Why not just take £1b as interest free Islamic loans from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, et al, and use that instead? That way, the Saudis don't have the cash to fund their madrassas, and instead, the cash can be diverted to the 'new and improved' Islamic teachings that would teach those Muslims to consistently vote Labour in every election.

But then again, how different would it be?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at June 6, 2007 3:12 AM

Anyone interested in studying Islam should go to Tehran, Ridayh, Cairo, or other Islamic city with big universities and go there.....They already have the books and the professors and the curriculum and the financing and support of the Islamic nations....

If the "students" agree that Islam is a "wonderful" thing...then they should stay there and not bother the real British taxpayers with their warped minds nor drain the real British taxpayers of any money...Let Saudi Arabia support them....

THere is no need for Muslims in the UK...

Blair is a fool....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 6, 2007 6:12 AM

'Improve', when hitched to this outrageous, typically Blairite squandering of taxpayers' money, will inevitably mean 'more of'. Just what the benighted UK needs.

Posted by: Dane at June 6, 2007 6:31 AM

And by the way, 'Lord' Ahmed (God help us) has form:

http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2007/06/04/inclusiveness.php

Posted by: Dane at June 6, 2007 6:37 AM

indoctrination is not teaching.

Posted by: KAOSKTRL at June 6, 2007 7:09 AM

Tony gets it. Tony doesn't get it. Tony gets it. Tony doesn't get it. Tony gets it. Tony doesn't get it.

Time to draw a final conclusion about Blair: he just doesn't get it.

But that's not why I'm here. My mother used to say I was a problem. Anyone want to throw money at me?

Posted by: Shy Guy at June 6, 2007 7:37 AM

Mr. Blair said: "The voices of extremism are no more representative of Islam than the use in times gone by of torture to force conversion to Christianity represented the teachings of Christ."

Mr. Blair is sadly mistaken. There are absolutely no similarities between the teachings of Christ and Islam - they are diametrically opposed such as light is to darkness and heaven to hell. How many innocent lives are put in danger from such deception and ignorance on the part of Western leaders such as Tony Blair and his naiveté? What stupidity! We need a ‘Churchill’ for these troubled times – not some capitulating ‘Chamberlin’.

Posted by: descendantofacrusader at June 6, 2007 7:45 AM

More mush from Blair:

"When I have met groups of Muslims, especially younger ones... of course the normal issues about foreign policy arise. But actually the predominant complaint is about how they believe their true faith is constantly hijacked and subverted by small, unrepresentative groups who get disproportionately large amounts of publicity."

Blair started this line himself, without any prompting from Muslims, about how the "true faith" is "constantly hijacked" and "subverted," immediately after the 9/11/2001 attacks. He let it be known that he carried a Qur'an with him, that he had read it, that he realized that Islam was a great and peaceful religion that "had been hijacked" etc. No mention, ever, of the Hadith or sira. No mention of "naskh." No mention, ever, of Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Ibn Warraq or for that matter Anwar Shaikh (in Wales) or many other articulate apostates. No, just vaporings about Islam that continue to this day.

Some in this country, at the height of the collective madness over the Iraq business, took Blair to be a little Churchill when he was always a variant on Chamberlain. For the spirit of Chamberlain need not be found only in those who sign treaties in Munich; it can be found in those who have had every opportunity to learn about Islam, and who have a duty to do so because they have the task of instructing and protecting others (which is why civilian and military leaders at the federal and state levels, and teachers, and members of the security services including local police, all have a special duty to find out the truth about Islam, to know what is in Qur'an, Hadith, and sira, not to be vulnerable to the torrents of propaganda, some of it a reflection of ignorance, or of fear of what learning the truth might then imply about the nature, and size, and duration, of the menace, and therefore about the kind of responses that make sense).

