{"id":8182,"date":"2026-02-08T11:06:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/ground_post\/a-survey-of-2017-2018-saudi-middle-and-high-school-textbooks\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T11:06:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:06:03","slug":"a-survey-of-2017-2018-saudi-middle-and-high-school-textbooks","status":"publish","type":"ground_post","link":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/ground_post\/a-survey-of-2017-2018-saudi-middle-and-high-school-textbooks\/","title":{"rendered":"A Survey of 2017-2018 Saudi Middle and High School Textbooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"main-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"hero\">\n<div class=\"block-layout-region\">\n<div id=\"block-herointernalpageblock\" class=\"block block-custom-blocks block-hero-internal-block\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"internal_hero_wrapper custom-hero  internal-hero-js-adjust\">\n<div class=\"internal_hero\" style=\"background-image: linear-gradient(to right, rgba(0, 0, 0, 1) 3%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)), url(\" themes custom uscirf2020 assets images defaulthero.png\"); background-position-x: center; background-position-y: center\">\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<div class=\"container\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<h1 class=\"internal-hero-title\">A Survey of 2017-2018 Saudi Middle and High School Textbooks <\/h1>\n<p>This follow-on contracted study reviews 22 middle and high school textbooks published by the Saudi government for the 2017-2018 academic year, including the 12 high school books previously reviewed by USCIRF in its\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/USCIRF%20Special%20Report%20-%20Saudi%20textbooks%205-16-18_0.pdf\">May 2018 Special Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"custom-breadcrumb hidden\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<div id=\"insertNavHere\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<div id=\"main\" class=\"container\">\n              <a target=\"_blank\" id=\"main-content\"><\/a><\/p>\n<div data-drupal-messages-fallback class=\"hidden\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"block-uscirf2020-content\" class=\"block block-system block-system-main-block\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<div class=\"basic-page\">\n<div class=\"paragraph-section paragraph-unique-9663\" style=\"\" data-animation=\"fadeIn\" data-animation-delay=\"0.3\">\n<div class=\"container\">\n<div class=\"single-container row\">\n<div class=\"col-md-12\">\n<div class=\"full-content\">\n<p>The full report may be found <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/SaudiTextbook_inside_FINAL112818wlinks.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<strong>Summary of Findings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This follow-on contracted study reviews 22 middle and high school textbooks published by the Saudi government for the 2017-2018 academic year, including the 12 high school books previously reviewed by USCIRF in its <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/USCIRF%20Special%20Report%20-%20Saudi%20textbooks%205-16-18_0.pdf\">May 2018 Special Report<\/a>. The books number more than 3,000 pages and primarily focus on religious subjects. For comparison, the study also includes two middle school texts on social and national studies.<\/p>\n<p>Intolerant content is scattered throughout many of the books. This intolerance is reflected in the commentary and interpretations offered by the textbooks. Whereas the middle school curriculum and books generally dwell on developing \u201cright\u201d belief, the high school books focus on inculcating appropriate responses by society and the individual to those with \u201cwrong\u201d beliefs. They teach that those who worship differently from the Saudi state-sanctioned interpretation of Islam are polytheists who will go to hell regardless of their good deeds. Shi\u2019a and Sufi veneration of the gravesites of prophets is dismissed as \u201cheresy\u201d while criticism of Islam is deemed \u201capostasy,\u201d for which the textbook endorses the death penalty. The textbooks caution students to avoid friendship with members of other religions. They also encourage both violent and non-violent jihad against non-believers. Finally, the passages espouse the death penalty for women who have an affair, and for gay men. The textbooks examined in this study are more intolerant than the six religious books from 2012\u20132014 reviewed in a previous internal analysis by USCIRF. They are even more intolerant than the 2011\u20132012 textbooks <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/icrd.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/State-of-Curricular-Reform-in-KSA-2012-ICRD-Report.pdf\">studied<\/a> by the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD), which identified many troubling passages. The 2017\u20132018 books are more akin to Saudi textbooks from the early years of the previous decade before the Saudi government promised to reform its curricula.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<div id=\"block-taxonomytermview\" class=\"block block-custom-blocks block-taxonomy-term-view\">\n<div class=\"content\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/publications\/survey-2017-2018-saudi-middle-and-high-school-textbooks?rand=6542\" target=\"_blank\">Source link <\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Survey of 2017-2018 Saudi Middle and High School Textbooks This follow-on contracted study reviews 22 middle and high school textbooks published by the Saudi government for the 2017-2018 academic year, including the 12 high school books previously reviewed by USCIRF in its\u00a0May 2018 Special Report. The full report may be found here. Summary of Findings This follow-on contracted study&hellip;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":99044,"featured_media":8183,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[1737,1168,1084,606,683,1738],"ground_category":[315,320],"class_list":["post-8182","ground_post","type-ground_post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-high","tag-middle","tag-saudi","tag-school","tag-survey","tag-textbooks","ground_category-2-grounds-tribulation","ground_category-2-5-time-martyrdom"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/webpage\/Saudi%20Textbooks%20Report%20Cover.JPG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_post\/8182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ground_post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_post\/8182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8182"},{"taxonomy":"ground_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godshand.link\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ground_category?post=8182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}