None of the Al-Aqsa Islamic School’s inculcating hatred of Infidels, especially Jews, will lead to any trouble for the group. But a lawsuit with charges of systemic anti-black racism is much more worrisome.
By Hugh Fitzgerald, FrontPage Magazine
A former teacher at a Muslim school in Philadelphia is suing both the school and its principal for “overt” anti-black racism. Robert Spencer wrote about this here, and more on this welcome development can be found here: “Lawsuit Filed against Philadelphia Islamist School, Alleging ‘Overt’ Anti-Black Racism,” by Sam Westrop, Focus On Western Islamism, July 10, 2023:
“A teacher fired from Philadelphia’s Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy has filed a civil suit against the school and its principal, alleging extraordinary anti-black racism at the school.
“Arslan Shaikh served as a ‘general studies’ teacher with Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy from August 2020 to April 28, 2023. In his filed complaint, he alleges, throughout his time at the school, he observed ‘disproportionate allocation of discipline and removal of black children relative to their non-black counterparts.’
“Moreover, Shaikh claims that a report he wrote, documenting racist comments aimed at black students by other students, was “edited … to omit [mention of] the overt racism.”
“He also alleges that non-black children were given privileges denied to black children. On one occasion, several non-black students received failing grades. These grades were then changed to ‘passing’ by Defendants. In the three years that Plaintiff taught at Al-Aqsa, he never saw this benefit conferred to black children.”
On April 27, 2023, Shaikh claimed that during a conversation with the school principal, Shireen Hammoudeh, he was informed of a complaint lodged against him by students. Principal Hammoudeh reportedly told Shaikh that the complaint was only filed because “they’re black and are trying to manufacture a lawsuit.” She allegedly promised to “find a reason to get rid of [the black students].”
Shaikh informed other administration members at the school about the “display of overt racism,” only to be fired a few hours later.
Was there really a complaint made by black students against Arslan Sheikh, who seems to be the only staff member who was indignant at the unequal treatment they received? Could it have been the principal, Ms. Hammoudeh, who had heard about Sheikh’s standing up for the black students and made up a story that she thought might cause Sheikh to distance himself from black students at the school? It’s possible.
The school’s 2019 “parent-student handbook” declares that Western culture is “toxic to Muslims.” And the uniform guides for the school require that female students be completely covered.
The school is firm in its anti-Infidel, anti-Western teachings. There is no pretense of encouraging convivencia, of “fitting in,” or of trying to integrate into the larger society. Western culture is described in the parent-student handbook as the “toxic” culture of the West, which the school reassures parents is rejected in its entirety. And of course this makes perfect sense. After all, Muslims are taught in the Qur’an that they are “the best of peoples,” while non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings.”
The Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy is part of the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society, a prominent Islamist mosque in downtown Philadelphia, closely involved with hardline national Islamist groups.
In 2019, radical imam Abdelmohsen Abouhatab spoke at the mosque, declaring “jews” to be “the vilest people in terms of their moral values, their nature, and their violation of agreements.”
The school belongs to the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society, what some would call an “extremist” or “Islamist” group, failing to realize that it is simply a group that takes its Islam straight up, undiluted. It has welcomed speakers such as Abdelmohsen Abouhatab, for whom all Infidels are “vile,” but it is the Jews who are the “most vile” of all, in everything: their moral values their nature, their “violation of agreements.” That last charge is curious, given that Muslims celebrate Muhammad for his outwitting his enemies in Mecca when he signed the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyyah in 628 A.D. That treaty was supposed to last for ten years, but after only eighteen months Muhammad, realizing that his side had grown much stronger, attacked the Meccans, in a celebrated “violation of an agreement” that is held up as a model for all subsequent treaty-making with non-Muslims.
In a previous sermon at the mosque, Abouhatab said of the Jews: “The propaganda and the media are controlled by them. They make you see things in an altered and inflated way. They make you think that power lies in castles, fortresses, and weapons – that power lies with 15 million people who own and control the riches of the world.”
None of the Al-Aqsa Islamic School’s inculcating hatred of Infidels, especially Jews, will lead to any trouble for the group. But Arslan Sheikh’s charges of systemic anti-black racism at the Islamic School is much more worrisome. As the school’s principal, Ms. Hamoudeh, and her teachers will soon discover, Black Lives Matter.