Madrassa science

From the UAE's National:

In the mid-1980s, my father’s cousin, a noted scholar, travelled to madrassas along the Pakistan and Afghan border that were heavily funded by the Saudi government. These schools were the lynch pins of the jihad, because they taught the children of Afghan refugees and churned out thousands of fighters.

My cousin observed that teachers who taught history or basic scientific concepts – such as that the earth revolved around the sun – were fired and replaced by mullahs who knew only a few verses of the Quran and the “importance” of killing the infidels.

The ignorance of these men was highlighted by one particularly dumb question posed to my cousin by a mullah: “How can anyone know the distance between the earth and the sun? No one has created a ruler long enough.”