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Allah is the same deity as Jews and Christians worship, the God of Abraham (though Christians have a slightly different understanding of his nature).
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The Pledge of Allegiance does specify, since it doesn’t allow for polytheists or athesists. “God,” without qualification, is the god of the monothesists, the God of Abraham.
It was probably the easist and most common written Arabic that the teacher could find.
I’m Christian, fairly devout, and it wouldn’t have bothered me. To me it would just be words, calligraphy practice. It wouldn’t mean I believed what I was writing, any more that being an actor playing a villian would mean that I would want to do bad things.
A lot of people of my parent’s generation didn’t grow up saying “under God” in the pledge anyway. I have a schoolbook of my mother’s that has the pledge in the front cover, and God isn’t there.
Oh, dear! That opens a whole new kettle of fish, doesn’t it? 
HAH! Shows what YOU know!
It would probably be the Nicene Creed that was on the written test.
“More knowledgeable that the Wheaton College administration” is a pretty low bar to clear.
Used to live down the street from it and “More knowledgeable that the Wheaton College administration, faculty, and (especially) the entire student body” is still a pretty low bar to clear, but those kids were fun to troll and play “Dueling Bible Quotes” with.
Well, I just spoke to an Arabic speaking friend, and he says you DON’T speak for him. And he says you are wrong.
It’s amazing how angry you get when you and your argument are both stupid.
It’s curious that one would name their god God and then claim that “God” doesn’t specify which deity is being referenced.
Could ya show me which of the Congress persons that changed the Pledge were unsure exactly which deity “God” was referring to in the Pledge?
(Not to not mention that the folks that pushed for the change don’t seem to be unclear at all about which deity they were adding to the Pledge.)
CMC fnord
Personally, I think if the idea is to gain some understanding of this particular group of foreigners, the exercise was appropriate. They are Muslims, their faith is a very large part of the culture (maybe even more than evangelicalism in VA), and the art and the faith go together in a connect-the-dots, understandable kind of way.
I learned about this story from Fox News, of all places. They showed a clip of one of the students asking, “why couldn’t they have taught us how to write ‘hello’ or something instead?” Because, silly teenager, “hello” does not have the kind of dignity or meaning to inspire being expressed in calligraphy. The statement of faith does, and it is what a lot of people in this part of the world are all about.
I think the charge that the teacher was indoctrinating the students is rubbish. If you want to understand this piece of geography, its religion and history, this seems like a good example to me. But I am no expert, and I believe evangelicalism is next to anti-intellectualism, so take it with a grain of salt if you like.
Why are you being so aggressive?
I’m going to go with a default supposition that the Shahada was the only example of Arabic text (calligraphic or otherwise) in the workbook.
I’ll adjust my opinion on that point as new information surfaces to make that seem advisable.
Wonderful that you have ’ found’ an arabic speaking friend down the street to quote on the message board. Perhaps some footwear can join now to argue…
I am happy to share with this message board that has known me for over ten years that the idea of restaurant signs as the calligraphy is laughable as a general thing.
Of course like all things it is without doubt some example can exist, but I do not have any doubt you have and had no idea about actual calligraphy.
I have no idea about the basmalla and rock music. At least it is harder for those who seek offense to get offended… It is only the statement of " In the Name of God the most merciful, the most compassionate." Indeed it is more common than the shahada in both the decoration and in statements, we’re supposed to say it before every important act (what is an important act, ah voila).
Can you explain what you mean by this?
Thank you for making my point for me!
Yes, you’re correct. And good lord, people are ridiculously stupid. I’m an atheist, FFS, and wouldn’t be upset if my spawn wrote that as part of a world religions course. (Nor would I be upset if someone wrote something from the Old Testament in Hebrew, or from a Hindu religious text in Sanskrit.)
I think a good number of the people quoted in the story are proving your point.
Hey, there are other ways to teach Arabic calligraphy! Why look, here’s the pledge of allegiance embedded in the American flag!
http://everitte.org/2012/01/04/the-american-flag-in-colour/
On the other hand, that doesn’t teach anyone fuck-all about others’ religions.
As an orthodox atheist (born into Catholicism) I have zero problem with this.
As a matter of fact I am educating my child on world religions, which includes reading books we don’t believe in, and reciting prayers that make no sense to us. It’s called cultural literacy.
You don’t remember the fallout from that Coca-Cola commercial with “America, the Beautiful” sung in different languages, do you?
Here’s something interesting I learned from a friend who lives in that part of Virginia: public elementary schools in Augusta county participate in the Weekday Religious Education (WRE) program. This program is described as “non-denominational” but that seems to mean that it’s not a specific Christian denomination. WRE apparently provides instruction on Christianity and maybe Judaism as it relates to Christianity, but not other world religions.
WRE is a released-time program not held on school grounds and parents are able to opt out of it, but when I was looking up more information about this I found that there had been problems in the past with parents being pressured to keep their kids in WRE, students who didn’t participate being bullied, and a lack of alternative programming for those not going to WRE classes. (See Slate and Charlottesville weekly The Hook.) A more recent article in the Staunton News Leader reported that the school board had voted over the summer to continue WRE, and that for the past several years there has been an environmental science program offered for students not participating in WRE.
I suspect that many of the parents objecting to the lesson on Islam were fine with their kids receiving Christian instruction through WRE. But while I consider this hypocritical, it also makes a kind of sense – these parents do have experience with people using the schools to promote a particular religion to children, and may not believe that a lesson about Islam would really be a neutral sort of “Here’s what people who practice this religion believe” thing and not “Here’s what you should believe.”