...but daniel pipes is off his friggin' rocker. arabic is just a language, daniel. teaching a language is not a secret plot to make suicide bombers. and if they tried to teach religion there, pipes could sic the ACLU on them because it's a public school.
then again pipes is technically correct when he calls the school a "madrassa." madrassa is just the arabic word for "school." in arabic it doesn't necessarily mean a religious school. if i tell my arabic tutor about when i was in my secular elementary school or my quaker high school, the would i use the word "madrassa."
the confusion comes from the fact that in other languages (like pashto or urdu) "madrassa" has a religious connotation. those languages already have their own generic term for "school" so they use the arabic word for "school" to refer to specifically religious schools. because arabic is the liturgical language in islam, lots of non-arab muslims associate the language with religion.
but most arabs don't make that association. arabic is just a language. so in arabic "madrassa" just means "school." and daniel pipes is still a lunatic.
UPDATE: never one to miss out on any braindead bandwagon, pam atlas is all over the "brooklyn madrassa" issue. my favorite part is where she quotes mark steyn who says that we are, in fact, at war with arabic.
UPDATE2: alif sikkiin points out that khalil gibran wasn't even a muslim. so the notion that the "khalil gibran school" is some kind of muslim fundamentalist training ground is even more ridiculous.
