The Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), founded, funded, and controlled by the Saudi Government, seeks to expand its school in Fairfax on Popes Head Road. Currently the ISA has two locations, an upper grade school near Ft Belvoir/Mt Vernon and a lower grade school in Fairfax. The Wahabbists want to consolidate all 900 (and growing) students at the Fairfax location.
At the center of the controversy are the school’s curriculum and the crimes committed by those who attended or worked at the ISA:
Ismail Selim Elbarasse served as an accountant at ISA for 14 years before he was arrested for videotaping bridge structures including the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in August, 2004. On the day of his arrest, he was also named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” for laundering money on behalf of the American affiliate of Hamas.
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali , an ISA valedictorian, is serving a thirty-year prison sentence for providing material support to Al-Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President G.W. Bush.
Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, Director General (Principal) ISA, was arrested by Fairfax police in June, 2008 for obstruction of justice and failing to report a case of child sexual abuse involving a five year old girl at the Popes Head campus. Al-Shabnan was fined $500.
§ Mohammed El-Yacoubi and Mohammed Osman Idris, were denied entry into Israel when authorities there found El-Yacoubi carrying what the FBI believed was a suicide note linked to a planned martyrdom operation in Israel.
There is a pattern of anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian activity at the Islamic Saudi Academy. The curriculum sanctions murder against Jews, adulterers, homosexuals, and converts from Islam—for all other Americans these would be considered crimes.
Each time the ISA gets caught and there is a new flare-up over the hate taught at the ISA, the school “fixes” the curriculum a little. In anticipation of this zoning request, Planning Commission hearings and then the full Board hearing , the ISA has once again claimed they have altered their textbooks. However, while the Islamic Saudi Academy deleted some of the most contentious passages from the texts, copies provided to The Associated Press show that enough sensitive material remains to fuel critics who claim the books show intolerance toward those who do not follow strict interpretations of Islamic Shariah.
