Betty S. Anderson http://www.WatsonInstitute.org/events_detail.cfm?id=329
Sources of Authority: Islamic Textbooks of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
“Islamic society is a society established on reality and rights and conviction, and
not on uncertainty and doubt and suspicion…”1
Taken together, the current generation of Islamic textbooks of the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan provide students with a guide for living in a world in which every relationship is
structured, categorized, and delineated, from those in the family unit, to those of the many
religious groups within the region, to those of East and West.2 Within the expansive arms of
Islam, the family unit stands as the basic building block of society and, if the rules laid out in the
texts are followed, women and children are protected from evil, members of the family
understand the importance of their individual roles, and society remains a strong, stable whole,
working together for the larger good. A unitary, all-knowing, all-perfect Islam dictates the way
students should understand their history, their faith and their current socio-economic
circumstances. Islam thus protects Muslims from their own weaknesses and from the acts of any
of a number of unbelievers who have attempted to destroy or weaken the Muslim world over the
centuries. Because of the fear of change depicted within them and the reliance on stereotypical
and biased depictions of the “other” to better demand obedience to “us,” these textbooks read
something like a cross between Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives and Samuel Huntington’s Clash
of Civilizations.
As a result, the “Stepford Civilization” of these textbooks fails to address most of the
very real issues confronting Jordanian society in 2003. While socio-economic change has been a
hallmark of the Middle East over the last 150 years, factors prevalent in the last 10 to 20 years
have accelerated the process. The spread of mass education increased literacy for men and
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women, opened up new career opportunities and, subsequently, generated debates about societal
roles. Globalization of the world economy has brought to Jordan new products, new images, and
new means of communication and transportation, furthering the debate about gender roles, state
power, and economic diversification. In the last few years, mobile phones alone have
revolutionized the means by which people can interact. Instead of addressing these changes in a
meaningful debate, these texts present them only as threats to Islamic society. In their
worldview, change can only lead to fragmentation and alienation of the society. As evidence, the
texts highlight the fact that “Western” society is marked by divorce and crime precisely because
its members fail to adhere to strict rules about societal roles.
The women in Jordan’s Islamic texts have only a domestic, family role and no place
outside the home. On the one hand, this fixing of domestic roles mirrors the lives of the majority
of Jordan’s female population. On the other hand, it neglects to discuss the many different
influences women and their families encounter in Jordan in the 21st century, regardless of their
societal positions. The authors of these texts utilize carrots and sticks to keep the students away
from these temptations. The stability and tranquility of the family is constantly compared to the
instability that Western society has wrought. Obedience brings happiness; misbehavior brings
sadness. One would expect religious texts of this sort to be the most conservative socially.
These texts do not disappoint in this regard. However, in a world of such diverse societal
images, these texts fail to allow the students themselves to discuss the different influences
affecting their lives. They are granted no power to determine their life’s role because they are
never asked their opinion. Islam, as a perfect set of beliefs, is the voice of authority, not its
followers.
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The righteousness and unity of Islam are also continually compared to the transgressions
of the Christians and Jews. By so doing, the texts essentialize Christian and Jewish natures,
fixing them into categories perpetually inferior to Islam. Since Christians and Jews will never
accept the truth of Islam, the texts do not bother to encourage the students to think actively about
the meaning of tolerance; they are told merely to accept the fact that Islam is inherently tolerant
and those who reject this position stand as its eternal enemies. Just as the example of the West is
utilized to show that only Islam provides a valid method for organizing society, the corruptions
of Christianity and Judaism are used as a means to extol the superiority of Islam as a whole. The
“Stepford Civilization” thus delineates the rules required to live within Islamic society,
counterpoised against the hostility and deviation existing outside its walls. The strongest
messages of the texts are negative ones, illustrating the costs of misbehavior by its members and
the threats of attack by its enemies.
Islam and the State
As the quote on the first page demonstrates, namely that, “Islamic society is a society
established on reality and rights and conviction, and not established on uncertainty and doubt and
suspicion…,” Islam is the primary actor in these books. An omnipresent, all-knowing,
completely united Islam teaches students how to conduct righteous lives within the Umma. That
Umma provides the boundaries for the students, not the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This is
not to say that the nation of Jordan is irrelevant to the texts, for many phrases, such as “Jordanian
society,” “women in Jordan today,” and “Jordanian charities,” delineate the national world of the
students. The Hashemite kings make appearances as actors in the great march of Islamic history.
The question is about the voice of authority presented to the students. The texts purport to
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present an Islam applicable to the universal Muslim world, not just to the small state of Jordan.
Thus, the state and its monarchical family do not explicitly serve as mediators between the
message of Islam and the students sitting in their classes. This method is in sharp contrast to the
history textbooks that, from the earliest days in the 1950s and 1960s, represented the Hashemite
kings as the primary actors in the history of the Jordanian and Arab nations. The Hashemite
kings serve as both historical leaders and the sole providers of the largesse the Jordanian people
receive. In reading these texts, students can readily identify the source of authority over their
historical lives.
The Islamic texts seemingly provide a different relationship between the information –
the rules and guides of Islam – and the state in which they are published. Of course, the state
serves as a mediator between the students and the information, as evidenced by the fact that the
state’s Ministry of Education chooses the textbook authors and publishes the texts under the
imprimatur of the Hashemite Kingdom. Yet, Islam appears to be the only actor, not that state,
despite its stamp on the front of every book.
The state accrues two benefits by appearing to transfer its authority to another entity.
First, by absolving itself of responsibility for the information presented in these texts, the rules
and guides included within them appear unmolested by secular intervention. The divine dictates
of Islam override all national and state concerns. They appear to come from that “truth” that is
Islam and thus are impossible to refute. A civics textbook for the 8th grade even makes that clear
when it states that, “Permanent religious knowledge does not change, because it is issued from
God, and it is authentic, permanent knowledge. It does not allow for defamation or criticism of
its authenticity.”3 It is at the level of family where this interchange between state and faith can
most readily be seen. The family, and particularly women, have become the standard-bearers of
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what is Islamic, what is traditional, what is non-Western. As Suad Joseph has found for the
region in general, “Not only have the states privileged family above the individual legally, but
they have engaged in discourses that represent the family as something a priori, ‘prepolitical,’ a
domain so beyond current time and conditions that it is best apprehended in the domain of the
divine.”4 Because the family has a “prepolitical” position within Islamic society, its concerns,
more than any other, have remained under the rubric of Islam. By focusing the bulk of their
attention on the family, these Islamic texts reiterate the belief that the preservation of strict
family relationships serves as the very foundation of Islamic life. Yet, as with all issues related
to textbooks, the state interferes and, in this case, utilizes Islam to describe a family life
commensurate with its political goals.
Because of the divine nature of Islam and the integral place of the family within its
constructs, nowhere in the texts are students given an opportunity to debate and question the
information received; they are asked only to memorize the messages and occasionally to confirm
the sentiments. These texts do not encourage any kind of critical thinking by providing, for
example, alternative interpretations of Hadith or Quranic sura for the students to discuss. They
merely make pronouncements on the one way students need to conduct their lives, often in
bullet-point lists of conclusive facts. The Hadith or sura mentioned are considered the only
voices of authority on a given subject. Phrases such as, “The Prophet determined that the most
important of the benefits of Muslims in religious life, after the power of God Almighty, lies the
righteous marriage,”5 and “The Muslim family treats its children equally and without oppression
and injustice,”6 give some examples of the tone of the texts. They facilitate between strong,
active subjects – the Prophet, Islam – to an almost passive acceptance of a way of life. The
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subject, “The Muslim family,” implicitly accepts that the family members have followed the
teachings laid out by Islam and these texts.
Second, the state, through its designated authors and committees, is provided the
opportunity to decide what divine dictates to include and what to leave behind in order to
generate obedience. Gregory Starrett has stated that, “…just as wild plants have to undergo
systematic genetic alterations to make them useful as cultivated foods, so ‘Islam’ has to be
altered to make it useful as a political instrument.”7 As he explains for Egypt, “’Knowing’ Islam
means being able to articulate the religion as a defined set of beliefs such as those set down in
textbook presentations.”8 The texts, in the Jordanian case, utilize Islamic texts to support the
patriarchal structure of the family unit and the need to defend the nation from all its enemies.
For example, “It is important for the individual to consider himself part of the society and not
separate from it,” so that he may protect society and it may protect him in return.9 While
obedience to the state structure is never specifically required in these texts, obedience to father,
mother, family, society, and Islam serves an analogous function. “When the family is a cohesive
force, the Umma is an unassailable force, its glory builds, its power is assured, its Islamic
message is cherished, and it takes its rightful place among the nations, as a respected force. No
other nation is able to attack it.”10 Integral to this process is the idea that the Hashemite state is
not demanding this obedience, but a higher power that cannot be questioned.
The Hashemite kings have consistently portrayed themselves as the fathers of the
Jordanian family, the sheikhs of the Jordanian tribe. Thus, discussions about obedience to father
and family have resonance in the many other images the Hashemites disseminate about their
leadership role. No person living in Jordan today can effectively ignore the family and tribal
alliances the state has made, if only for the fact that family and tribal ties carry considerable
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weight in gaining access to government services and jobs. As Amawi reports from her
examination of Jordan’s Personal Status Law,
The image of al-usra al-wahida, or united family, is built around the articulation
of a cohesive structure, of family relations based on obedience to the male head of
the household (the patriarch), mutual obligations, and respect for the elderly. A
very interactive symbiosis is created between the patriarchal family and the
patriarchal state. The Jordanian society as a whole is depicted as a united family
with all its members owing allegiance to the regime.11
Discussion of the Islamic family in these textbooks can easily be transferred to one about
obedience to the Hashemite state itself. The same vocabulary and themes are harnessed for
identical goals.
