(Washington Times) George Archibald - An Indian tribe has forced distributors of an Arab studies guide for U.S. teachers to remove an inaccurate passage that says Muslim explorers preceded Christopher Columbus to North America and became Algonquin chiefs. Peter DiGangi, director of Canada's Algonquin Nation Secretariat in Quebec, called claims in the book, the Arab World Studies Notebook, "preposterous" and "outlandish," saying nothing in the tribe's written or oral history support them. The Middle East Policy Council (MEPC), a Washington advocacy group that promoted the curriculum to school districts in 155 U.S. cities, has decided to remove the two-page chapter called "Early Muslim Exploration Worldwide: Evidence of Muslims in the New World Before Columbus." Meanwhile, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation this week issued a report that is critical of Arab World Studies Notebook, titled "The Stealth Curriculum: Manipulating America's History Teachers."
2004-04-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive