The Texas school board is set to vote on a resolution urging publishers to keep "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian" language out of textbooks in the state.

Among other complaints, the non-binding decree says some textbooks devote more lines to Islam than to Christianity and print "whitewashes" of Islamic culture.

Critics say it relies on a flawed reading of books that are out of use.

In May, the panel adopted guidelines that critics said injected conservative political ideas into the curriculum.

Texas is one of the largest textbook markets in the US, and a vote in favour of the resolution could carry considerable weight in the publishing industry, supporters say.

The measure, on which the Texas Board of Education will vote on Friday in the state capital of Austin, is drafted by Randy Rives, a businessman and former school official in the Texas city of Odessa.

Supporters say the resolution is needed to warn textbook publishers not to print "anti-Christian" books if they want to sell them to Texas schools.

"It's the pro-Islamic, anti-Christian teachings in these books, that is what we are concerned about," Mr Rives told the BBC.

"We're teaching double the beliefs and specifics about another religion than we are about Christianity, which is the foundation of our country."

Among several complaints, the resolution says that a textbook used until 2003 used pejorative language to describe the crusaders while "euphemising Muslim conquest of Christian lands as 'migrations'".

It also says a book approved for use in Texas schools until 2003 devoted 159 lines of text to Islam and only 82 to Christianity, and recounted crusaders' massacres of European Jews while ignoring a 15th Century massacre of Baghdad Muslims by the Muslim conqueror Tamerlane.

Mr Rives, a Republican who lost an election for the state school board this year, rejected criticism the resolution refers to books no longer used in Texas schools.

"The big concern is that we don't let it happen in the future," he said.

The Texas Freedom Network, an organisation that says it promotes religious freedom and individual liberties and opposes "the religious right", accused the Texas board of manufacturing controversy instead of focusing on education. It said the resolution relied on a flawed reading of textbooks that overlooked certain passages.

"This resolution is another example of state board members putting politics ahead of expertise and refusing to consider the advice of real scholars before doing something provocative and divisive," the group said in a statement.

"Indeed, the board has asked no scholars or other experts for public advice about the resolution."

This is a bad resolution, if they want to even the odds then just add a religion class.
I get how they don't want other religions to overshadow their own but banning it is not the right approach.

It is basically trying to get rid of things that contradict Christianity

lol, they're calling immigration a conquest and try to justify the Crusades, my ass.

ffs, Texas is one messed up state.

uh why are there even pro islamic books in the first place ...

read the article, there arent.

they are overacting.

That pretty much sums it up. If American schools want to teach about Islam in their text books, they should be teaching the truth. They should tell how both sides of the crusades used the same "man invented" visage of God to massacre people. They should teach how the true pirates of the Caribbean were mostly Islamic, and that they had declared war on the US the day it became a country, because it was not founded under Islam. They should teach that the majority of the slave trade movers and marketeers were Islamic. This last one in particular always amused me, considering how many disenfranchised black people in America turn to Islam. I wonder how many of them would if they knew the truth that they used to trade their grand parents and great grand parents like baseball cards...

What Texas wants gone is the belligerent ass kissing by the Orwellian socialist left of this country. They want this same anti American, God hating, freedom hating filth to stop trying to tear down the religion this nation was founded on, and I don't blame them. I personally have 1,600 rounds set aside for a particular set of these liberals myself. Of course, this is because I am smart enough to know that book burning is not the solution. Enemy burning is.