Turkish public school textbook promotes armed jihad
The religious course textbook used in 12th grade in Turkish public schools is promoting armed jihad, Nordic Monitor reported on Monday.
The 2019 edition of the book titled “Fundamentals of Islam’s Religious Beliefs,” emphasizes that armed jihad is obligatory for all Muslims, “ignoring the abuse of the jihad concept by violent terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS),” the research monitoring network said.
Turkey’s curriculum has been radicalised in recent years, under the governance of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Inclusion of the concept of “jihad” in the curriculum, has sparked criticism from the secular circles of the country.
“Today, the concept of jihad is associated with bad examples, especially by the opponents of Islam,” according to the textbook, Nordic Monitor said.
“The book completely ignores the use of jihad by terrorist organizations and does not make a single reference to al-Qaeda, ISIS or other violent jihadist groups that abuse the concept for murder, plunder, rape and other crimes,” the website said.
In February 2018, the official sermon sent to 90,000 mosques for Friday prayers by Turkish state religious authorities also glorified “armed jihad,” according to Stockholm Center for Fredom (SCF).
“Engaging in armed struggle for belief, existence, nation, survival and freedom is the highest level of jihad,” SCF cited the sermon as saying.
