Sweden: School and Sharia Law

“Tolerance” takes interesting twists

Amputating thieves’ hands will cut down on crime, and killing those who are caught being sexually unfaithful with bring down the number of adultery cases.  This according to a representative for an Arab-Islamic school in answering questions on Islam.

“This is Islam’s answer, not mine,” says Kamal Moubadder about his book “40 frågor om islam” (40 questions about Islam).  He is one of two joint owners in the company that runs Al-Mustafa school in the Järfälla suburb of Stockholm and until two years ago was also the principal of the school.

Both the school and Moubadder have now been reported to the Swedish National Agency for Education for Moubadder’s “barbaric opinions” which make him unsuitable to own and run a school.  The report says that all school employees should abide by the Education Act and the curriculum’s basic values and distance themselves from whatever goes against those values.

Kamal Moubadder says that he doesn’t want capital punishment for unfaithfulness or amputations for theft to be introduced to Sweden today, bearing in mind that it would upset the overall system of justice.  But he accepts Islamic sharia law in other countries and admits he can imagine them in Sweden on one condition: that Swedish citizens would vote for these laws in a democratic process.Ragnar Eliasson, deputy director-general of the National Agency for Education, cannot remember a similar case when a school manager’s or owner’s personal opinions outside the school were reported and does not want to comment specifically on Al-Mustafa School.  He says that generally it is remarkable if a school representative expresses such opinions since they clash directly with the values that schools are expected to protect and actively work for.  This includes the sanctity of human life, equality between men and women and tolerance.

The National Agency for Education will decide, probably before school starts in August, on how to react to the reports about Kamal Moubadder and the Al-Mustafa school.

Kamal Moubadder emphasizes that the activity at the Al-Mustafa school follows the requirements of the Education Act and curriculum.  The school’s Arab-Islamic profile means, according to Moubadder, that the students have two extra hours of Arabic and one hour of Islam a week.  Moubadder, who had written several books on Islam, also says that his book “40 questions about Islam” is not used in the school.

“The book was written in 1992, eight years before Al-Mustafa school started.  It has never been printed after that, and is not used in the education.”

The book’s contents, including the foreword, can be found on several sites on the internet.  On one site it says the text was reviewed by the Association of the Islamic Unity in Sweden , which is part of the shiite Muslim umbrella organization Islamiska Shiasamfundet (Islamic Shiite Society).

Kamal Moubadder says he did not publish the text online.

http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2007/07/sweden-school-and-sharia-law.html

2007-07-25