A RADICAL Muslim thinker who inspired al-Qa'ida is being served up as subject matter for high school students in NSW.
Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian militant hanged in 1966 but still a powerful influence on violent Islami
sts, and the Pakistani fundamentalist Sayyid Maududi are the only two modern Muslim thinkers on a revised syllabus for studies of religion.
Experts this week conde
mned the prominence of political Islam in the new syllabus, and especially the inclusion of Qutb.
"I am surprised and dismayed that the NSW religion syllabus narrows modern Islamic thinkers to its totalitarians," said Daniel Pipes, whose US-based Middle East Forum agitates against Islamic extremism.
"Islam has a rich intellectual tradition. To pick these two writers is like representing modern German culture with Marx and Hitler."
Under the revised Higher School Certificate syllabus, students can choose to examine the "contribution to Islam" of Qutb and Maududi. Others they can study include two wives of the prophet Mohammed, legal scholars and Sufi mystics. Qutb figured as a "teacher and interpreter" in the old syllabus.
NSW Board of Studies preside
nt Gordon Stanley said experts and community leaders had had plenty of opportunity to comment on the syllabus.
He was surprised to hear of criticism and offered a parallel: "If you study the Holocaust you've got to know something about Hitl
er, but that doesn't mean people are concerned about students becoming Nazis."
Catholic educationist John McGrath defended the syllabus, which he helped write: "Qutb was a significant figure in 20th-century Islam.
"(His writings are) one expression of Islamic revival. We're not suggesting that he's representative of all Muslims."
But Ahmad Shboul, chair of Arabic and Islamic studies at Sydney University, said political Islamists did not fit easily within the study of religion.
"Qutb has contributed to modern commentary on the Koran, but the influence of (Qutb and Maududi) has turned out to be more on the political side," he said, adding that Qutb was simply too con
troversial and complex a figure for study at school.
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, commentators have pointed to Qutb as the intellectual inspiration for violent campaigns against the West and Muslim states seen as corrupted by modern values.
Among those influenced by Qutb's writings is Ayman al-Zawahiri, seen
as the intellectual force of al-Qa'ida. But Professor Shboul doubted Qutb would have approved of al-Qa'ida's violence.
In Pakistan, Maududi founded an Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, with the aim of making society and state wholly subject to Islamic law.
His critics say he left a legacy of extremism; his followers say he opposed violence.
Abdullah Saeed, director of the centre for the study of contemporary Islam at Melbourne University, said Muhammad Abduh, an Egyptian reformer, would have been a safer choice for the syllabus than Qutb.
"Especially in the current political climate and context
, the inclusion of Qutb presents more problems than it solves," Professor Saeed said.
"When this becomes public I guess there would be various groups - Muslim and non-Muslim - who would feel very strongly about this." [/b]
