A/HRC/25/58/Add.2 41. In addition to religious instruction in the strict sense of the word (namely, education given with the intention of familiarizing students with their own faith), the school can and should also provide information about religions, philosophies and beliefs in the context of history, geography, literature or other disciplines, in order to overcome misunderstandings and negative stereotypes. Education should include basic information about religions that do not traditionally exist in the country. Equally important is information about intrareligious diversity, including different Christian denominations and different branches of Islam. The Special Rapporteur was informed in this context that many negative stereotypes against Shias exist in Jordan. Resentment and prejudices seem to have increased in recent years. On the one hand, this may reflect the current political conflicts within the Arab region; on the other, prejudices may also be based on gross misunderstandings of the religious teachings of Shia Islam. School education can and should play a role in overcoming misunderstandings by providing appropriate information. 42. Representatives of Christian communities requested that history books used in schools be more appropriately include the Christian heritage in Jordan and other Arab countries which, they stated, is largely ignored in text books.3 Moreover, they asserted that, if Christianity is addressed in teaching materials, this is typically done from an Islamic point of view, which does not do justice to the self-understanding of Christians. According to information provided to the Special Rapporteur, it seems that, while history books used in school generally inform students about non-Islamic religions, including in particular Christianity, the specific regional heritage of Christianity in Jordan or in the broader Arab world is not appropriately covered. 43. In textbooks and curricula used for Muslim instruction, Christianity is generally presented through the lens of Islamic teachings. Representatives of various Christian denominations with whom the Special Rapporteur discussed this issue mentioned the socalled “Barnabas gospel” as a particularly disturbing misrepresentation of Christianity in curricula and textbooks used in school.4 The so-called “Barnabas gospel”, thought by many researchers to have originated in sixteenth-century Spain, naturally does not belong to traditional Islamic teaching based on the Koran or the Hadith. It nonetheless features in curricula and textbooks used for Muslim instruction in public schools. 44. The Special Rapporteur underlines the conceptual difference between, on the one hand, religious instruction that has the intention of familiarizing students with their own religious tradition, and “neutral” information on religious issues provided in history, geography or literature classes, on the other. It is important to maintain this distinction not only conceptually but also in practice.5 This important differentiation has implications also for the contents of curricula and textbooks. In any case, textbooks used in schools should aim to do justice to the self-understanding of religious communities and their members in order to contribute to the elimination of misperceptions that often negatively affect relations between people of different persuasions. 3 4 5 It should be noted that a Roman Catholic priest also complained about the general ignorance of the realities of Arab Christendom in Europe. This was confirmed by a study conducted by Professor Wolfram Reiss on the basis of the Jordanian curricula. See Klaus Hock, Johannes Lähnemann and Wolfram Reiss, Die Darstellung des Christentums in Schulbüchern islamisch geprägter Länder, Teil 3: Libanon und Jordanien (Berlin: EB-Verlag, 2012), p. 479. A/HRC/16/53, para. 31. 13