Amid concerns that history textbooks are downplaying the important role of Christianity in America's founding comes a report that Islam extremism is being treated with kid gloves in some of those textbooks.
Christian historian David Barton, founder and president of WallBuilders, has for years advised parents to examine their children's school textbooks. "Always remember that your children do not know as much about history as you do -- and consequently have no basis for identifying bias," Barton says on his website.
No doubt he would caution parents if their children's classroom were using World History: The Modern World (Prentice Hall) -- a textbook that the director of The American Textbook Council points out as one example in an educational trend that presents a biased view of Islam and a sugarcoated picture of Islamic extremism.
In his report "Islam in the Classroom: What the textbooks tell us" [PDF] Gilbert T. Sewall says he finds "uniquely disturbing" what he perceives as deficiencies in Islam-related lessons.
"[K]ey subjects like jihad, Islamic law, [and] the status of women are whitewashed," Sewall tells Fox News -- a treatment he attributes to pressure from Islamic activists on publishers to downplay Islamic terrorism and shine a favorable light on the religion. "The picture is incomplete...and the reason for this is that publishers are afraid of the Islamic activists. They don't want trouble."
In his review process, Sewall asked questions such as "What do textbooks say about terrorism?" and "What do they say about the September 11 air attack on the United States?"
According to Fox News, Sewall discovered that Prentice Hall's The Modern World omits direct mention of the 9/11 hijackers' religion, instead referring to them as "teams of terrorists."
"In terms of content [about the historic attacks], so much is left unanswered," he tells Fox News. "Who were the teams of terrorists and what did they want to do? What were their political ends?" And with such questions unanswered, he says it is hard to understand why the attacks took place.
Another question he asked: "Do [textbooks] describe and explain looming dangers to the United States and world?" The textbook History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond (Teachers Curriculum Institute), he says, glosses over the violent aspects of Islamic jihad.
That textbook states that "Jihad is defined as a struggle within each individual to overcome difficulties and strive to please god. Sometimes it may be a physical struggle for protection against enemies."
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Why do you think textbook publishers aren't addressing
the terrorist-related aspects of Islam?
In his conclusions, Sewall states: "Deficiencies about Islam in textbooks copyrighted before 2001 persist and in some cases have grown worse. Textbook coverage of jihad and sharia are cases in point. Instead of making corrections or acknowledging contested facts, publishers and their editors defend misinformation and content evasions against the record. Bias persists. Silences are profound and intentional."
