Interpreting Islam in American Schools

How is Islam taught in American schools? Teaching Islam to young Americans is a relatively recent phenomenon. The Israeli-Arab conflict shaped the contours of the study of Islam with images & stereotypes inherited from the Crusades & Colonialism. Islam has been taught not as an essential ingredient of the World History but through the political conflicts of Israelis & Arabs as well as the American global agenda within which Qaddafi, Hafez al-Asad, & Ayatullah Khomeini emerged as the representatives of Islam. The Muslim population in America grew dramatically in the twentieth century, & curriculum was devised to include Islam without disturbing the unitary narrative of Western Civilization: The textbooks disconnect Islam from the Judeo-Christian tradition even as they emphasize how Islam borrowed from Jewish & Christian scriptures. Textbook writers portrayed Islam in light of the Arab nomadic society & the life of the Prophet of Islam while deliberately downplaying the Abrahamic legacy in Islam. 39 References. [Copyright 2003 Sage Publications, Inc.]