New Saudi Textbook Reflects Islamic vs. Westernizing Tensions

According to yesterday's Jerusalem Post, Saudi Arabia's Education Ministry has published a new high school textbook titled Hadith which is strongly critical of Westernizing influences that are absorbed by Saudi students who study abroad. This attempt to interject criticism of the United Nations Human Rights agenda into sayings of the Prophet Muhammad comes at the same time that Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Higher Education is encouraging Saudi students to study abroad through the King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship Program. The problem reflects a struggle within Saudi Arabia's Education Ministry between top-level officials who hold degrees from U.S. and British universities, and their staffs who are often educated in Islamic studies from Saudi universities.