Audrey Shabbas, the director of Arab World and Islamic Resources (AWAIR) in Berkeley, California, may be America’s most effective educator in guiding public school students to embrace a radically pro-Islamic world view.
Shabbas is the author and editor of a number of hugely influential resources for teachers: The Arab World Studies Notebook, The Arab World Notebook: For the Secondary School Level, The Arabs: Activities for the Elementary and Middle School and A Medieval Banquet in the Alhambra Palace. These are 540+ page, looseleaf compendiums for different grade levels, published jointly by the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC) and AWAIR.
The AWAIR website offers, “We can offer you [school districts and principals] a full day’s staff development program at NO COST TO YOU!” This means a 5-7 hour workshop involving 30+ teachers.
Shabbas told the Daily Star (Lebanon) that she orients curriculum to a pro-Islamic view and “points teachers toward tools that will help them go farther in their own classrooms. Over the years, the [Arab World Studies] Notebook has been distributed to over 10,000 teachers, most of whom share the resource with others. If each notebook teaches 250 students a year over 10 years, then you’ve reached 25 million students.”
The MEPC provides a free copy of the Notebook to each workshop participant.
According to Sandra Stotsky, former director of a development institute for teachers at Harvard, cited by Stanley Kurtz in “Saudi in Her Classroom” (National Review Online, July 25, 2007), Shabbas’ seminars promote, rather than describe, Islam while excluding or criticizing Jewish and Christian views. The lesson plans also provide an affective, experiential approach, with children role-playing Islamic life, saying Muslim prayers, and copying and memorizing portions of the Koran.
Stotsky remarked, “If Harvard’s outreach personnel had designed similar classroom exercises based on Christian or Jewish models, then People for the American Way, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the A.C.L.U. would descend upon them like furies.”
How can the Middle East Policy Council fund this continent-spanning teacher-training project?
According to Stanley Kurtz, the teacher training project is funded through various channels leading back to the government of Saudi Arabia. Says Kurz, “The full extent of Saudi curricular funding… includes funding from Saudi Aramco, a Saudi government-owned oil company, for a Berkeley, California-based group called AIWAR.”
Moreover, “MEPC is headed by a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and, according to the JTA, receives direct funding from Saudi Arabia.”
According to a 4-part study which, according to Kurtz, was first reported by the JTA, the MEPC sought major funding for its teaching efforts from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz in late 2005. Alwaleed personally provided more than one million dollars for the express purpose of shaping American teachers’ perceptions of the Middle East.
The final piece of the puzzle discovered by the JTA is a foundation called Dar al Islam (“Abode of Islam”), located in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Created with Saudi funding, Dar al Islam has sponsored workshops in 175 different cities in 43 states, which, boasts the MEPC’s website, “more than 16,000 educators have attended.”