Blair's vaporings on Islam have outdone even those of Bush and Rice. Though Cheney has not uttered such nonsense, he has relentlessly pushed a policy in Iraq that is based, in the end, on a variant of this naivete and foolishness. For had Cheney understood Islam, instead of merely seeming to be more realistic in his refusal to gush in the Blair and Bush manner about it, then he woudl have understood the nedd to diminish the Muslim Money Weapon, expose and work to undermine in every way its campaigns of Da'wa to get more recruits within the Lands of the Infidels, among the psychically and economically marginal, end and reverse the Muslim presence that was negligently permitted to grow and grow, in Dar al-Harb. But instead of this, having embarked on the Iraq venture, which was legitimate if, indedd, there was reason to believe that Saddam Hussein had, or could soon acquire, weapons of mass destruction (his being a despot was not enough -- there are plenty of despots all over the world)and neither Iraq, nor any other Muslim state (no need to prove, as the Administration naively thought, an "Al Qaeda" connection -- no Muslim state can be allowed to acquire such weaopnry, or if it has acquired it, to be permitted to acquire adequate means of delivery if there seems to be no way to force that state to give up -- the way several former Soviet republics were persuaded to do, their nuclear weapons), and the way Qaddafy was forced to give up his admittedly failing efforts at producing chemical and nuclear weapons.

Instead, Cheney supports --without the accompanying patter about Islam of which an example is given above -- the notion that by installing a Good Government instead of a Bad Government, in Iraq, by fulfilling what the polypragmonic Bush thinks is the American Duty, to "spread freedom" everywhere because, you see, "everyone wants freedom" (an idiotic assertion, completely baseless), and this assumed universal longing, once assuaged in Iraq,to which American boys and American hundreds of billions ($880 billion and counting, more than the total cost of all the wars, save World War II, in which the United States has ever fought), this bringinf of "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in one part of the Middle East, will create, in Iraq, a country famous, even among the Arabs, for its violence) will in turn create a Light Unto the (Sunni) Arab Nations (delighted, as they will be, with a Shi'a-ruled Iraq). Oh, it was idiotic. It had nothing about it that made sesnse.

But Cheney, and the sentimentalist Bush, are sticking with it. And Blair, a sentimentalist out of ignorance and out of fear, does his stuff at a phony conference, where a few invited semi-plausible Muslims, who could nod sagely, and agree that "Islam" had been "hijacked" by a small number and It Was Time To Take Islam Back.

Oh god. Not even Tariq Ramadan, who was invited to this farce, would participate -- it would expose him to too much ridicule from fellow Muslims, who believe that, after all, there is a limit. But Blair, brave Tony Blair, honest Tony Blair, positively Churchillian Tony Blair -- for Blair, for Tony Blair, for Anthony Blair, there is no limit.

Posted by: Hugh at June 6, 2007 8:01 AM

"Blair's vaporings on Islam have outdone even those of Bush and Rice"

...a truly difficult feat....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 6, 2007 8:16 AM

Doesn't the $1million pounds represent about $2million American dollars. If that is all PM Blair is prepared to throw at the Islamic studies improvement project, the impact should be little to none. For the price of $2million in an educational reform project in the US, one would probably get a group of well-paid consultants, several public relations firms, and perhaps one or two pilot programs. Perhaps the UK spends their educational money more wisely and would get more 'bang for the buck,' so to speak. In the US, that amount of money would hardly cause a ripple towards an outreach program.

Posted by: maryrose at June 6, 2007 9:13 AM

"The guest list was criticised by the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, and also by the Labour peer Lord Ahmed, who told the BBC: "The conference is fronted by Cambridge University but organised by Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the communities department, who have deliberately chosen to exclude those Muslims who disagree with Government policy ... It's a colonial style of governing.""

How quickly and smoothly rolls off their tongue the "colonial" accusations. Their policy of "victimhood" must be in their DNA, while wilful blindness to their own 1400 years of colonialist empirialism is supposed to be acceptable to us. Who really is victim here in their malignant Jihad? Millions and billions of dollars and pounds can't fix their damaged Koranic DNA.

Posted by: Battle_of_Tours at June 6, 2007 10:22 AM

And who's even out-done "Blair's vaporings on Islam" (imo) is Prince Charles.

