by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi • Aug 28, 2014 at 6:16 pm
As has been apparent for some time, Raqqa city serves as the de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS), where new aspects in governance are tried and tested, including the most brutal aspects of it such as crucifixion of those accused of planting IEDs (executed first, then hung on a cross). Likewise the education system in Raqqa has seen a number of regulations imposed by IS, most notably gender segregation in schools and the obligation for schoolgirls to wear hijab beyond the fifth year of primary education (age 10/11). The latest statement below indicates a clear ideological framework for the regulation of content of education.
Translation
Islamic State
Caliphate on the program of the Prophets
Education Administration
General Statement 01
Directorate of Programs in the Islamic State
General Statement to all Education and Teaching Institutions
1. The following subjects are to be definitively abolished from teaching programs: artistic musical education [music], nationalist education, social studies, history, artistic composition education [drawing], sport, philosophical, social and psychology studies, Islam-Christian religious education), to be replaced by subjects added in compensation by the directorate of programs in the Islamic State.
2. Complete abolition of the name ‘Syrian Arab Republic’ wherever it is found and it be replaced by the Islamic State.
3. Complete abolition of the Education Ministry and its replacement with the Ministry of Education and Teaching.
4. Removal of all photos that do not concord with Islamic Shari’a.
5. Removal of all Syrian Arab song wherever it is found.
6. No teaching of nationalist doctrine and instead: commitment to Islam and its people, and no affiliation with idolatry and its people. Indeed the land of the Muslim is the land in which the law of God governs.
7. The teacher is to patch up gaps in knowledge of the grammar of Arabic dependent on omission by examples that do not contradict the Islamic Shari’a and politics of the Islamic State.
8. The word ‘homeland’ (watan), or ‘his homeland’, or ‘my homeland’ or ‘Syria’ is to be replaced wherever it is found with ‘The Islamic State’ or ‘his Islamic State’ or ‘the land of the Muslims’ or ‘The Islamic State’ or ‘the province of ash-Sham’.
9. Abolition of any example in maths that points to interest, interest on money, democracy, or election.
10. Abolition from the sciences of anything connected with the Darwin theory, natural selection and not attributing all creation to God- Almighty and Exalted is He.
11. The teacher is to make the students aware that all the laws of physics and chemistry are from God’s laws in creation.
12. This general statement is considered compulsory and all who disagree must be held accountable.
