Found in schools

LONDON: BOOKS that claim hell is mostly full of women because they are “ungrateful to their husbands” have been found in Islamic schools in the UK.

Inspectors found the books, one of them which was titled Women Who Deserve To Go To Hell, in a library. The book, which was available to pupils, also said women were deficient in intelligence and must always obey men.

It claimed women would go to hell if they cut their hair, plucked their eyebrows or had cosmetic dental work.

It said women must not refuse to have sex with their husbands, show ingratitude or “have tall ambitions”.

Readers are told: “In the beginning of the 20th century, a movement for the freedom of women was l a u n c h e d with the basic objective of driving women towards aberrant ways.”

Written by Egyptian preacher Mansoor Abdul Hakim, the book was among a dossier of misogynist religious literature found by inspectors visiting Muslim schools. The materials came from state-funded schools as well as private faith schools and those running illegally as unregistered madrassas – Islamic schools that teach Arabic and the Qur’an.

The office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofested), a non-ministerial department, said the material was out of step with mainstream Mus- lim thinking and risk to children.

Chief Ofsted inspector Amanda Spielman went to court last month to successfully defend a decision to place the Al-Hijrah School in Birmingham into special measures for segregating boys and girls from the age of nine.

One school Ofsted visited encouraged children to read a text that contrasted the “noble women of the East” with the “internally torn woman of the West”. It claimed Western women just wanted to attract men and hang around aimlessly in cinemas and cafés.

Other library books insisted that “the man by way of correction can also beat” his wife.

O f s t e d said its i ns p e c t o r s saw pupils’ work marked by teachers that stated women had a responsibility “only to bear children and bring them up as Muslims”.

In a box titled “Daily Life and Relationships”, a pupil had written that men were physically stronger and women emotionally weaker.

The worksheet was covered in ticks from the teacher.

Ofsted said it was concerned that religious schools were exposing children to inappropriate material.

It added that by trying to be inclusive, well-meaning mainstream schools might be unintentionally permitting extreme forms of Islam. – Daily Mail

One was ‘Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell’