Religious intolerence still found in Saudi textbooks
5 June 2006

The quest to eliminate religious and ethnic intolerance has led to efforts to reform textbooks and curricula around the world. One such attempt by Saudi Arabia, which appears to not have been successful, is featured in the Washington Post on May 21.  The author, Nina Shea, is the Director of Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom and Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. According to Shea, a 2004 Saudi royal study group acknowledged the need to reform the country’s religious studies curriculum and eliminate elements that encourage violence against “the other” in order to safeguard the students’ own religion.

Since then, Saudi government officials claimed to have revised their textbooks. However, according to a sample of official Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks, students continue to be indoctrinated with a “dualistic vision,” dividing the world into true believers of Islam and the unbelievers.  Shea cites examples of vitriolic references to Jews as apes and Christians as swine.  First graders are told that “Every religion other than Islam is false,” and fill-in-the-blank exercises condemn outsiders to “hellfire.”   One fourth grade textbook claims that “True belief means… that you hate polytheists but do not treat them unjustly.” An eighth grade book portrays Jews as devil worshippers, and includes an activity in which the student “writes a composition on the danger of imitating infidels.” High school books call an enduring clash between Muslims and Jews “God’s will and wisdom.”

Responding to Shea’s piece, the Saudi Ambassador has stated that “there are hundreds of books that are being revised to comply with the new requirements and the process remains ongoing.”