Two issues will serve as the focus for this discussion of authority in Jordanian textbooks:
obedience to the Islamic family and the threats to this family from “others.” The first issue will
illustrate how textbooks are utilized as potential social control mechanisms. Everyone in Jordan
is currently confronting an array of different social, economic and political forces; many of
which have the potential to weaken the state structure. The advice and guidance proffered to the
students attempts to negate these influences and to show that only the one, ever-lasting definition
of the Islamic family will keep the society strong. In other words, “The Muslim considers
himself responsible for the organization of society and the rule of law in it, and for this he is
commanded to have knowledge and to end transgression.”12 The students have an obligation to
fulfill their designated functions. The second issue will illustrate how the Hashemite state has
utilized the degradation of “others” to maintain obedience to its preferred societal structure.
Muslim students are constantly reminded that the punishments for disobedience fall on
individual and society together.
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On both these subjects, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-
Muslimin) can be felt. The Ikhwan in Jordan reached an accommodation with the Hashemite
state in the 1950s. From that point, the relationship became a reciprocal one, in which the state
incorporated many of the Ikhwan’s policy goals in return for peaceful relations. Ikhwan
members have been particularly influential in the Ministry of Education and, for many of those
years, an Ikhwan leader served as the Minister or as one of his deputies. They utilized their
position to place Ikhwan members throughout the district school systems, as administrators and
teachers. In Mansoor Moaddel’s analysis, “The Muslim Brothers naturally used their influence
in the ministry to ensure the conformity of its policies with Islam and to restrict the cultural and
educational desires of religious minorities.”13 To give some idea of Ikhwan influence in recent
years, in 1991, an Ikhwan leader, ‘Abdallah ‘Akaylah became the Minister of Education, while
other members led the Ministries of Justice, Social Development and Religious Affairs. As
Laurie Brand reports, “In ‘Abdallah ‘Akaylah’s first meeting with ministry employees following
his appointment as Minister of Education he informed women that he did not want to have them
working in sensitive and important places. He also ordered the ‘cleansing’ of the ministry by
segregating the sexes, and began firing some of the higher ranking employees and replacing
them with Islamists.”14 As part of the same process, “’Akaylah also introduced a series of
measures to Islamicize education: he limited the freedom of schools to close on Christian
holidays and set the dates for mid-term exams during them and attempted to ban books deemed
incompatible with the king’s moral and religious ethics.”15 ‘Akaylah’s leadership of the Ministry
of Education did not last long and Islamists of all stripes encountered increasing repression from
the regime, yet their influence can be felt in these textbooks. Even in periods of government
repression against the Islamists in the late 1980s and the late 1990s, because of the realities of
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life-tenure in many government posts, Ikhwan and Islamist members have been able to retain
their influence. The authors of these Islamic texts come, almost to a man, from the Islamist
organizations.16
Notwithstanding the influence of the Ikhwan and associated Islamists, the content of
every text had to be passed by the government itself. As such, this content can be taken as
government policy. The messages contained in these texts are messages the government wishes
to impart to its students. The state has exploited the influence of the Ikhwan to do so.
The Family
The Hashemite state is certainly not alone in failing to address the rapid socio-economic
changes taking place within its borders. The entire region has encountered this dilemma and it is
unlikely that any of the surrounding states have done a much better job at guiding their students
through the new realities. For that matter, what 21st century state can effectively negotiate a
comprehensive body of rules concerning such disparate issues as gender relations, drugs,
alcohol, unemployment, and the like? With the ostensible separation between church and state,
schools in the United States, for example, have had a difficult time forging a path between the
demands of different religious faiths, state laws and parental concerns. The Hashemite state
addresses these issues in Islamic textbooks. In the process, Islam has become the catch-all
subject for discussing not only religion, but also history, society, and morality. At times, the
Quran or the Hadith lay out specific rules for relationships; at other times, very contemporary
concerns are addressed with contemporary solutions. Islam appears to be the source in both
instances, whether in the active or passive voice. Inevitably the question of what image of the
family best fits the state’s goals becomes integral to the process of textbook construction,
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considering what has been left out of the Islamic discourse, what has been added to it. For its
part, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan purports to provide an all-encompassing system of social
control and categorization.
