Press Release

The Colonial West Seeks to Eliminate any Traces of Islam from Pakistan’s Education Curriculum under the False Guise of Ensuring Religious Tolerance

On the 22^nd November, Pakistani media reported on a recent report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) entitled, “Teaching Intolerance In Pakistan - Religious Bias in Public School Textbooks”. In the name of so-called ‘Religious Tolerance’, the report recommended that overemphasis on Islam as being the “only correct” faith must be eliminated from school textbooks. The report also stated that the foremost reoccurring trend in textbooks is an overemphasis on the glorification of war and war heroes, particularly the Islamic conquest of Sindh by Muhammad ibn Qasim. It also objected on the mention of certain Islamic beliefs in the education curricula; one example quoted as being problematic was that, “The Islamic religion, culture and social system are different from non-Muslims…”. The report recommended that secular international norms on religious freedoms be reflected in textbooks’ contents and that absolutely no content should be taught that celebrates one religion at the expense of another. It also recommended that the curriculum should inculcate a sense of constructive patriotism and that heroes from all religious minorities should be included in textbooks.

The education curriculum of Pakistan is already based upon a secular foundation, with Islam and Islamic history delivered as mere information and a subject on par with other subjects which has no significant importance to the culture and heritage of the Muslims of Pakistan. Such teaching therefore has little impact in building the Islamic thinking and behavior of the students, many of whom view the Islamic beliefs which are taught to them as outdated and irrelevant to their lives due to this secular teaching method. Furthermore, the education system in Pakistan has been subjected to continuous de-Islamisization agendas and programmes at the hand of Western colonial governments and institutions, which has intensified in recent years in their ‘War on Terror’. According to the USCIRF, a majority of their so-called “examples of religious intolerance” (equated to basic Islamic beliefs) published in their previous 2011 report, “Connecting the Dots: Education and Religious Discrimination in Pakistan” had already been removed from textbooks by local authorities.

It is clear that Western colonial governments, in collusion with their subservient secular lackey government in Islamabad, will not be content until every trace of Islam is erased from the education curricula of Pakistan. The aim of their secular crusader campaign is to colonise the minds of the youth of Pakistan, in the same way they colonized the Muslim lands, in order to continue their hegemony over the region and maintain their Western-serving regimes and systems. They seek to rob our children of pride in their Islamic identity, their glorious Islamic heritage, and truth of their Deen to deliver the most just system to mankind, while also force-feeding them the corrupt secular culture. This will lead to more of our youth becoming embroiled in the same self-destructing lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, illicit relationships, and crime that plague the youth of Western states. Indeed the agenda of further secularizing and eradicating Islam from the education systems in countries across the Muslim world, including in Palestine, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, and Bangladesh has intensified in recent months. This reflects the scale of panic of colonial governments over the rising and overwhelming support for Islamic governance in the Muslim lands, including amongst Muslim youth. They have pursued this agenda using all forms of lies and deception, for example associating religious intolerance with the celebration of Islamic beliefs and history. They conceal the fact that Western and Eastern secular states are plagued with a tsunami of religious intolerance and a mountain of hate-crimes against religious and racial minorities in their societies due their racist nationalistic beliefs. In contrast, under the Islamic rule of the Khilafah "Caliphate" non-Muslims enjoyed a level of protection, prosperity and religious tolerance unsurpassed by any other state in history.

We call the people of Pakistan to reject this liberal intellectual genocide of the Muslim youth and to support the urgent re-establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate" (Caliphate) based upon the method of the Prophethood which will implement an education system that will build exemplary Islamic personalities and demonstrate excellence in every field of study, science and development.

Women’s Section

in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir