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U.S. textbooks present rosy view of Islam, critical view of the West

2.12.2003

A review of world history textbooks used in U.S. classrooms found that they routinely sanitize the problems of Islam while treating events in Western history and Christianity more critically. The report, released last week by the American Textbook Council, notes that topics such as jihad, the advocacy of violence among militant Islamists, the record of Muslim enslavement, and the harsh subjection of women are glossed over in U.S. textbooks. The study suggests that the rosy treatment of Islam may arise from the lobbying of the Council on Islamic Education, which has sent publishers guidelines and definitions for textbooks and has protested against those that it says offend Muslims.

"Textbooks said to hide problems with Islam," by Larry Witham, The Washington Times, February 7, 2003

To download a copy of the study, Islam and the Textbooks, surf to http://www.historytextbooks.org/islamreport.pdf

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