The good side of what Trump is doing is that so many such ignorant fools will make themselves apparent to their neighbours, friends and family members…
Just to give her a taste…someone should transcribe her own words (i.e. “Blessed be the name of THE LORD. THE LORD OF LORDS AND THE KING OF KINGS. THERE IS POWER IN HIS NAME AND HE IS WORTHY OF ALL PRAISE.”) into Arabic and post them on her page…
re: Ignorant Parents Shut Down Entire School District
Just read that. Its highly disgusting. I dont know what these hatemongers are turning this country into. In school/college academics study of religions is as important as linguistics. But now everything is turning upside down. SMH.
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In this case I think it's more a study of art......
I guess we shouldn't be surprised because sensitivities are so high right now.
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So next thing you know students will be barred from reading about Islamic history. Remove all historic books from libraries containing word "Islam". Lets see how learned the students come out when they graduate. Oh wait, remove all books about Hinduism, Judaism as well because Hindus kill Christians in some other parts of the world, Jews kill Christians in some part of the world.
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to be fair, this is a bit weird - the teacher could have picked something less sensitive to copy than the shahada. like "hello, world" in arabic. how would muslims react if their kids came home with homework that involved writing "jesus is the only way" or something.
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I might not agree with the parents' OTT reaction, but they're not wrong to be perturbed by the design of the class lesson.
Let’s take the other examples:
If you as a Muslim parent were told that your child had to go to the river and ask for forgiveness of their sins and proclaim Jesus to be their Lord and saviour – all in the interest of studying early American Christian practices -would that be okay with you? I mean it is just a school lesson in religion? Or what if your child was told they had to prostrate in front of a Hindu idol – again, all in the name of a lesson at school - is that acceptable? After all, its' only part of the immersive learning experience.
Let’s talk about the shahadah. How many converts for the sake of marriage have we heard about who go to a masjid and say the shahadah and then proclaim themselves to be Muslim? So many of us Muslims have associated conversion to Islam to be the mere saying of the shahadah – so why shouldn’t these parents be weirded out by it?
Do I think the teacher has any ill-intention? Probably not. But whatever lesson book she took the homework assignment from – should never have used to the shahadah as the lesson to teach Arabic calligraphy. There are any number of Quranic verses that would have served the lesson better.
I think the experience brought the bigots to the fore – but objecting to the lesson was their right and if done in a respectful way – I wouldn’t be offended by it.
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Ok, I guess that i was the only person in class for that but I have experience with something similar.
We usually read about Elie Wiesel's Night and the jewish teacher decided to have us learn all the jewish holidays and traditions. The irony is that none of it, if any, was relevant to the book which is about his experiences in the holocaust.
Another example from another friend in AP English in our school is that they did a project where they to use the Old Testament as a class. I don't know where separation of church and state in a public school went out the window there.
I know that muslims are different and it isn't a country, but I just wanted to bring in another perspective.
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I might not agree with the parents' OTT reaction, but they're not wrong to be perturbed by the design of the class lesson.
Let’s take the other examples:
If you as a Muslim parent were told that your child had to go to the river and ask for forgiveness of their sins and proclaim Jesus to be their Lord and saviour – all in the interest of studying early American Christian practices -would that be okay with you? I mean it is just a school lesson in religion? Or what if your child was told they had to prostrate in front of a Hindu idol – again, all in the name of a lesson at school - is that acceptable? After all, its' only part of the immersive learning experience.
Let’s talk about the shahadah. How many converts for the sake of marriage have we heard about who go to a masjid and say the shahadah and then proclaim themselves to be Muslim? So many of us Muslims have associated conversion to Islam to be the mere saying of the shahadah – so why shouldn’t these parents be weirded out by it?
Do I think the teacher has any ill-intention? Probably not. But whatever lesson book she took the homework assignment from – should never have used to the shahadah as the lesson to teach Arabic calligraphy. There are any number of Quranic verses that would have served the lesson better.
I think the experience brought the bigots to the fore – but objecting to the lesson was their right and if done in a respectful way – I wouldn’t be offended by it.
I don't think the examples you've given compare. There students were not being asked to take an oath....in fact, they were not even told what the phrase meant.
My understanding is that the lesson was about calligraphy....not about faith.
Totally agree with both you and queer that another phrase could have been selected....but somehow I have a feeling that no matter what the meaning, anything in Arabic would have been objectionable to some.
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All of you are right in your own way. As muzna said many things could be objectionable. I agree. Suppose studying religious philosophies is in syllabus. And in exam question on buddhism is asked - what is 'app dipo bhava'? Or what is 'nirvana' according to Jainism? or an assignment is given to write main philosophies in various religions, then this could be objectionable.
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if you signed up for a religion class, then it is expected to be on syllabus, anjul mata ji. this isnt about a religion class.
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Jai Mata di
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@queer okay that was not a religion class. I was saying about objection on religious grounds and I think that is relevent to the topic. I don't know school syllabus of different countries I studied these things in History and Art & Culture under cultural and religious developments, I was taught Religious ideas and beliefs as well. If these things are not in syllabus of other countries then this could be a reason (if they are not studied that too sincerely in India) why TLK wrote Jainism a sect of Hinduism and PCG wrote face covering in Muslims of south Asia influence by Hindus. How is this possible when history says Hindus adopted that practice from Muslims after Muslim invasion. Thank you for calling me Mata ji. I guess some basic information about religions is given there, may be I am wrong. I will try to know this. I inform you that I am a male so I accept this as Pita ji if you are too young ie a kid. God bless you peace and happiness.
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I agree that asking to write Shahadah is a bit too much.
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The irony is probably lost on those Canadian Muslim parents who found themselves on the same side as Christian conservative parents re Physical education curriculum for kids from 1st grade through hwigh school.
On that occasion, they sided with the "family values" crowd. And pulled their children out of classrooms.
Out of a 250 plus page curriculum, one to two pages had some controversial points. But that didn't prevent the religious crowd.from dismissing the entire curriculum.
So they essential shut down the school as far as their kids were concerned. So by that standard, what happened here was EQUALLY looney.
Also, I highly doubt those Canadian parents would want their children to write in Hindi "On Namah Shivaya" even if their kids don't understand Hindi or Sanskrit.
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to be fair, this is a bit weird - the teacher could have picked something less sensitive to copy than the shahada. like "hello, world" in arabic. how would muslims react if their kids came home with homework that involved writing "jesus is the only way" or something.
I am not sure if other than Quranic-verses calligraphy is as widely available to be taken for exercise.
I might not agree with the parents' OTT reaction, but they're not wrong to be perturbed by the design of the class lesson.
Let’s take the other examples:
If you as a Muslim parent were told that your child had to go to the river and ask for forgiveness of their sins and proclaim Jesus to be their Lord and saviour – all in the interest of studying early American Christian practices -would that be okay with you? I mean it is just a school lesson in religion? Or what if your child was told they had to prostrate in front of a Hindu idol – again, all in the name of a lesson at school - is that acceptable? After all, its' only part of the immersive learning experience.
Here the question is not if the students should take shahada or not.... the question was simply to copy the "graphics"/"image", not to understand what the graphics/image meant. If the teacher had started preaching about the image or started lecture on its meaning then it could compare with what you are saying.
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^ salam alaikum would have worked. Why have any verse from the Quran?
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objection would still be ‘oh its Islamic greeting’ 
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there should be no religion in public schools whether christian, muslim, jew. If they wanted to have some arabic calligraphy thing going for students, they should have told them to write habibi
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Salam Alaikum