Daniel Pipes has a blog feature going on "Is Prince Charles a Convert to Islam?" The latest entry has to do with "the prince" (omg, can anyone imagine what would happen if "Charles" were ever to become king?) commissioning an orchestral work. Apparently, Sir John Tavener (another omg, I have a number of his cd's featuring works by Bach, etc) who has written a composition entitled: "The Beautiful Names." (that's the 99 names for Allah) -- commissioned by Prince Charles. I just shake my head in disbelief.

Posted by: J.S. at June 6, 2007 10:22 AM

Seems to me this is also an offer to give mohammedan scholarship a prestige that it has not earned on it's own merits.

Ancient Greek philosphy is studied to this day, for its excellence and relevance.

At the time of America's founding, Hebrew studies were popular among the Deist and Protestant intellectuals and wealthy citizens for similar reasons, and because Jesus himself was Jewish.

Various schools of Buddhism and even Hinduism, have been popular subjects of study in the west for nearly a century now, for the promise (correct or incorrect) of offering new perspectives on life.

Mohammedanism has never achieved such high international regard on its own merits.

And the achievement of prestige, by any means whatever, including brute force, is one of, if not the primary goal of the jihaddis, and I might add, of a vast number of mohammedans who do not necessarily even sympathize with the jihaddis.

The recovery of alleged lost glory is a key tenet of mohammedan revivalism.

Posted by: joeblough at June 6, 2007 12:47 PM

I think this is a desperate bid on Blair's part to try to stop the terrorist recruitment that's going on at British universities. The jihadists have set up shop (one report indicated that 20 British universities have become recruitment centers for jihadists) at British universities. The recruiters have their eye out for British Muslims studying such things as biochemistry.

I suspect that the money will simply be misspent...(slightly OT -- personally, I no longer trust "research" from British universities...can't read articles from "The Lancet" any more. I'm wondering when British universities will simply become adjuncts of al-Azhar "university"..that is, you'll read Kooks and Quacks latest description of Allah's miracle cure-all and personally endorsed by Prince Charles. Or one will read the Hagiographies (written by the Karen Armstrong types) in praise of Osama and like gangs of "holy" warriors. History will continue to be re-written to conform to Islamic principles. Maybe Blair's money will be spent to establish the equivalent of a British Islamic Imprimatur -- the guarantee that anything coming out of a British "university" has met the stamp of Islamic approval and is free from all "errors" ("errors" as defined by Islam -- thus, the "prophet's" urine was definitely of healthy benefit for its consumers; the Kabba stone emits cosmic rays; etc. etc. Thus will western "science" be "improved.")

Posted by: J.S. at June 6, 2007 1:22 PM

It seems to me that the more a Muslim learns of the true teachings of Mohammed, the more likely he is to become a Jihadi. The words of the Qu’ran teach that Infidels shall be converted, subjugated, or killed. It doesn’t really matter where you read them. We really don't need to be paying for it.

A big problem in the West is that everybody wants the important jobs, but nobody wants to make the tough decisions. The game is to smile, minimize problems during your time in office, and sign them over to your successor.

Posted by: pez at June 6, 2007 1:48 PM

Further dignifying "Islamic Studies," a bogus "discipline" based on the disconnected ramblings of (or attributed to) a person unnaturally concerned with bodily eliminations and "cleanliness" (an anal retentive) is further feeding the ravenous beast called "Islam."

Blair is but another "useful idiot" courting the beast. He, and his ilk, do not understand that the beast's hunger is not satisfied until all humans worship it.

It, the beast, demands the sacrifice of children as well as the lives of men and women in its cause. It is an idol, albeit an unseen one, with two faces (Mohammed/Allah) that is worshiped by the enslaved.

The beast will have to be slain or it will enslave all humanity.

Posted by: unicorns62000 at June 6, 2007 2:09 PM

"He let it be known that he carried a qur'an with him..." (from Hughs post) I think I'll send him a pastel green turbin. Influenced by the pastel pink and blue turbins I'v seen resently.

Posted by: mustang65 at June 6, 2007 2:22 PM

"...universities should recruit traditionally trained scholars, consider the appointment of Muslim chaplains or advisers, change syllabuses to focus on aspects of Islam relevant to the contemporary practice of the faith..."

