King Fahd Academy (german: König-Fahd-Akademie, ar, أكاديمية الملك فهد بألمانيا. بون) was a school in ,

Bad Godesberg Bad Godesberg ( ksh, Bad Jodesbersch) is a borough ('' Stadtbezirk'') of Bonn, southern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. From 1949 to 1999, while Bonn was the capital of West Germany, most foreign embassies were in Bad Godesberg. Some buildings ar ...

district,Authorities To Close Muslim School in Bonn
" ''

Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...

''. 11 November 2003. Retrieved on 24 July 2016.

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The school, with an attached mosque, housing elementary school through high school,Crawford, David.
West's Relations With Saudis Face Growing Strains
" ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''. Updated December 7, 2004. Retrieved on August 6, 2016. opened in 1995. Financed by the

King of Saudi Arabia The king of Saudi Arabia is the monarchial head of state and ruler of Saudi Arabia who holds absolute power. He is the head of the Saudi Arabian royal family, the House of Saud. The king is called the "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" (), a ...

and sponsored by Saudi Arabia, it was named after

King Fahd Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ( ar, فهد بن عبد العزيز آل سعود ''Fahd ibn ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Āl Suʿūd'', ; 1920, 1921 or 1923 – 1 August 2005) was a Saudi Arabian politician who was King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia fro ...

. The school was closed at the end of the 2016/2017 school year, after long-running criticism that it was attracting

Islamists Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is c ...

to Germany. The school's last director was .

History

Founding and change of mission

It was established in 1994 and officially opened in 1995. With its construction financed by the government of Saudi Arabia,Eddy, Melissa.
Hostility Between Muslims and German Nationalists Rattles a Former Capital
" ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. June 4, 2012. Retrieved on July 24, 2016. it was originally designed to provide an Islamic education to diplomats and other children residing in Germany for a short period of time. Originally the mosque attached to the school was open to the public.Boston, William.
A Saudi School for Scandal
" ''

TIME Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. Sunday November 2, 2003. Retrieved on July 25, 2016. There were plans to include an Arabic language school with a capacity of 500 students. The initial cost of construction was almost 76 million

Saudi riyals The Saudi riyal ( ar, ريال سعودي ') is the currency of Saudi Arabia. It is abbreviated as or SAR ''(Saudi Arabian Riyal)''. It is subdivided into 100 halalas ( ar, هللة '). The currency is pegged to the US dollar at a constant rate ...

, equivalent to almost €15 million or $20 million, all donated by King Fahd. The Saudi Arabian government had previously supported a school called the "New Arabic School", but withdrew funds to instead have King Fahd, which was to have more Arabic and Saudi-centred instruction, built. New Arabic School closed shortly afterward. At the time the school opened, the Saudi Embassy to Germany asked German officials to allow students of any nationality to attend King Fahd, but the German officials stated that all students except for children of diplomatic personnel were required to attend schools with curricula approved by German authorities. By the late 1990s embassies moved from Bonn, the former capital of

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

, to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, the capital of

reunified Germany German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

. Many Muslim immigrant families moved to Bad Godesberg, where the embassies and their staff were formerly located. Many parents permanently residing in Germany who wanted to give their children an Islamic education also began patronizing the school, and some moved to Bonn specifically so their children could attend this school. ''Der Spiegel'' stated that the school caused many Islamists to settle in Bonn. German authorities did not realize that the school was gaining a local Muslim student body as no central office processed the requests from parents to have their children attend King Fahd Academy instead of local German schools; the principals of the schools granted exceptions that allowed the children to attend King Fahd Academy.

2000s controversy and attempted closure

In 2003 the television documentary programme ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

'' aired a special about the school. This documentary caused the school to suspend Anas Bayram, the imam, who had asked students to be trained in physical activities; the documentary stated that he was preparing students for

jihad Jihad (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...