The family is described in textbook after textbook as the core component of the larger
society. For example,
The family is the first brick among the bricks of society, and the basis of its
strength and its cohesion…and Islam commissioned the family to utilize
cooperation between man and woman, just as it made it [the family] the natural,
virtuous home for the development of the true Islamic youth, and with the family
the structure continues in an atmosphere of love and compassion and sympathy
between the members of the family…17
In this one passage is encompassed the main message presented in the texts. To maintain this
stable whole, instructions are given to each of its members. For example, “it is necessary that
equity prevail in the treatment between the spouses, and between the parents and the individuals,
and between the children themselves, and it is necessary that the strong and the weak cooperate,
and that the children cooperate with their parents.”18 Most of the messages imparted to the
students, however, discuss the separation of roles and the hierarchy of obedience existing within
the family structure. Barbara Ibrahim and Hind Wassef found the same phenomenon in Egypt.
Despite recent reforms to official textbooks to enhance the image of women, the
gender content of the basic education curriculum supports fairly traditional roles
for women and men. Although paying lip service to principles of equality
between the sexes in all contexts, it puts forward a discourse of equal rights in
different domains, so that women’s contributions to society is in their roles as
wives and mothers while the public domain is the monopoly of men.19
A man, for example, has a number of rights over his wife. She must obey him, maintain his
house and family with honor, safeguard his children, and leave the home only with his
permission.20 “The woman is conquered by love for her husband, and is monopolized by his
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concerns and his welfare, and, [in return], he increases his love for her, and carries out for her the
remainder of her needs.”21 As such, the man’s primary responsibility, in return for this respect
and obedience, is to maintain the household financially.
The rules and restrictions concerning women are much more complex in these texts,
covering everything from her clothes, to her choice of husband, to the number of children she
should produce. Students are told that Islam enjoins women to cover their private parts, or, in
other words, all of their bodies except their hands and feet. In addition, males and females may
interact only in designated areas, with the former controlling access to the latter. In marriage,
women hold the right to control their dowry [mahr], demand maintenance from their husbands,
and more generally, to have husbands who listen to their suggestions about the family. “He will
support her in everything that is good for her in her religion and beliefs and inform her of what
she is ignorant about in the affairs of her religion.”22 As Glenn Robinson shows, this view
parallels the Muslim Brotherhood’s platform in the mid-1990s. “While it calls for equal rights
for women, endorsing the woman’s right to ‘own property, work and participate in developing
the society within the limits set by Islam,’ those rights are applicable only insofar as they do not
‘overwhelm the duty of the women toward her home, husband and children.’”23 Within that
home, Jordanian family law – and the Islamic texts – stress that the primary purpose for marriage
is for the production of children.24 The texts support large families because the Umma needs
sufficient numbers of people to man its armed forces and, along the way, to help advance the
society economically, socially, and intellectually.25 In addition, women are cautioned that if they
limit the number of children the resulting level of anxiety might endanger their health. 26
While these Islamic texts allow for no digression from the accepted Islamic role for
women, civic texts delve into a few more of the issues contemporary Jordanian women
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encounter. The result, however, is identical; the basic structure of the preferred family unit is the
same. The same threat of societal fragmentation hangs over the heads of the women in these
texts. For example, in this contemporary age, educating children is now dispersed to different
institutions, like schools, societal clubs and learning centers, “just as women are occupied with
employment outside the house. Other institutions have been found that participate in the
education of children, like day-care and kindergarten, all of which lead to the weakening of the
influence of the family in its guidance over children.”27 The students are then asked their
opinion about kindergarten, and, if they attended one themselves, what the influence was upon
them. While most of the questions posed in all of these texts require regurgitation of the
information, occasionally questions such as these emerge. In this case, they coax students into
questioning the benefits of women working and having to place the education of their young
children into the hands of others. The range of possibilities open to women is larger in these
texts, but the threat of misbehavior remains the same.
After defining the roles proscribed for men and women, obedience is the primary value
instilled in the children; in return, Islam, according to the texts, grants rights to children that no
modern society has ever been able to fully replicate. Children must revere their parents, speak to
them in humbleness, and support them if needed.28 In a section entitled, “How to Assure Virtue
in the Devotion of Children,” children are told to treat their parents with kindness even as they
age, smile at them and appear happy at all times, obey them without question, and give priority
to their parents over all other concerns.29 All members of the family must honor their roles
because children have the right to parents who are righteous and who have chosen each other
based on religion and morality. In this way, children can be sure of who their father is. Mothers
are enjoined to treat their children with goodness and kindliness and men are required to educate
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their children in the ways of Islam. “And among the duties of the parents toward their children is
to implant in their hearts love of religion and its culture and work, its principles and laws, and to
separate them from the consorts of evil.”30 The texts repeatedly state that all children, regardless
of gender, must be treated equally. However, other passages in the texts detail the rights that
older children have over their younger siblings. Older brothers, for example, must be viewed by
those other siblings just as their parents are, for they are tasked with educating and protecting
them.
