Al Qaeda jihadi's poem dropped from Calicut University's syllabus

Thiruvananthapuram, July 28: The Calicut University has decided to withdraw a poem written by an al Qaeda terrorist Ibrahim al-Rubaish after widespread protests. The poem 'Ode to the Sea' was was picked up from a book 'Poems from Guantanomo Bay' in 2011.

The poem by an al Qaeda terrorist was studied for 2 years by the university's English students. It was added to the syllabus without verifying the background of the author.

The issue came to light after a local daily reported the matter.

The poem was withdrawn from the book Literature and Contemporary Issues prescribed as a textbook for the third semester degree students as per the recommendation of a commission headed by scholar MM Basheer appointed by the university.

The commission said that it was unethical to force the students to study the poem as it was written by an Al Qaeda leader.

The poem, said to have been written by al-Rubaish when he was a detainee at the United State’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba between 2001 and 2006, was picked up for inclusion in the Calicut University curriculum from an anthology “Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak”, published first by the Amnesty International in 2006.

The university authorities, who had initially held that what was to be examined was not the poet’s past but the content and standard of the poem, were forced to appoint the commission to review the inclusion after a section of English teachers in various colleges under the university resented the poem’s choice for inclusion in the curriculum.

The introduction to the poem in the book for the students says that al-Rubaish is a Saudi national holding a degree awarded in Sharia law by the Saudi Arabia’s Imam Muhammad Bin Saud University. “Ode to the Sea” figured in the book along with poems written by Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath, Kamala Das, etc.

Former Kerala BJP president PK Krishnadas called for a probe by the anti-terror squad into the possible conspiracy behind the inclusion of the Qaeda terror man’s poem in the curriculum, saying that this was proof of how religious extremism had influenced universities in Kerala. The Education Department in Kerala is being looked after Minister PK Abdurabb of the Muslim League.

According to Krishnadas, it was impossible to consider the inclusion of a poem by a globally infamous Al Qaeda terrorist in a book for the university students in Kerala as accidental. He said there was reason to suspect that people with global terror links could have found place on the board of studies of the university.

Al-Rubaish (Ibrahim Sulayman Muhammad Arbaysh), 34, known as one of the topmost leaders of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was held in extrajudicial detention at Guantanamo Bay between 2001 and 2006. He was transferred to Saudi Arabia in December, 2006 but was said to have escaped custody.

He was handed over to the US by Pakistani military in 2001 after capturing him from the Afghan border. As per a 2009 report, he became a mufti of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula after 2006. Al-Rubaish is said to have called for Jihad early this year saying that it was his duty to spur the Muslims to kill Americans.

A teacher in the English department of a famous college in Kozhikode, 28 km from the Calicut University headquarters at Thenhipalam, said that there was nothing obviously objectionable in the poem “but it is surprising why such a poem should be selected for studies when there are several poems by others available with same content and similar mood.”