

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Director Of The Islamic Saudi Academy Arrested (Stuck Toward The Top)

Pastorius here. I'm a friend of AOW's. She asked me to post this story for her, as weather has left her, once again, without power.

From Always on Watch:

The Islamic Saudi Academy is a school in Northern Virginia and is operated by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.

From this source (hat-tip to Radio Free Dar al Harb):

Islamic Saudi Academy Director Arrested for Obstruction of Justice
June 16, 2008
Fairfax, VA

On June 9th, Fairfax County Police arrested the Director General of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), Mr. Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, on the charges of Obstruction of Justice without Force (VA Code 18.2-460). Charged and released on the same day, Mr. Al-Shabnan is out on his own recognizance as he awaits his first hearing at Fairfax County General District Court on August 1, 2008, at 9:30 a.m.
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Mr. Al-Shaban’s arrest stems from an investigation into the ISA’s alleged failure to comply with State requirements for reporting child abuse. According to authorities, instead of reporting the child abuse, Mr. Al-Shabnan deleted the report, contacted the student’s parents, and recommended psychological counseling for the young victim. Mr. Al-Shaban’s June 9 arrest comes after a May 23rd police search of the ISA where they gathered evidence that has contributed to the charges against Mr. Al-Shabnan.

Years of Controversy Continue

The ISA has been at the center of controversy for many years. A 2007 United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report promoted members of Congress to call for the closure of the school. The 2007 USCIRF report prompted a coalition of concerned grassroots organizations to request the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to delay the renewal of the ISA lease until a Federal investigation into the ISA was completed. During the hearing, County Supervisors dismissed concerns as slanderous, bigoted, and unfounded. During the course of the hearing, Fairfax County Chairman, and Democratic Candidate for the 11th Congressional District, apologized to Mr. Al-Shabnan for what he deemed slanderous accusations that impugned the integrity of the Islamic Saudi Academy.

Since that May 19 hearing, the Mr. Al-Shabnan has been arrested and the USCIRF has confirmed ISA textbooks justify murder as an Islamic right.

Only Supervisor Gross has responded to the issue, and she continues her support for the ISA, and its textbooks that contain passages filled with hate and incitement to violence. Chairman Connolly has yet to retract his apology to the ISA and Mr. Al-Shabnan. Supervisor Hyland has not yet commented on whether the texts cited in the USCIRF report are the similar to those he identified as “texts of concern” during his independent and undocumented investigation of the ISA.

These hateful passages remain despite a 2006 US State Department request for the ISA to remove all insensitive and offensive content from textbooks. The ISA’s non-compliance with the 2006 US State Department request has not been accounted for and raises concerns about what the ISA, as an extension of the Saudi government, considers offensive, and the level of accountability they have to their local hosts and Federal government.

Since the US Treasury Department still considers Saudi Arabia as one of the leading financiers of terrorism, and USCIRF reports identify Saudi Arabia’s education as filled with incitements to murder as a religious freedom, the US State Department has not commented as to whether they will extend this policy and allow Iran and North Korea to open official schools in the US as well.

The ISA’s has run afoul of Virginia law before in hiring a bus driver, Abdelrazeg Abdalla, who had a suspend license, seven traffic violations, a misdemeanor for kidnapping his wife and child at knife point, and a six month detainment by Homeland Security. Nevertheless, the ISA hired Mr. Abdalla as a bus driver. Mr. Abdalla, operating a faulty ISA, bus was responsible for a 2005 multi-car accident.

Additionally, the ISA winner of the superlative Most Likely to Be a Martyr, and 1999 class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, has been convicted on charges of terrorism and attempting to assassinate President Bush.

As a result for the a May 19 hearing, the ISA’s lease of Fairfax County property continues as the Board of Supervisors unanimously supports the ISA as a model school beyond reproach.

A video of the complete May 19 Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Hearing on the Islamic Saudi Academy can be found at: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/cable/channel16/vod.htm

Select “Public Hearings” from the May 19 links.

Of Note:

42:58 Fairfax County Chairman Connolly charges of slander remarks

49:35 Supervisor Gross: Latin can be violent and Parochial Schools contain material as equally offensive as the ISAs.

