Scottsdale Community College in Arizona, United States of America has apologised over quiz questions where a professor asked multiple choice questions on Islam in a quiz. Screenshots of the quiz questions have gone viral on social media. As per reports, the first question was “Terrorism is ______ in Islam.” The multiple choice options were, “always forbidden”, “Justified within the context of jihad”, “justified under international law” or “always justified”. The correct answer for the quiz was reportedly ‘justified within context of jihad’.
Second question was “Where is terrorism encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law?”. The options were, “terrorism is not encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law”, “the Medina verses”, “the Muhammad verses” and “the Mecca verses.” The correct answer for the quiz was reportedly “the Medina verses”. Reportedly, the Medina verses refer to the portion of the Qur’an traditionally understood as having been revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career.
The third question was, “Who do terrorists strive to emulate?” The options for this question were, “Prophet Muhammad”, “Ibn Tamiyyah”, “Saddam Hussein” and “Osama Bin Laden”. The correct answer for this quiz question was reportedly Prophet Muhammad.
Following the questions, the professor who had set the quiz started receiving threats.
As reported by frontpagemag, the professor and the college started receiving threats from those who took an offence to the quiz. After that, the college put up an apology on social media.
The college also said that the above questions will be permanently removed from any future tests.
Kerala professor hand chopped off over exam question
On 4th July 2010, professor TJ Joseph, faculty of the Newmans College at Thodupuzha in Idukki, was attacked by the members of Popular Front of India, a radical Muslim group, alleging that one of his questions in an internal examination paper, which was reportedly set by Joseph, had derogatory remarks on Prophet Mohammed. The Muslim radicals attacked the professor as a punishment for the alleged irreverent reference to Prophet Mohammed in a question paper that he prepared. The professor was returning home along with his family after attending Sunday mass when he was attacked and one of his hands was chopped off by the accused.
For the Malayalam question paper, Joseph had selected a paragraph from a short story by CPI(M) leader PT Kunju Mohammed to test students on punctuation. In the story, a nameless villager questions god. When setting the question, Joseph had named this villager Mohammed. This had created a furore after a newspaper affiliated with the Jamaat-e-Islami sensationalised the issue by equating it with blasphemy.
Of the 31 people nabbed by the NIA in the case, 13 were found guilty and the rest were acquitted.