Muslim Donors Promise L.A. Schools
Inoffensive Koran Translation
The Muslim Public Affairs Council promised the Los Angeles Unified School District February 11 that it would seek a less-offensive translation of the Koran to replace some 300 copies of The Holy Meaning of the Quran donated in December by the Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation. The 1934 edition by Abdullah Yusuf Ali was pulled for review from middle- and high-school libraries February 1 after a history teacher who discovered it in a district library pointed out anti-Semitic passages in the commentary that accompanied Ali’s translation of the Koran.
Foundation Director Dafer Dakhil insisted at a closed-door meeting between LAUSD officials and Muslim and Jewish leaders that the gift had not been intended to “cause discomfort to members of other faiths,” according to the February 12 Los Angeles Times. “His sincerity was very apparent,” Michael Hirschfeld of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation told the Times, adding that Dakhil “was interested in doing whatever possible to bridge differences.”
Rowena Lagrosa, executive administrator of educational services for LAUSD, admitted to the newspaper after the meeting that the original gift “did not go through the normal district review procedures” before being accepted.
Posted February 18, 2002.
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