I’m normally a great believer in the right of parents to educate their children in the religious path that the parent chooses and I have no problem, unlike some out there, with some schools having a religious ethos, even schools that are wholly or partially funded by the State. Britain’s religious schools, whether they be Anglican, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Hindu or Sikh in ethos, have been a part of the patchwork quilt of school types and choice is good for parents and good for society. It also should not be forgotten that it was the church that was educating children long before the State became involved. It is probably because of this culture of difference when it comes to schools, and also because these religious schools sometimes perform better than Comprehensives, that these schools are sometimes hated by the sort of left wing authoritarians who want all schools to be equal in mediocrity.
However, my belief in the validity of education with a religious ethos is not scattergun or universal, it is tempered by knowledge and experience. There are some religions, most notably Islam, who cannot be trusted to run religious schools and this is mainly because the content of the religion is a matter of concern. We would quite rightly look askance at a school promoting Nazi ideas but we say and do little when Muslim schools are promoting an ideology that shares remarkable similarity to Nazism. There have been numerous occasions when either Islamic schools themselves have been promoting violent extremism or they have been ambivalent to it being promoted or have been beating kids who don’t learn the Koran properly. Islam is a dodgy and threatening ideology and the schools that this ideology creates or controls too often reflect the rottenness at the heart of Islam.
I have an issue with Muslim schools as the potential outcomes are far more negative than any that could come out of any other non Muslim religious school no matter how strict the adherence to a particular religion. For example: A person going to a strictly Jewish Haredi school who has a bad outcome in terms of learning, is at the end of the day just one individual. The person may marry earlier than in the wider community and may know more about the Torah than they do about technology, but at the end of the day there’s no wider harm done than one child having an education that is a bit different. When it comes to Muslim schools however, there is a wider harm that we need to consider which is why I have no problem with saying the Haradim or various Christian denominations have a right to bring up their kids without being force-fed pro gay and pro trans messages, whilst the Muslims do not. As I said earlier, the level of social harm done by giving the families of Haredi Jews or strict Christians is pretty minuscule. A strictly Orthodox Jewish school may produce people who believe that being gay or trans is a sin or that the world is 6000 years old but they will not be going out and murdering people who believe otherwise. I would not be so confident that the products of Muslim schools would behave in a similar manner to those brought up in the stricter branches of other faiths. Because Islam itself is violent and hate-filled it is likely that the schools based on this ideology will produce people who are themselves violent and hate-filled.
The issue of Islamic schooling has come to the fore recently with the discovery of £400k of possibly dodgy cash and a collection of bladed weapons in a flat in the grounds of the Darul Uloom school in Chislehurst in Kent. According to a report in the London Evening Standard, the weapons and the cash were discovered following a report of a man brandishing a gun on the school grounds. Interestingly the son of the headteacher at the school was arrested in connection to this incident.
The Evening Standard said:
The headteacher of an independent Islamic school has been forced out to spare it from closure after a raid by armed police uncovered weapons and more than £400,000 in cash at a flat in the grounds.
Officers were called to the Darul Uloom school in Chislehurst on May 30 after reports of a man brandishing a gun. Headteacher’s son Yusuf Musa, who was the school’s designated safeguarding staff member, was arrested in connection with the incident.
Officers found a toy gun at his flat as well as bladed weapons and more than £400,000 in cash, Westminster magistrates’ court heard.
The court hearing in question was linked to concerns that the Department for Education had about activities at the school, concerns that became more urgent following the arrest of Yusuf Musa and the arrest of the headteacher himself on charges related to money laundering. I must admit that something is not quite right with this school and it makes me wonder how many other of Britain’s Muslim schools are holding possibly dodgy piles of cash and which have a relaxed attitude to weapons on the premises?
The school has fended off permanent closure by sacking the headteacher Mustafa Musa and the school may be temporarily closed and will not reopen until the Education department appoints a safeguarding officer to the board of trustees.
The Standard continued:
Chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot, who was due to hear the application, said: “I had real concerns and understand why the department brought the application. I had a concern about what £400,000 was doing in cash at the school — I think that’s a danger to the school. If all the parents know they send money in and pay their fees in cash, that is a risk to the school. I would like there to be a bank account.”
The school has failed a series of Ofsted inspections in the past two years, when serious problems with its safeguarding and leadership were identified.
I can’t help but think that this school is being given a particularly easy ride by both Ofsted and by the Education department. The school may reopen again despite a record of failure and these recent highly suspect events. It’s interesting to compare how much this school has been allowed to get away with with how Ofsted really go after Jewish and Christian schools who refuse to teach the gender ideology or any other ideology a la mode. Ofsted have let this school get away with a great deal in comparison with how they have treated other schools.
This is not the first time that there has been dodginess associated with this school. Back in 2013 when there was a lot of manufactured ‘Islamophobia’ outrage going on following the Islamic murder of Lee Rigby, there was a suspicious fire at the school. The usual suspects on the Left and from the followers of Islam whined greatly about ‘Islamophobia’ and after a short while some teenager’s were arrested. However, I can find no record so far of any of these teens accused of arson being tried or disposed of by any manner available on the public records. This will raise suspicions among many that the junior arsonists didn’t fit the ‘Islamophobic criminal’ narrative and because of that the charges against the accused were quietly dropped. This arson may have been an act of taqiyya or lying for Islam in order to gain sympathy or it could be completely unrelated to any recognisable motive and was just mischief making. I believe that if the teens were non Muslim then the State would have played the ‘hate crime’ card for all it’s worth and the fact that the State has not done this raises many questions about the 2013 fire.
I’m disgusted to see that after a suspicious fire, a long record of academic failure and now this latest weapons and dodgy cash episode, that Ofsted still want to try to give this school a chance. The time should be up now for the Darul Uloom school. It has had numerous chances to improve yet still if fails and still it has the miasma of dodginess surrounding it. Don’t try to reform this school Ofsted, just shut it down now. Not only is this school not providing a quality education, it may even be producing people who have an antipathy and maybe even a violent hatred towards other British subjects and that is not something that should be tolerated. This school, like so many other Islamic schools appears to have abused the privilege that free societies accord to members of religious groups and that abuse needs to be punished by closing down this school.
