http://www.jihadwat ch.org/archives/ 020287.php
Spencer: Muslim Elementary School Welcomed in Minnesota
Establishment Clause issue? Naah. Not when it involves Islam. Here is my
column for Human Events <http://www.humaneve nts.com/article. php?id=25470>
this week:
Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and
housed in the same building as a church? Add to that — in the same building
— a prominent chapel. And let’s say the students are required to fast
during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax
dollars.
Inconceivable? Sure. If such a place existed, the ACLU lawyers would descend
on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say “separation
of church and state,” to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington
Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the
growing influence of the Religious Right in America.
But such a school does exist in Minnesota, in a different religious context,
and so far the ACLU has uttered nary a peep.
Tax dollars are currently at work funding the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a
popular, rapidly growing K-8 charter school with campuses in Inver Grove
Heights and Blaine, Minnesota. According to the Minnesota Department of
Education
<http://education. state.mn. us/mde/About_ MDE/News_ Center/Press_ Releases/ 01172
8> , as a Minnesota charter school implementing a statewide “performance and
professional pay program” known as Q-Comp, Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy pocketed
$65,260 in state money for the 2006-07 school year. The school’s website
<http://www.tizacade my.com/> , meanwhile, boasts that it offers a “rigorous
Arabic language program” and an “environment that fosters your cultural
values and heritage.” Whose cultural values and heritage? According to the
indefatigable investigative reporter Katherine
<http://www.startrib une.com/16404541 .html> Kersten of the Star Tribune,
“there are strong indications that religion plays a central role” there.
Which religion? Do you need three guesses?
The Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy was co-founded by two imams; is housed in the
same building as a mosque and the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American
Society (MAS); features a carpeted space for prayer; and serves halal food
in the cafeteria. All students fast during Ramadan. They attend classes on
the Qur’an and Sunnah, or Islamic tradition and law, after school. The
school is closely tied to the MAS: Kersten observes that “at MAS-MN’s 2007
convention, for example, the program featured an advertisement for the
‘Muslim American Society of Minnesota,’ superimposed on a picture of a
mosque. Under the motto ‘Establishing Islam in Minnesota,’ it asked: ‘Did
you know that MAS-MN … houses a full-time elementary school’? On the
adjacent page was an application for TIZA” — the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy.
The existence of the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy is, of course, yet another
manifestation of the witless multiculturalism that grants protected victim
status to Muslim groups in view of the “racism” and “Islamophobia” from
which they supposedly suffer. Latitude that would never be granted to other
faith groups, particularly Christians, is readily given here.
But it’s even worse than that. According to a 2004 Chicago Tribune exposé
<http://www.chicagot ribune.com/ news/specials/ chi-0409190261se p19,1,6654807, f
ull.story> , the Muslim American Society is the name under which the Muslim
Brotherhood operates in the United States. And according to a 1992
Brotherhood memorandum about its strategy in the U.S., it is embarked upon a
“grand Jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization
from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the
hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made
victorious over all other religions.”
Is Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy part of this “grand jihad”? A clue might come
from the name of the school itself. Kersten notes that it was named after
the eighth-century Muslim conqueror of Spain. Islam Online praised
<http://www.islamonl ine.com/news/ newsfull. php?newid= 621> Tarek ibn Ziyad in
a 2004 article as a “man of valor, a man of extraordinary courage and a true
leader.” He is chiefly remembered for one incident in particular. Landing in
Spain, he ordered the Muslim forces’ boats to be burned, and then told his
soldiers: “Brothers in Islam! We now have the enemy in front of us and the
deep sea behind us. We cannot return to our homes, because we have burnt our
boats. We shall now either defeat the enemy and win or die a coward’s death
by drowning in the sea. Who will follow me?” The soldiers, crying “Allahu
akbar,” rushed ahead and defeated a vastly superior Spanish force.
Does the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy represent the same idea for those who
founded it and now operate it — the burning of the boats, representing the
determination of Muslim immigrants to stay in the U.S., followed by
conquest? In light of the Brotherhood memorandum and other evidence about
the jihadist allegiances of the Muslim American Society, it is not an
illegitimate question.
But what public official, in Minnesota or elsewhere, dares to ask it?