Probably need to teach the students to ululate when seeing the training videos of Infidels having their heads sawed off, too...

Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at June 6, 2007 2:54 PM

Re J. S.'s posting above:

The Tavener commission was discussed at length in an article at this website on May 26, 2007 and picked up, afterwards, elsewhere:

"Westminister Cathedral to stage new musical work based on Qur'an."

Prince Charles does not appear to be going the full Yahya-Birt way; he's just a twit, who likes the local-color of the Arabs, the ruling Arabs, with those submissive and loyal subjects. Yes, he likes the way he is treated by the Arabs -- all that dignified solemnnity or solemn dignity that some, especially in Oman, where he was, exhibit when necessary. He forgets, or does not know, or chooses not to know, all the rest. He behaves the way many in Mandatory Palestine behaved when they favored those local Arab families, not only because they provided local color that fit the Lawrence-of-Arabia style (not only Lawrence, but everyone and her brother, from Gertrude Bell to Freya Stark, and not a few of those downmarket imitators of Robert Byron, such as the comical William Dalrymple in his "Xanadu" who found the Arabs so...well, so Arab and sometimes so noble, and the Jews merely....Jews. I was in London at the time of the ceremony in honor of the recently-deceased King Hussein. Prince Charles was "deeply saddened" etc. So were all kinds of people The Plucky Little King. Flew His Own Airplane. Drove His Own Cars Around Amman Without A Bodyguard. Wrote "Uneasy Lies the Head." The kind of Arab that Glubb Pasha and Alec Kirkbride went for. The Good Sort of Arab. Our Sort.

And since "Our Sort" exist, and what's more, if they come from the oil-rich Gulf seem inclined to hire so many of us as "consultants" or put us on boards, or give us all kinds of financial aid, direct and indirect, let's keep talking to "Our Sort" of Arab and defending them, and making them feel good, and if that means ignoring or dismissing or minimizing what Islam is all about, so be it. We'll defend "Our Sort" because, in the end, we are defending our own sources of income, our own wellbeing.

A different kind of sentiment can be seen, in the American version of "the Good Arab," in the delight taken in this country in such treacly and dishhonest concoctions as Queen Noor's "Act of Faith." One hears an echo, though admittedly a dim one, of the British "splendid chap" stuff about Hussein, in the American attitude toward his son King Abdullah. Some believe that Abdullah is a friend and ally, and a fine fellow, because having gone to Deerfield, he is now planning on building Deerfield-in-Amman for the children of the elite. But that doesn't his viciously anti-American subjects, whose views limit his freedom of action, conceivable allies or supporters or friends of this country.

And the "Deerfield-in-Amman" project is prompted not so much by true admiration for what makes Deerfield Deerfield and America America, but rather by the fact that the Arab and Muslim rulers and courtiers and elites know how terrible Islamic education is, and they don't want it for their own children -- but of course they don't explain why it is awful, they refuse to publicly denounce an educational system made miserable by Islam, for that is the one thing they cannot do. Instead, they send their children to local Christian-run schools if they possibly can, to such places as Baghdad College, a high school run by Jesuits, which is where Chalabi and Allawi and so many others in the pre-1958 and even Saddam-era Iraq elite went, to Victoria College in Cairo (which the parents of little Edward Said, his mother having previosuly deliberately gone to Jerusalem so he could be born in a hygienic, Jewish-staffed hospital, sent him to so he could get a Western education), and then there are the American Universities of Cairo and of Beirut, which is where many used to go, and some still do -- no matter how despised America may be. They want Western goods, and Western medical care, and Western education, but do not dare to admit to themselves why they are incapable in the world of Islam to produce or create these goods and offer these services themselves -- for the answer would require them to put the blame on Islam, and this they cannot do. Even in distant Pakistan,where Lady Ahmad-a well-married Muslim apologist living in Great Britain --grew up, she attended a Catholic school, and knows perfectly well that without that Western schooling, she would have gotten nowhere.

Posted by: Hugh at June 6, 2007 3:14 PM

hmmmm...yes, yet another, omg...Hugh...

