Is Radical Islam Infiltrating the Scouts?

The Girl Scouts of the USA and Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America) have faced no shortage of controversies in recent years, from the Girl Scouts admitting “transgender girls” (a.k.a. boys) to horrific cases of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts. Recently, both organizations have come under scrutiny once again for pressuring Scouts to participate in Islamic religious practices.

The Boy Scouts, who have become notoriously woke, appear to be the worst offender. Investigative journalist and White House Correspondent Natalie Winters – who has become one of the leading voices in the country on the creeping influence of radical Islam – has extensively documented this alarming development.

Just this week, Winters posted a shocking video of Scouts in Virginia being told to repeat passages from the Quran at a training for troop leaders. Two girls wearing hijabs – who appear to be “Boy Scouts” themselves – read the prayers in Arabic, and the other Scouts are instructed to repeat the passages in English.

Scouting America’s most recent “National Jamboree” also featured an inflatable mosque, Islamic education seminars, and “Allahu Akbar” medals for Scouts. In another instance, a North Carolina Scout council hosted a “Ramadan iftar” at a local Islamic center. In the United Kingdom, Scouts as young as four are given “wudu” lessons and told to “rinse their mouths three times, sniff water into their nostrils, and wash their faces.”

None of this sudden injection of Islamic culture into the Scouts is organic. As Winters reports, Saudi Arabia has committed nearly $90 million to World Scouting’s “Messengers of Peace” program, prompting what the Scouts called a “realignment.”

The Girl Scouts have also undertaken an astonishing campaign of Islamization. In several cities throughout the United States, the Girl Scouts now operate “mosque-based programs.” All Girl Scouts also can now receive four medals specific to Islam, including “Bismillah,” “In the Name of Allah,” “Qurat ul A’in,” and “Muslimeen.” While the medals were not created by the Girl Scouts directly, the organization has approved them for wear on the official uniform.

One event in Sacramento for the “broader Girl Scout community” allegedly featured a hijab photo booth, modesty lessons, a mosque tour, and an “informative booth about Palestine.”

The proliferation of Islamic teaching in the Girl Scouts is particularly disturbing given the brutal treatment of women and girls under Islamic regimes. There appears to be no instruction offered about how child marriage is commonplace in the Islamic world, or how women can be severely beaten or even killed for being the victim of sexual assault, all under the banner of Islam. There is also no mention of sharia law, the Islamic religious-political code which severely restricts women’s access to education, employment, and freedom of movement.

The Girl Scouts organization responded to backlash over its Islamic programming by calling criticism “misinformation” and alleging that “Girl Scouts is not a religious organization and does not teach religion.” However, it did not dispute that Scouts had received instruction in the Quran and been forced to abide by hijab requirements as part of scout-related events.

As Winters retorted, “This is modern feminism’s pathetic endpoint: Girl Scouts defending Islam’s incorporation into its programs – as Islamist regimes treat women as second-class citizens and stone them to death.”

The primary defense of both the Girl Scouts and Scouting America has been that the organizations are not affiliated with any religion, and Scouts are free to practice whatever faith they choose. Scouting America only acknowledges a “Duty to God” as part of its Scout Oath and Scout Law.

But looking back at the history of the Scouts, it becomes clear that worshipping Allah isn’t exactly what the organization’s founders had in mind. Robert Baden-Powell founded Scouting in Britain in 1907 with an original Scout Promise that included a pledge to do one's “duty to God and the King,” reflecting the strongly Christian cultural environment of Edwardian Britain. When the Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910, its founders similarly viewed belief in the Christian God as an important part of character formation. Many churches became major sponsors of Scout troops.

So, what is really happening here? Why has it suddenly become so important to Scouting’s leadership that American children receive detailed exposure to the religious customs of a faith practiced by barely one percent of the country?

The answer appears to have nothing to do with helping Muslim scouts practice their own faith and everything to do with the broader ideological transformation of Scouting itself. Like so many once-distinctly American institutions, the Scouts increasingly seem embarrassed by the Christian cultural inheritance that helped shape them and eager to replace it with woke multiculturalism, in which every tradition is celebrated except the nation’s own.

That is how an organization built around camping, self-reliance, patriotism, civic duty, and character formation winds up having children repeat passages from the Quran and attend Islamic cultural indoctrination. The Boy Scouts already decided that even the word “boy” was too exclusionary for its identity. Now, apparently, the traditions that made Scouting uniquely American are expendable as well.