. William Boston of ''

'' wrote that there were "some distortions" within the documentary, including when it attributed a pro-September 11 essay written by a non-student to the school. Meanwhile officials from the local government obtained copies of the textbooks and class schedules and found that it had insufficient class hours devoted to academic subjects, an excessive amount of class hours devoted to religion, and textbook material that was for Islamist beliefs and against non-Muslims. In 2003 North Rhine Westphalia regional commissioner

Jürgen Roters Jürgen Roters (born 15 January 1949 in Coesfeld, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), as well as a former middle-distance runner. He was mayor of Cologne This is a list of m ...

stated that he wished to close the school, accusing it of having connections to Islamist groups, including Mamduh Salim. German politicians were sensitive to Islamism since it was revealed that some

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

hijackers had spent time in Germany. Area politician

Jamal Karsli Jamal ( ar, جمال ''/'') is an Arabic masculine given name, meaning "beauty",Jamal
at BehindTheName.com and a surna ...

and parents at the school opposed the planned closure. Some parents accused the area politicians of trying to stop the influx of Muslims into Bonn.

Otto Schily Otto Georg Schily (born 20 July 1932) is a former Federal Minister of the Interior of Germany, his tenure was from 1998 to 2005, in the cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Earl ...

, the

Minister of the Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...

, criticized the anti-King Fahd media and stated that the German government would continue to support the school. A high-ranking official in the German federal government told ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' that German officials did not want to lose cooperation with the Saudis and were afraid that if they closed this school, the Saudis would retaliate and close the

German International School Riyadh German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. According to Melissa Eddy of ''

'' a "compromise" between German officials and the school kept it open. It meant that the mosque would be reserved for those who are connected with the school, and that German citizens would be barred from attending the school. All exemptions granted to allow German citizens to attend the school were revoked. Several hundred students had to leave King Fahd Academy, so some area domestic elementary schools began offering Arabic classes to help integrate the students. Saudi officials initially stated that King Fahd would move to Berlin, with the old building becoming a cultural centre. The Bonn school stayed open.

Planned closure

In 2012 protests and riots involving Islamists and Germans occurred outside of the school. As of 2009 the Saudi government was negotiating with the parliament of Berlin to have a new 400 student school established in Berlin. Plans were approved on the condition that the school was small in size and had no mosque. The Saudi government planned to establish a residential district around the new school. The school was closed in 2017, after long-running criticism that it was attracting

to Germany. ''

'' reported that the plans for a Berlin campus had been stopped.

Campus

The school used a white marble building topped by a

minaret A minaret (; ar, منارة, translit=manāra, or ar, مِئْذَنة, translit=miʾḏana, links=no; tr, minare; fa, گل‌دسته, translit=goldaste) is a type of tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques. Minarets are generall ...

Curriculum

The school had curricula derived from that in Saudi Arabia, and it followed the practices of

Wahhabi Islam Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

. As of 2003 its primary language of instruction is Arabic. It became an

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...

school on 1 August 2014, and it offered English-medium IB classes,King Fahd Academy Bonn
"

International Baccalaureate Organisation The International Baccalaureate (IB), formerly known as the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the IB Dip ...

. Retrieved on July 24, 2016. taught in grades 11 and 12. As of 2003 the school had eight hours of Islamic education, six hours of Arabic, and one hour of German classes per week for its students. As of 2004 it had 12 hours of Islamic education, nine hours of Arabic, and three hours of Saudi history per week. In 2003 ''

'' stated that statistics stated that most graduates of King Fahd were going to reside in Germany after finishing their education but that "the school does little to integrate the children into their German surroundings".

Student body

As of 2003 the school had 195 students with German citizenship and about 405 students without German citizenship. Late in 2003 the student body was about 465, and by 2004 the student body had declined to 300, partly due to the loss of the German citizens. In 2008 the student body was 166.Robbers, Gerhard. ''Religion and Law in Germany''.

Kluwer Law International Wolters Kluwer N.V. () is a Dutch information services company. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands (Global) and Philadelphia, United States (corporate). Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a ...

, 2010. , 9789041133526. p
297
In 2016 it had about 150 students and 30 teachers.

References

External links

King Fahd Academy

King Fahd Academy

King Fahd Academy

King Fahd Academy Berlin
{{Saudi international schools International schools in North Rhine–Westphalia International Baccalaureate schools in Germany Educational institutions established in 1995 1995 establishments in Germany Educational institutions disestablished in 2017 2017 disestablishments in Germany Saudi Arabian international schools

School A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...