By Hamza A. Bajwa

The BBC Panorama programme has been condemned by prominent Muslim organisations for attempting to "vilify Muslim schools" and for being "divisive".

The community’s largest Muslim umbrella body, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said "the programme’s incendiary title and commentary from the programme’s presenter has already contributed to the mood-music that Muslims are somehow separate, foreign and un-British."

It said that John Ware’s ‘British Schools, Islamic Rules’ had "complete disregard for the value of Ofsted inspection".

The programme said children aged six to 18 attended a network of more than 40 weekend schools across the country which offered to teach them the Saudi national curriculum.

It further claimed that these children were being taught from text books that made derogatory comments about Jews, non-believers, homosexuals while promoting violent punishments for crimes.

But according to the Association of Muslim Schools (AMS UK), the producers "attempted to vilify Muslim schools by conflating decontextualised statements and scenarios with reputable organisations and individuals who run Muslim schools".

It added: "the overwhelming majority of Muslim schools demonstrate good practice in both Community Cohesion and academic achievement despite the constraints of limited resources and unhelpful media prejudice.

"The disingenuous coverage of the Bridge Schools Inspectorate sought to cause division and suspicion."

The programme quoted a number of verses from the Qur’an which Neal Robinson, an expert on Islam’s Holy Book, said that the context in which these materials were presented also came with risks.

"To present it cold, as it seems to be here, just part of the teaching of Islam, no it’s not wise. In the wrong hands I think it is... ammunition for anti-Semitism," he said

Chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said: "The reality is that there are practices that will not be seen as positive within all faith schools and faith institutions."

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "Ofsted are doing some work in this area. They’ll be reporting to me shortly about how we can ensure that part-time provision is better registered and better inspected in the future."

Mr Shadjareh, however, responded saying that other faith schools had been subjected to complaints and singling out Muslim schools threatened to add to already "dangerous" levels of Islamophobia, which he compared to the amount of anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s.

"We all know what that led to," he added.

He said that Muslims were already disproportionately being targeted by police with programmes such as the Prevent project.

He said that focusing on Muslim schools for investigation would tell Muslim young people "you are different" and further alienate them.

"If you are going to say we don’t want our children to be brought up with certain types of ideas then we need to have all faith schools inspected with the same rigour and standards."

The MCB reminded that "the vast majority of Muslim schools in this country offer a much-needed service to British Muslims. Many full-time Muslim schools have achieved impressive results in educational league tables, and part-time schools inspire young Muslims to contribute to the common good.

"The Muslim Council of Britain is heartened that the majority of Muslim schools work towards established standards, striving to promote an agenda that recognises Britain’s cherished pluralism. We hope that those few schools that fall short of such objectives, if indeed they do, redouble their efforts for the benefit of their own children".

It added that Mr Ware had "complete disregard" for the value of Ofsted inspection, a nationally recognised body governing schools, and "chose to seek something of a minority to cause contention".

It believed the programme also "did not represent a fair documentation as it failed to inform of the Muslim schools that have conveyed successful achievements and pass rates and was inept to fully highlight the findings from rigorous Ofsted inspection.

AMS UK also said that Panorama ignored the achievements of Muslim schools that "teach the National Curriculum under an Islamic ethos, instead they concentrated on tenuous and irrelevant website links".

AMS Chairman, Amjad Ahmed, said: "Muslim schools are part of the solution to the issue of Community Cohesion and social harmony, some schools have challenges to meet and AMS UK will support them and continue the work of building bridges with other faiths and communities through projects like the BSI in spite of prejudiced and poorly researched reporting."

AMS UK also criticised the implications of drawing a connection between the programme featuring the 2001 Oldham Riots and faith schools leading to segregated societies despite no Muslim schools operating in Oldham at the time of the riots.

In an email, the group also said that "Muslim schools owe it to their stakeholders to be pro-active about their image in the media in order to communicate the benefits of Muslim schools and Islam to the wider community".

It said that would be offering a day-long workshop on ‘Working with the Media’ at its upcoming National Inset Day on 4 January 2011.