The texts also propose Islamic answers to the many threats directed against the family
unit. In general, societal problems arise when people put personal desires ahead of tradition,
wars or natural disasters befall a society, powerful societies impose their ideas over weaker ones,
and people move away from the teachings of their faith.31 Islam treats these problems pre-
emptively by encouraging people to think first of Islam, then of the family, and finally of the
society around them, always remembering that the individual is the servant of the society.32 Of
all the problems discussed, divorce looms as the largest and most threatening to the Islamic
whole. The texts do explain that Islam allows divorce in cases where the two spouses are
incapable of living together. To facilitate this act, Islam grants the man the right to divorce, but
does not allow the more emotional woman to do it for herself.33 However, the student must
understand that divorce is not desirable if it can be avoided because it “leaves a negative
influence on relations between the two families of the spouses,” and many studies have shown
that most criminals come from broken homes.34 The ultimate solution to marital problems is to
rely on the Shari’a of God to resolve them.
In contrast to this beautiful, stable whole, the West looms as an ever-present threat. In
this depiction of good and bad, the West has become the latest in a long line of attackers who do
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not understand the rightness of the Islamic path. Islam lies unchanging through history, yet new
enemies constantly emerge to fight against it. “Western imperialism began its intellectual attacks
on the Islamic world, encouraging racial disputes and ethnic chauvinism.”35 The colonists and
the missionaries “influenced minorities in Islamic society and aroused racial disputes among the
Berbers and the Pharaohs and the Phoenicians and the Assyrians and others, and they encouraged
disputes between Muslims and Christians and between Sunni and Shi’a.”36 As a result, each of
the ethnic groups set out to support their national causes by constructing mythical past histories,
literature and art to serve their goals. Divisive calls were now made in the name of Communism,
sectarianism, and “numerous odious factions” like that of Egyptian nationalism.37 The message
explicitly stated is that Islam would never allow such divisions; outsiders have forced them on
the Islamic world.
In the Islamic Culture text for the second secondary level, missionary work comes under
particular attack.38 Missionaries first arrived in the Middle East at the end of the 16th century,
first in Malta, then in Syria, and then in the remainder of the region. They served, from the
beginning, as a vanguard for the colonial occupations that occurred later. Missionaries
conducted their work by erecting schools, universities, hospitals, scout troops, and charities. A
medical missionary is quoted as saying in 1906 that doctors should remember that their job was
to proselytize first and administer medical aid second.39 In all of these institutions, missionaries
worked to weaken the Islamic spirit and strengthen the ideas of the West. They participated in
“Slandering Islamic history and the path of the Muslim caliphs, and presented the movement of
Islamic history as one of wars and struggles and rebellions.”40 By so doing, they defamed Islam
and its Prophet, and spoke lies about how Islam had spread by hatred and the sword.41
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The means to defend society against this foreign onslaught lies in Islam. “Muslims do
not lag behind the bases of the world because of their connection to religion, but they do lag
behind when they are negligent about the needs and values of the religion, its tenets and its
instructions, and when they allow Western civilization to attack them and the ideas to penetrate
and predominate over their life.”42 The answer to this attack is to renew the Islamic way of life
from the inside, working primarily through the vehicle of the family unit. By so doing, Islamic
society will remain strong enough to protect itself from corrupting ideologies and the penetration
of foreign cultures.43 Muslims must truly learn and understand the value of their faith and the
all-encompassing value of its tenets in order to make Islamic society strong.