1:02 Supervisor Hyland begins testimony about why and how they’re is no documentation on his investigation.

Previous Always On Watch postings on the Islamic Saudi Academy are HERE and HERE.

The June 13 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, the first half hour of which was devoted to discussion of the Islamic Saudi Academy is HERE.

Previous Northern Virginiastan postings on the Islamic Saudi Academy are HERE.

Previous IBA postings on the Islamic Saudi Academy.

UPDATE FROM PASTORIUS: Previous reports seemed to indicate the Director of ISA was being questioned about covering up a Child Molestation report. In this most recent story, it is called "Child Abuse."

Which do you think is correct?

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Update On The Islamic Saudi Academy (Stuck NearThe Top) Addendum on June 16

Note: The following posting absolutely requires interested readers to check out the links!

Background information HERE and HERE at two previous postings here at Always On Watch.

The Islamic Saudi Academy, owned by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia and a school for grades Kindergarten through Grade 12 here in Northern Virginia, got quite a mention in the Associated Press today. Excerpt:

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday.

Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists."

The passages were found in selected textbooks used during the 2007-08 school year by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax and receives much of its funding from the Saudi government....

Read the entire article.

Also see the following information:

One

Two

Three

Four

Number Four, by my compadre Pastorius over at Infidel Bloggers Alliance, is a must-read! A thing of beauty, I tell ya.

UPDATE: Article by Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media

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Eating Crow? (With Addendum)

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

If the story below turns out to be substantiated, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors might want to reconsider their renewal of the lease to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia for the Islamic Saudi Academy.
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Follow-up to this posting about the Islamic Saudi Academy, from NBC4 News in Washington, D.C.:

Islamic School Searched After Abuse Allegations Surface
Authorities Say School's Director Didn't Report Abuse Allegations

POSTED: 3:42 pm EDT June 3, 2008
UPDATED: 6:52 pm EDT June 3, 2008

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. -- Fairfax County police searched the Islamic Saudi Academy's west campus last month in connection with an investigation into child abuse allegations.

A 5-year old girl told a teacher in mid-May that her father was sexually abusing her, News4's James Adams reported. Two teachers and the principal at the west campus put together a report and forwarded it to the school's director general, Adams said.

According to court documents, the school's director, Adalla Al-Shabnan, did not believe the girl's complaint.

He later told investigators that he recommended psychological counseling for the girl after meeting with her parents.

Authorities said Al-Shabnan never reported the allegations of abuse to a child protective or law enforcement agency.

Virginia law requires abuse allegations to be reported within 72 hours.

Related: Watch The Report

On May 23, detectives searched and seized computers, notes and records from the school's Fairfax campus.

According to court documents, Al-Shabnan directed the original report to be deleted from the school's computers.

Calls to the academy's director were not returned.

Fairfax County police declined to comment on the investigation.

No charges have been filed.

Yet.

Surely, the school's director, Al-Shabnan, is aware of the strict laws about suspected child-abuse cases reported to a school! One has to wonder if perhaps he didn't file a police report because of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors May 19 hearing about renewing the school's lease. Did the girl tell of the abuse before the hearing regarding the Islamic Saudi Academy's lease? If so, this case could get very ugly.

How does the Board of Supervisors feel now about their pro forma hearing?

Officially, the Islamic Saudi Academy's lease renews for another year on June 30.

ADDENDUM: Also see "Saudi Academy Afoul of the Law Again" at Radio Free Dar Al Harb. Excerpt:

lets see what the House of Saud's premier DC Academy is up to:

1. Ignoring laws to report child abuse
2. Employing a kidnapper with a suspended license as a bus driver
3. Injuring people due to faulty equipment
4. Permitting a "Most likely to be a martyr" class superlative
5. Producing a valedictorian convicted of plotting to assassinate the President
6. Using Saudi curriculum that our Federal government and a local Supervisor identify as containing "texts of concern."

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Dhimmis At The Local Level

In an astounding display of dhimmitude, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors renewed the Saudi Royal Embassy's $2.2 million lease for the Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia.

