Maury County parents are expressing concern after their children came home with world history schoolwork containing references to Islam and its teachings.
The school district contends the curriculum has been in place for more than three decades, and world history is difficult to teach without referencing religions.
Brandee Porterfield has a daughter in seventh grade at Spring Hill Middle School. She said her daughter brought home school materials containing the Five Pillars of Islam. While she agrees that Islam is part of history and does not have a problem with schools teaching about the religion, she said the lesson skipped a chapter about Christianity.
Porterfield said school officials moved past the chapter because it was not part of the state’s standards.
“I have big problem with that. From a historical point of view, that’s a lot of history these kids are missing,” she said. “Also, for them to spend three weeks on Islam after having skipped Christianity, it seems to be that they are making a choice about which religion to discuss.”
The mother said she was concerned about her child being taught the “Shahada,” the Muslim profession of faith which was contained in a foldable teaching material.
One of the translations of the creed reads, “There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”
“I have no problem with the teacher at all. It’s just that yellow foldable seems to be teaching our children religion in schools, and only that religion,” Porterfield said. “From a religion point of view, if the schools are going to be teaching religion in history, they need to teach them all equally.”