Frequently, students are reminded of the dysfunctional character of Western society as a
counterpoise to the unified structure of Islamic society. For example, “The break-up of society
and the large family in the industrial Western societies have resulted in numerous problems, and
their negative influences are reflected on the individual in the society, and he begins to suffer
from not having the stability of the family.”44 Moaddel reports of the Ikhwan that,
“Admonishing the public on the Western cultural assault on women was the central feature of the
Brothers’ exposé on gender relations.”45
The message of the texts is that individual transgression will lead to disintegration of the
society. The answer is the separation of the sexes and the maintenance of a hierarchical
relationship between them. The introduction of alternative modes of living can only weaken the
Islamic Umma. Pronouncements are made and the students are expected to follow them without
question. Not only is debate about these roles not allowed, but mention is not made about how
the students need to reconcile the messages of these texts concerning gender roles and the
“West” with the contradictory messages emanating from the regime in other media. The
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Hashemite leadership has been forthright in its support of American economic and political
policies in the region. While the “West” is never explicitly equated with the United States,
students can easily trace the path from colonialism to the current penetration of American goods
and ideas. The Hashemite state has also consistently presented itself, both at home and abroad,
as the chief purveyors of modernity in Jordan. This goal manifests itself in such disparate forum
as the various international women’s organizations to which the state belongs, to the recitation of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its civics textbooks. However, the Hashemite
kings also present themselves as the holders of the national heritage, whether it be bedouin,
Arab, Islamic, or Jordanian. These contradictions do not exist in the textbooks but they do exist
in students’ everyday lives. As Ibrahim and Wassef found in Assiut, Egypt,
As education and the media penetrate to the hinterland, we have seen that they
operate in complex ways upon the emerging identities of youth. Even when
behavior is not immediately affected, the consciousness youth have of a wider
world expresses itself in their beliefs and hopes. Gender gaps may be widening as
part of this process, with as yet unknown consequences for the adult relationships
that will emerge. We have also seen that within the parameters of
conservative communities, rebellion is still rare, as is any overt identification with
a culture of youth. Yet slowly and surely, young people are maneuvering within
the spaces allowed for them and finding ways to stretch their boundaries ever
further.46
These Jordanian texts are clearly geared toward gaining obedience from its students, particularly
given the fact that the punishments for disobedience are so vivid illustrated. The contradictions
between the absolutes of Islam depicted in these texts and the complexities of students’ lives, and
the disjunctions between the state’s educational and political policies, must make it difficult for
students to determine a path for themselves. These texts exacerbate this problem by not allowing
them the right to voice their concerns.
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The “Others”47
To reinforce the need to be obedient to the categorized, patriarchal society depicted in
these texts, inferior and hostile societies are compared against it. These texts simultaneously
essentialize the beauties of Islamic society and its belief system just as they essentialize the
deviance of the “other,” the enemy. The world of these texts is one of black and white
descriptions of cultures confronting each other, inevitably and continually. People’s natures are
fixed in time as good or bad and nothing can change that basic fact.
Many passages in the texts discuss tolerance, saying things such as, “The characteristics
of the religion do not prohibit living with non-Muslims on the basis of right and justice,”48 and
supporting the view that the People of the Book have the right to freedom of worship without
being forced to convert to Islam. These passages take as a given the generosity and tolerance of
the Muslims. If other groups disagree then they are intolerant and the blame is laid upon their
shoulders. As a result, Muslims are not required to action; others must fix their own actions.
Instead of discussing the similarities between the People of the Book, most passages focus on the
differences. Thus, tolerance toward those “others” is never encouraged in these texts; rather the
lessons allow for a grudging acceptance of these groups within the Islamic world, in the case of
the Christians, and establish a hostile relationship concerning the Jews.
Because of the existence of these hostile groups, the texts call on students to defend the
faith, by following the rules set out for the family and by physically standing up to fight on its
behalf. “Muslim society is a jihadi society, defending the truth and sacrificing on behalf of it.”49
In addition, “Jihad is a necessary, indispensable part of Islamic society in any era; abandoning
jihad brings to the Umma weakness and disgrace.”50 To better aid the students in determining
their role in this regard, the texts define the reasons for jihad and its different manifestations.51 A
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jihad can be called when an enemy attacks a Muslim country and when a Muslim sovereign calls
the Muslims to arms. The jihad of the soul means going out to fight the enemy. A jihad of
property involves Muslims sacrificing their property in order to allow the battle to take place. As
part of this process, airports, war factories, citadels, and hospitals must be constructed. The jihad
of opinion means a struggle of the tongue and the pen to fight against the enemies of Islam. The
personal jihad, an area where tolerance could have been the focus, is downplayed almost to non-
existence. The jihad of these texts means physical attack. Peaceful means for resolving disputes
are not considered viable options by these texts.
Jihad is so important to the society because of the hostile relationship the Muslim world
has always had with Christians and Jews. A few statements throughout the texts support
people’s right to freedom of worship and religious thought and the students are repeatedly told
that Islam has generously granted those rights to the People of the Book. However, invariably
those different religious beliefs are degraded by these texts and compare poorly with those of
Islam. While Muslims faithfully follow their Prophet and their God, Christians have strayed
away from the true path and have distorted the message of God, becoming polytheists by
choosing, for example, to designate Jesus as the son of God. Christians and Jews refuse to listen
to not only Muhammad but their own Prophets as well. As a result, “The suras [of the Quran]
make clear that animosity between the bands of the People of the Book will continue until the
day of judgment.”52 This discussion highlights the way these texts manipulate the documents
and tenets of Islam. Assuredly, Christians and Jews did not heed the call of Muhammad. That is
part of Islamic history. The texts put forward Hadith and sura to prove that this is the case. Yet,
no other Hadith or sura are put forward to show how Christians, Jews and Muslims successfully
cooperated together over the centuries. No discussion takes place about the means by which
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Muhammad extended his hand to these groups or how Islam was able to come to an
accommodation with them. Instead, only the hostility is mentioned. Islam is the answer to all
things; if the Christians and Jews do not understand that fact then they are to blame for the
subsequent hostilities. In 1972, Hava Lazarus-Yafeh said of the Jordanian textbooks of that era
that,
…the political opponent is depicted not only as an opponent or enemy: he is the
incarnation of wickedness and baseness. This applies to every opponent, not only
to the Zionists, and even to discredited Arab leaders. It determines the whole of
the attitude towards the Western imperialist world (al-isti’mar), which, in the
accepted Arab view, set up and supports the State of Israel, and to which atrocities
are imputed that seem to have their origin in a morbid imagination, identifying the
political opponent with absolute evil and projecting upon him its own
aggressiveness.53
That depiction has not changed in the 1990s or in the first years of the 21st century.
