by ABEER ALLAM
In spite of resistance, efforts to shift the tenor of the debate have started. Since taking office in 2009, Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, education minister, has launched “dialogue workshops” with teachers, parents, students and clerics to explain the plans. “Resistance to change happens when people do not understand what we are doing,” Faisal al-Muaammar, deputy education minister, tells the Financial Times.
“We tell them their belief and traditions are not being challenged?…?When we teach math and science, we have to link them to Islam.”
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But the prince faces a struggle. After a meeting between clerics and Prince Faisal on Sunday, Sheikh Youssef al-Ahmed, a radical cleric, threatened to persuade families to sue the minister, accusing him of overseeing a project to “corrupt female students and promote mingling of sexes”.
“I reminded him that what he is doing is against sharia,’’ Sheikh al-Ahmed wrote. “He meets female students, shakes hands and take pictures with them; he urges them to go to sports and horseracing events.”
Financial Times for more
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