It has emerged that barbaric textbooks which were handed out in Saudi Arabian schools teach children how to cut off a thief’s hands and feet under Sharia law.

The shocking books, paid for and printed by the Saudi government, also tell teenagers that Jews need to be exterminated and homosexuals should be “put to death”.

Recent editions were obtained by the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, D.C., which says they should raise fears in the West over the use of jihadist language.

Barbaric textbooks which were handed out in Saudi Arabian schools teach children how to cut off a thief's hands and feet under Sharia law

The books were published and handed out to 9th and 10th-graders despite Saudi Arabia’s promises to clean up textbooks in the kingdom.

Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, told Fox News: “This is where terrorism starts, in the education system.

“They show students how to cut (the) hand and the feet of a thief.”

The textbooks were printed for the 2010-2011 academic year and translated from Arabic by the institute.

In one, for ninth-graders, students are taught the annihilation of the Jewish people is imperative.

One text reads in part: “The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. There is a Jew behind me come and kill him.”

According to the translations, women are described as weak and irresponsible.

Ali Al-Ahmed said the textbooks also call for homosexuals to be put to death “because they pose a danger at society, as the Saudi school books teaches”.

“If you teach six million children in these important years of their lives, if you install that in their brain, no wonder we have so many Saudi suicide bombers.”

The Saudi Embassy in Washington D.C. was approached for comment, but there was no immediate response.