Of the People of the Book, the Jews come under much more scathing attack than the
Christians. The Islamic Sciences text details the history of the Muslim-Jewish relationship in
Medina during the era of the Prophet.54 In the first stage, the two groups negotiated a truce
[hudna], but with cautionary elements. The Prophet trusted only a few of the Jews of the town
but otherwise most of them, despite understanding the power behind the Prophethood, refused to
heed his call. The Jews who lived there feared that call because they had acquired a great deal of
property via monopolies, usury, and the manufacture of wine. They also held a deep-rooted
belief that that their existence separated them from the rest of humanity. While they publicly
accepted a truce with Muhammad, they actually used this time to acquire even more property. In
the second stage, the rabbis began questioning the Prophet, hoping to find fault with his message.
This act highlighted the fact that Jews are known for constantly debating and questioning, even
with their own Prophets. When this tactic failed, the Jews tried fraud and ridicule to sow doubts
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about Islam. In the last stage, the Jews betrayed the Medina Charter and cooperated with the
Qurayshi enemies of the Muslims, inciting them to fight. In the Holy Quran and Its Sciences, the
story of Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt shows that Jews are a people who refuse to obey
their God and their Prophet and show weakness in the face of danger, despite the fact that God
Almighty granted them many gifts.55 In most areas of the texts, Jews are characterized as
“immoral,” “deviant,” “greedy,” “cowardly,” and “tyrannical.” In highlighting the hostility
between the Jews and the Muslims, the text states that, “The Holy Quran informs us of the
primary causes of this hostility, [namely] that the Jews are an obstinate people and deny the
truth.56 The lesson to be learned is that Muslims should be constantly wary of the deceitful Jews
and only their faith will protect them from harm.
The only modern political event discussed in these texts is that of the history of Palestine.
This example is presented as just the latest manifestation of Jewish hostility toward Muslims. In
the middle of the story about Moses students are asked: “What are the characteristics of the
Jews?” and “What is the relationship of that, given their existence in Palestine today?”57 In other
sections, the Zionist movement is considered a component of the larger imperialistic attack
against the Muslim world, focusing particularly on the role the British government played in the
establishment of Israel. “The desires of the Jews in Palestine were based on their religious
beliefs, which portrayed Palestine as the promised land granted to them by God. These beliefs
remained a hidden treasure in the souls of the Jews until the 19th century, when competition
between the imperialist states emerged over the division of the Islamic world and the British
government embraced the idea of dividing the Arab nation and consuming its strengths.”58
Because of the interconnection between religion and politics opposition to Jews is a jihad. For
example, Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam announced a jihad and attacked Britain’s plan to Judaize
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Palestine. Jihadi Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini opposed the Jewish occupation of Palestine in 1947.
The Jordanian forces went on a jihad to keep the Old City of Jerusalem from falling under
Jewish control in 1948. Palestinian history stops in 1988, the year King Hussein ended Jordan’s
administration of the West Bank. No mention is made of the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan
and Israel, despite the active campaign for normalization of relations with Israel the Hashemite
regime has waged since then.
Scholars have studied earlier generations of Jordanian textbooks and have come to
similar conclusions. In 1972, Lazarus-Yafeh found the following generalizations: “Jews love
only Jews; they are traitorous and mendacious. They were afraid of the strength of the Muslims
and said: Islam does not permit us to cheat people or steal their property. Therefore we must
ally ourselves with the enemies of Islam and the Muslims and get rid of Muhammad.”59 Michael
Winter found in a study of Jordanian textbooks in 1995 that, “Modern European imperialism is
regarded as the source of all evil and the direct cause of all the disasters in recent Arab history as
well as of present Arab weakness. The West aims to exploit and plunder the Arab world,
seeking the humiliate the Arabs and to devastate their culture and religion.”60 The textbooks in
this study have all been written or rewritten after 1994. Yet, they repeat the same messages of
the last 30 years, almost to a word.