The 45-minute video of the hearing is available HERE; select "Public Hearings" from the May 19 links. Watch it, but take your blood-pressure medication first. Pay particular attention toward the end, when the Board members put on a display of consummate dhimmitude.
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Among the idiotic statements from Board members, who were presented with concerns about the curriculum used at the Islamic Saudi Academy, is the following (paraphrase):

Latin has violence in it too.

Gerry Connolly, the Board Chairman, also stated, in strong terms, that those who voiced concerns about the school were slandering the school, but that such slander came under the right of freedom of speech. His tone was that of scolding those who had taken time from their day to voice their concerns.

Apparently, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors was (1) uncomfortable with the testimony objecting to the lease and (2) conducting a pro forma hearing.

The vote by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to renew the Islamic Saudi Academy's lease for another year was unanimous. Applause followed the Board's decision.

On the May 30, 3008 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, our second guest, John of Radio Free Dar Al Harb, and I discussed the recent hearing held by the Board of Supervisors. As is often the case with Blog Talk Radio, I had some volume issues with my portion of the discussion; nevertheless, listeners can get the gist of what John and I were saying.

Additional reading: A comprehensive posting on the Islamic Saudi Academy is available HERE, at Blue Ridge Forum.

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Islamic Saudi Academy Again Under Scrutiny

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

It remains to be seen whether or not anything will come of the recommendation of a federal panel. From this source, October 18, 2007:

McLEAN, Va. (AP) - A private Islamic school supported by the Saudi government should be shut down until the U.S. government can ensure the school is not fostering radical Islam, a federal panel recommends.

In a report released Thursday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom broadly criticized what it calls a lack of religious freedom in Saudi society and promotion of religious extremism at Saudi schools.

Particular criticism is leveled at the Islamic Saudi Academy, a private school serving nearly 1,000 students in grades K-12 at two campuses in northern Virginia's Fairfax County.

The commission's report says the academy hews closely to the curriculum used at Saudi schools, which they criticize for promoting hatred of and intolerance against Jews, Christians and Shiite Muslims.

"Significant concerns remain about whether what is being taught at the ISA promotes religious intolerance and may adversely affect the interests of the United States," the report states.

The commission, a creation of Congress, has no power to implement policy on its own. Instead, it makes recommendations to other agencies.

The commission does not offer specific criticism of the academy's teachings beyond its concerns that it too closely mimics a typical Saudi education.

The report recommends that the State Department prevail on the Saudi government to shut the school down until the school's textbooks can be reviewed and procedures are put in place to ensure the school's independence form the Saudi Embassy.

Messages left Wednesday with the State Department and the Saudi Embassy were not immediately returned.

Several advocacy groups in recent years have cited examples of inflammatory statements in religious textbooks in Saudi Arabia, including claims that a ninth-grade textbook reads that the hour of judgment will not come "until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them."

Saudi officials said they have worked in recent years to reform the textbooks and the curriculum, but critics say progress has been insufficient.

The school's director-general, Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, said Wednesday that he had not seen the report. But he said the academy has adjusted its curriculum in recent years and removed some of the inflammatory language that had been included in the Saudi text. The school's curriculum may now serve as a model for the Saudi government to use in continuing its reform of Saudi schools, he said.

"There is nothing in our curriculum against any religion," Al-Shabnan said.

He also said he is willing to show the school's curriculum and textbooks to anybody who wants to see them, and he expressed disappointment that the commission did not request materials directly from the school.

"We have an open policy," he said.

He also pointed out that many of the school's teachers are Christian and Jewish.

The commission based its findings in part on a the work of a delegation that traveled to Saudi Arabia this year. The commission asked embassy officials to review the textbooks used in Saudi schools generally and at the Islamic Saudi Academy specifically but did not receive a response.

Commission spokeswoman Judith Ingram said the commission did not request to speak to academy officials because that went beyond the commission's mandate.

The report also criticizes the school's administrative structure, saying it is little more than an offshoot of the Saudi Embassy, with the Saudi ambassador to the United States serving as chairman of the school's board of directors. The structure "raises serious concerns about whether it is in violation of a U.S. law restricting the activities of foreign embassies."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, critics questioned the nature of the religious education at the Saudi academy. The school again found itself in the spotlight in 2005, when a former class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was charged with joining al-Qaida while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate President Bush.

