Local school district in California apologizes for use of song about Islam

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.

Thursday 19 Nov 2015 - 10:32 Makkah mean time-7-2-1437 Image from oceanviewsd Huntington Beach, California (IINA) – The Ocean View School District which is located in California, has apologized recently after a parent complained about the use of a song about Islam in her son’s seventh-grade social studies class, The Orange County Register online news reported. On Tuesday, Nichole Negron posted pictures on a Huntington Beach community Facebook page, showing pictures from a notebook her son brought home with drawings and song lyrics that included a stick-figure man saying, “Believe in Allah! There is no other god” and lyrics to a song that described spreading Islam. District officials said the lesson took place before Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris. “Like a sandstorm/on the desert/sending camels/into motion,” the lyrics read. “Like how a single faith/can make a heart open/They might only have one God/But they can make an explosion.” The post has spread on social media, sparking debate. From his side, Ojaala Ahmad, communications coordinator for the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said, “While she didn’t know the teacher’s intentions behind using the song in her lesson on Islam, words in the lyrics like ‘explosion’ were unfortunate. They might perpetuate an idea that terrorism or violence are supported by the religion”, she said. “Our reaction was that obviously the teacher could have had a better choice of words,” Ahmad said. “Those (lyrics) were very open to interpretation. ... If (the students) taught misinformation or biased information, that’s going to be on their minds.” The district’s seventh-grade social studies classes noted that it use a curriculum from the state that includes lessons on major world religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, the district said. “I apologize on behalf of the district if the song used in the World History lesson may have offended anyone,” Superintendent Carol Hansen said. “It was not the intention of the teacher to incite anger or offend.” SM/IINA