July 28—A group of Virginians who are outraged about the plans to expand a Muslim school may have just gotten the ammunition they need to block the project. The Academy, whose activities were suspicious enough to warrant an investigation by a federal commission, has been incredibly controversial since its doors opened.
After last year, the U.S. panel actually recommended the school, which is funded entirely by the Saudi Arabian government, be closed. Among other things, reporters found that the textbooks encouraged Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam.
According to curriculum obtained by MSNBC in 2008, the Islamic Saudi Academy has been a breeding ground for terrorists. School officials have denied the claims, but that may prove difficult after yesterday’s court ruling.
At the insistence of the Fourth Circuit Court o f Appeals, a U.S. District judge increased the sentence of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, an Al Qaeda operative who was convicted for plotting to assassinate President Bush, from 30 years to life. It turns out that Ali was the valedictorian of his 1999 class at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County…Meanwhile, residents are doing everything they can to stop the plans, even forming an official coalition.
The request to expand the Academy is so unpopular in Falls Church, Virginia that 46 people have asked to speak at an upcoming hearing. In a New York Times article earlier this summer, the head of the group, James Lafferty, said “We feel that it is really a madrassa, a training place for young impressionable Muslim students in some of the most extreme and fanatical teachings of Islam. That concerns us greatly.” And it should concern all of us who don’t want to experience another 9-11 before our government takes this homegrown extremism seriously.
Tony Perkins heads the Family Research Council. This article was excerpted from the Washington Update that he compiles for the FRC.