Conclusion
All faiths establish absolutes by which their followers should abide. Textbooks present
an idealized image of life within their nation. Every state utilizes school curricula to generate
obedience for its leadership or its value system. No state can avoid the inherent problems of
defining an entire society and its history within the pages of a book. Jordanian Islamic textbooks
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encounter these same issues. Yet, the Hashemite regime appears to be creating too great a
disjunction between image and reality. Socio-economic change has impinged upon most
students’ lives, yet these texts ignore the bulk of them. The state pushes normalization with
Israel, but encourages hatred toward Jews in its schools. It supports US economic and political
policies in the region, but attacks Western cultural intrusions. It conducts sweeping arrests of
Islamists in the US war on terror while extolling their basic beliefs in government schools.
Conflicts have already arisen between the Hashemite regime and the “street” over the regime’s
economic and political stance toward Israel and the United States. The most vivid images the
texts reveal are negative ones, admonishing students to obey commands or suffer the
consequences. Students can rightfully ask: What voice of authority should we obey? Do
students assimilate the message of obedience in these texts or have the state’s contradictory
policies made them question the benefits of this obedience?
1
Islamic Education (1996), p. 241. Given the time constraints, the citations do not confirm to the style
sheet. That project and the bibliography will be completed by the time of the conference.
2
The textbooks under study include seven Islamic and three civics texts, all published between 1995 and
2002. They are designed for grades eight through twelve, and are all currently in use in Jordan’s public school
system. Muslim students are required to study Islam three hours a week. In the last few years, the Jordanian public
school system has also started a pilot program to offer religion classes to the Christian students. The curriculum for
that program was brought from Syria.
3
National and Civic Education, 8th Grade (2001), p. 71.
4
Joseph, “Gendering Citizenship in the Middle East,” p. 19.
5
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 43.
6
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 40.
7
Starrett, Putting Islam to Work, p. 8.
8
Starrett, Putting Islam to Work, p. 9.
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9
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 91.
10
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002),p. 78.
11
Amawi, “Gender and Citizenship in Jordan,” p. 184.
12
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 96.
13
Moaddel, Jordanian Exceptionalism, p. 35.
14
Brand, Women, the State, and Political Liberalization, p. 156.
15
Brand, Women, the State, and Political Liberalization, pp. 156-157.
16
Initial research shows this to be true. I am still working to confirm it.
17
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 37.
18
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002),p. 78.
19
Ibrahim and Wassef, “Caught Between the Two Worlds,” p. 168.
20
See Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 83.
21
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 68.
22
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 66.
23
Robinson, “Can Islamists Be Democrats?”
24
See Sonbol, Women of Jordan, for a discussion of the different conceptions of family that appear in the
Personal Status Codes in the Middle East.
25
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 121.
26
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 122. Civics textbooks offer the opposite advice. For
example, National and Civic Education, 8th Grade (2001), pp. 15-16.
27
National and Civic Education, 8th Grade (2001), p. 11.
28
See Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), pp. 85-86.
29
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 71.
30
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 78.
31
see Islamic Education (1996), p. 239.
32
see Islamic Education (1996), p. 240.
33
See Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 98.
34
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 98.
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35
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 280.
36
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 280.
37
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), pp. 280-281.
38
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), pp. 282-284..
39
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 283. The text does not cite the source of this quote.
40
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 284.
41
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 284.
42
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 269.
43
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 270.
44
National and Civic Education, 8th Grade (2001), p. 7.
45
Moaddel, Jordanian Exceptionalism, pp. 139-140.
46
Ibrahim and Wassef, “Caught Between the Two Worlds,” p. 183.
47
I would like to express my thanks to Shakir Mustafa for giving me valuable help in analyzing these texts.
In particular, he put into focus for me the image of Islam displayed within them.
48
Islamic Sciences (2001), p. 279.
49
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 106.
50
Islamic Culture, First Secondary (1999), p. 106.
51
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), pp. 237-241.
52
The Holy Quran and Its Sciences (1995), p. 116.
53
Lazarus-Yafeh, “An Inquiry into Arab Textbooks,” p. 8.
54
Islamic Sciences (2001), pp. 308-313.
55
The Holy Quran and Its Sciences (1995), pp. 45-49.
56
The Holy Quran and Its Sciences (1995), p. 136.
57
The Holy Quran and Its Sciences (1995), p. 47.
58
Islamic Culture, Second Secondary (2002), p. 275.
59
Lazarus-Yafeh, “An Inquiry into Arab Textbooks,” pp. 18-19.
60
Winter, “The Arab Self-Image as Reflected in Jordanian Textbooks,” p. 214.
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