Abu Ali was convicted in federal court and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is appealing his conviction.

Over two years ago, in an article dated October 5, 2005, significant concerns arose about the Islamic Saudi Academy:

WASHINGTON - The American government is demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores.

The flurry of activity comes months after a report from the Center for Religious Freedom discovered that dozens of mosques in major cities across the country, including New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, were distributing documents, bearing the seal of the government of Saudi Arabia, that incite Muslims to acts of violence and promote hatred of Jews and Christians.

A Washington-based group that is part of the human rights organization Freedom House, the Center for Religious Freedom also found during its yearlong study that the Saudi-produced materials describe democracy and America as un-Islamic. They instruct recent Muslim immigrants to consider Americans as enemies and the materials urge new arrivals to use their time here as preparation for jihad. The documents also promote the version of Islam officially embraced by Saudi government and several of the September 11, 2001, hijackers, Wahhabism, as the only authentic Islam....

Some six months before the above article, the Washington Post published the following about the Islamic Saudi Academy:

Eleventh-graders at the elite Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia study energy and matter in physics, write out differential equations in precalculus and read stories about slavery and the Puritans in English.

Then they file into their Islamic studies class, where the textbooks tell them the Day of Judgment can't come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews.

As early as 2004, Paul Sperry wrote "Look Who's Teaching Johnny about Islam," an article indicating that that the influence of the Islamic Saudi Academy extends further than the boundaries of the school's two campuses:

A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government, which propagates a rigidly anti-Western strain of Islam, a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals.

The consultant, Susan L. Douglass, has also praised Pakistan's madrassa schools as "proud symbols of learning," even after the U.S. government blamed them for fueling the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Douglass, routinely described as a "scholar" or "historian," has edited manuscripts of world history textbooks used by middle and high school students across the country. She's also advised state education boards on curriculum standards dealing with world religion, and has helped train thousands of public school teachers on Islamic instruction.

In effect, she is responsible for teaching millions of American children about Islam, experts say, while operating in relative obscurity.

WorldNetDaily has learned that up until last year Douglass taught social studies at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Va., which teaches Wahhabism through textbooks that condemn Jews and Christians as infidels and enemies of Islam. Her husband, Usama Amer, still teaches at the grades 2-12 school, a spokeswoman there confirmed.

Susan Douglass also has connections to the Council on Islamic Education:

Critics complain that Douglass, who taught at the Saudi academy for at least a decade, has convinced American textbook publishers and educators to gloss over the violent aspects of Islam to make the faith more appealing to non-Muslim children. The units on Islam reviewed by WND appear to give a glowing and largely uncritical view of the faith.

Asked about it, Douglass referred questions to the Council on Islamic Education, which did not respond. CIE's website lists her in its staff directory as a "principal researcher and writer."

CIE is a Los Angeles-based Muslim activist group run by Shabbir Mansuri, who has been quoted in the local press saying he's waging a "bloodless" revolution to fight what he calls anti-Muslim bias in public schools and promote Islam in a positive light in American classrooms. Mansuri, who consults with Saudi education ministers at his center, claimed in a 2002 op-ed piece that Islam has been on American soil "since before this nation was founded."

[...]

Douglass has argued for more in-depth coverage of Islam in classrooms, while at the same time advising that Christian principles, including historic facts such as Christ's crucifixion, are clearly qualified with attributions such as "Christians believe."

Houghton Mifflin is not the only major publisher influenced by CIE. Prentice Hall also collaborates with the group. And its "Connections to Today," which is the most widely used world history book in the country, instructs students that jihad is an "inner struggle to achieve spiritual peace," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Also, CIE has helped write supplemental teachers materials that engage children in entertaining Muslim role-playing activities in the class. Parents say they make the study of Christianity and other religions seem dull by comparison....

I'm not holding my breath for the academy to close. Similar calls, including calls for extensive education of the institution, have come before. Besides, as I mentioned earlier in this posting, the school's influence extends much further than the boundaries of the academy's campuses. Nevertheless, closing the academy would be a step in the right direction.

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