So, this is like an inversion of the Dhimmi-role? "The Good Sort of Arab. Our Sort." that is, the sort of Arab that bows and scrapes to goo' ol' Prince Charles? the Arabs who offer "solemn dignity" to "royalty?" (as an American, btw, the whole notion of "royalty" makes my skin creep).

This is almost like trying to disentangle the maschocists from the sadists and the sadists from the masochists (or the dancer from the dance, etc.) (I also just read a "letter to the editor" in the National Post which posits that the Brits consider the Muslim "people" a "lesser people", hence the Muslims can be "forgiven" their "backwardness", while Jews are considered "western," and cannot be "forgiven" etc.) Anyway, I guess there's definitely some sort of "partnership" going on here...which side is "sicker" is up for grabs.

Posted by: J.S. at June 6, 2007 3:54 PM

Meanwhile, on May 30th a resolution was passed by Britain's University and College Union, to boycott all Israeli academic institutions & academics. Please go sign the petition to stop the boycott ! http://www.petitiononline.com/stopucu/petition.html

Posted by: brubos at June 6, 2007 4:29 PM

Somebody's been reading Said's "Orientalism" - to judge by that parting shot in the report: "The study of Islam and its civilisation remains anchored in the colonial legacy and mainly serves the diplomatic and foreign services. Teaching and research programmes need to be reorientated." In other words - anything and everything that has been written about Islam and its history and its teachings by non-Muslims - especially intelligent, detached and critical non-Muslims - must be scrapped...? I wonder whether all those magnificent non-PC volumes - Robert Burton's epic annotated translation of the 1001 Nights, or his account of his clandestine journey to Mecca, or William Lane's observations of life in Egypt, and so many other wonderful old books, will mysteriously disappear from the university libraries; or whether the students will simply not be told that they exist, or else be told that they are all lies and must not be trusted in any respect, since only Muslims can understand Islam and only Muslims can tell non-Muslims about Muslim texts and history?

Universities should "recruit traditionally trained scholars, consider the appointment of Muslim chaplains or advisers, change syllabuses to focus on aspects of Islam relevant to the contemporary practice of the faith and provide "add-on" elements to help give students an edge in the jobs market. That bit about having to hire 'traditionally trained scholars' (ONLY THOSE?) and 'Muslim chaplains or advisers'...thought police and da'wa da'wa da'wa...brrr. 'Contemporary practice of the faith', eh...will the students study Honor Killings, or Beheadings, or Why Women Cannot Drive in Saudi Arabia? Will they study the legalities of Lina Joy's case?

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at June 6, 2007 4:49 PM

In a related story:

http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_slideshow&type=1&gallery=259&Itemid=565

Posted by: tokyobk at June 6, 2007 5:56 PM

Does Bill O'Reilley know this? He will want to know what koolaid his buddy has been drinking!

Sounds like here, what is going on? The mosque here now are getting homeland security checks!
For what?"" I am befudled!

Posted by: MZ at June 6, 2007 6:21 PM

They get it because they asked for it! Fox said!"
Why are they coming here and there in masses, I mean mosques'? Is there a war they are running from?

Posted by: MZ at June 6, 2007 6:24 PM

THANKS BLAIR That was money that could have saved alot of our and YOURS soldiers LIFES! bloody . . . . .

Posted by: MZ at June 6, 2007 6:26 PM

I'll never get this straight! That is money that is going to kill your people!

Posted by: MZ at June 6, 2007 6:27 PM

Go to the link below to read a list of changes that muslims want in the U.K. school system. You have to scroll down a little to get to the story and the list of demands. Surely the British government will not allow this travesty to be implemented, or will they compromise?

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=441368

Posted by: Susanp at June 6, 2007 11:28 PM

Damn, that picture of that dude! I seen him a 100 times! He is so crazy looking! So full of hate!

Posted by: MZ at June 6, 2007 11:54 PM

Best Blair and his buddies read what they are witlessly supporting before they tacitly endorse it.

It's available in a Penguin softcover, Tony.

Called "The Koran".

Posted by: profitsbeard at June 7, 2007 12:39 AM