The Washington Post reported July 25 that a Saudi-funded Islamic school in Fairfax, Virginia promoted Islamic extremism and hatred of Jews and Christians, after viewing the schools’ textbooks.

The Islamic Saudi Academy as of 2006 was using eight-grade textbooks describing Jews and Christians as the enemies of Muslims and compared them to apes and pigs, and even “diagrammed for high school students where to cut off the hands and feet of thieves,” The Washington Post reported.

Although the Post’s review concluded that much of the extremist text had been removed after 2006, they did find one textbook that still called for dying in jihad and advocated the killing of those who leave Islam and those who commit adultery.

The Academy’s $2.2 million lease is paid by Saudi embassy, which requires permission from the State Department. The Academy has been used in the past to teach American military personnel how to speak Arabic, and one of its graduates, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was convicted of being an Al-Qaeda terrorist involved in a plot to assassinate President George W. Bush.

Some students interviewed by The Post said they were not taught extremism, and Academy administrators, including one that is a Christian, say they ordered teachers not to preach intolerance.

The school has been in the news since 2007 when the Commission on International Religious Freedom began criticizing the school for its promotion of intolerance.

by Ryan Mauro