"Two of the country's best known universities are to set up research centres aimed at promoting a better understanding of Islam."

So, I take it that these universities will promote the understanding that Islam is intolerant of other religions and faiths and that there is a virulent strand of jihad amongst all Islamic interpretative schools, and that not just 91 million but close to 400-500 million Muslims are in fact, jihadist in mindset? And that Islam is in a major need of a transformation to rid the religion of its hatred towards "infidels", its intense anti-Semitism, its disgusting treatment of women and homosexuals?

If they do this, then that's some sweet action. I'm not counting on it though.

"Prince Alwaleed said: "It is paramount for both Islam and the West to reach mutual ground for pro-active dialogue, respect, acceptance and tolerance. We are determined to continue building the bridge between Islam and the West for peace and humanity.""

In other words: Muslims don't need to assimilate to the West, the West needs to assimilate to Islam, even when Muslims live in the West.

As for building bridges of dialogue, respect and tolerance, why doesn't Alwaleed start with his own backyard and clean up the mobs that start riots and kill people if there is even the slightest bit of criticism, or even a perceived sense of criticism, towards Islam?

Then he can talk.

Posted by: S Perry at May 8, 2008 12:28 AM

Da'awa centres.

Proselytizing centres. Its all about making Britain Islamic. Faster!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at May 8, 2008 12:31 AM

What if they took the money, studied Islam, and honestly reported that it was a subversive, intolerant, totalitarian, anti-Human Rights, misogynistic, imperialistic form of theocratic terrorism leading to a global tyranny?

Would the donors want their money back?

Posted by: profitsbeard at May 8, 2008 12:32 AM

What's there to study? Anyone who has read the Koran knows it is one of the worst written, ill-conceived books of fiction in the history of the Human Race.

There. They have their book review. Now use the money for something useful. A full study center to study and discuss the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I wonder what those 2 fine Christian scholars would be saying today?

Posted by: Mystical Time Traveler at May 8, 2008 12:44 AM

Sorry, but this just doesn't wash.

Just consider this before the British pot black and the American kettle clean:

In 2002, Al-Walid donated $500,000 to the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, established by the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, to honor former President George H. W. Bush.

In December 2005, Al-Waleed donated $20 million each to Harvard University and Georgetown University to finance Islamic studies. The gift to Georgetown, which renamed the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in his honor, was the university's second-largest donation in history, and the gift to Harvard was among its 25 largest.

So, before you start criticising English Universities start by examining what your own are doing!

In 2006, the Al-Walid donated $10 million to the Weill Medical College of Cornell University establishing the HRH Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud Institute for Computational Biomedicine (ICB). This institute studies complex genomic and cellular systems as they relate to medicine and biology by using mathematical models, physics and high-speed computing.

Oh, and also: in late 2007, Al-Waleed donated $1.48 million to the Islamic Society of North America.

Oh, and by the way of absolutely nothing other thatn that the UK is alone and sinful, just remember this: in 2002, Al-Walid donated $500,000 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Holy Land Foundation

[edit] France
In July 2005, he donated $20 million to the Louvre Museum, the largest gift ever to the world's largest museum. It will help to fund the construction of a wing for the Louvre's vast collection of Islamic art. The wing will consist of a freeform, glassy structure that will bring a modern touch to a neoclassical courtyard. The design for the new wing would involve covering much of the Louvre's Cour Visconti, a neo-Classical courtyard, with a contemporary sail-like roof made up of small glass disks. Officials put the total cost of the wing, by the architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti, at $67 million and predicted it would open in 2009.

Posted by: OliverPCamford at May 8, 2008 12:48 AM

This Prince is Chairman of the Kingdom Foundation – a charitable and philanthropic foundation set up to alleviate suffering around the world.

"alleviate suffering"?????? How much has his foundation or any others helped his Palestinian "brothers" I wonder?

I bet my bacon that not a cent has gone to them. So much for brotherly love in the Arab world.

Ms Pig from Australia

Posted by: PorkyPig at May 8, 2008 12:51 AM

So, Britain is alone and sinful - I think not.

Posted by: OliverPCamford at May 8, 2008 12:51 AM

Please excuse the long posting - I don't appear to have the link handy - but here is a BRILLIANT article by UK Anglican Bishop Patrick Sookhdeo, discussing the danger of allowing Muslims and Muslim money to control the study of Islam in Britain (and, one may equally well say, anywhere else in the Infidel world).

I may add that his colleague in the church, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, is completely agreed with him on the necessity of preventing Muslims from either monopolising or censoring the study of Islam (in all its aspects: texts, interpretations, history of Muslim societies, etc) by non-Muslims.

"United Kingdom, 22/ 6/ 2007.
" On the Teaching of Islam in Universities in Britain.

'A recent government report on how Islam is taught in British universities signals another step towards the Islamisation of Britain and its education system.

'It was launched by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at the opening of the “Islam and Muslims in the World Today” conference sponsored by Cambridge University on 4 June 2007.

'Should this report be implemented, education will be handed over more and more to Muslims who will train and shape the next generation. This means a further move towards the establishment of Islam in the UK as a religion of state.

'The report was initiated by Bill Rammell, Minister of State for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning in the Department for Education and Skills, DfES. Rammell appointed Dr Ataullah Siddiqui, Senior Research Fellow at the Islamic Foundation, Leicester and Director of the Markfield Institute of Higher Education linked to it, to write the report.

'It is well known that the Islamic Foundation is an Islamist institute founded by high- ranking members of the Pakistani Islamist party, Jama’at-i Islami. However, in answer to questions in the House of Commons about possible links between Ataullah Siddiqui and Jama‘at-i-Islami, Rammel stated that “Dr Siddiqui has assured me categorically that he has no links to the Jamaat-e-Islami Party”. He also stated that neither the Islamic Foundation nor Markfield had any organizational links to Jama‘at-i-Islami. This reveals that Rammell does not understand how Islamists use dissimulation (taqiyya) to hide their real goals while claiming to be moderate and liberal.

'Some of the report’s recommendations:

'1. Universities should employ Muslim scholars to teach Islamic theology: “Students should be given the opportunity to learn from competent traditionally trained Islamic scholars in at least those parts of the syllabus that directly inform everyday practice of Islam”.

'2. All universities must employ Muslim chaplains or advisers to deal with the growing number of Muslim students on campus. More prayer rooms for Muslims should be provided.

'3. Islamic Student Societies should be better recognised and encouraged.

'4. Universities should cooperate with Islamic schools and colleges (dar al-ulum) to break down the divisions between British society and the Muslim community. Universities should help madrassas and dar al-ulum because they play a key role in Muslim communities and in the training of future community leaders. They need a formal link to higher education qualifications.

'5. Islamic studies should be linked to job opportunities such as teaching, chaplaincy and Islamic banking.

'6. Universities should provide add-on modules in Islamic studies for all students.

'7. Guidance should be given to all universities on Friday prayers, Ramadan and halal food. All university staff should receive awareness training on Muslims and Islam.

'An analysis of these recommendations reveals that the report is in fact asking for a privileged position for Islam in the universities.

'It would seem to aim at transforming Islamic studies in Britain into a Muslim monopoly, a Muslim enclave in which the vast majority of staff and students are Muslim.

'It is implied that non-Muslim scholars cannot teach Islam because they do not unquestioningly accept its basic premises regarding the revelatory nature and divine authority of Qur‘an and hadith.

'Should these premises be accepted, the teaching faculty will be limited to traditional Muslim and Islamist lecturers.

'It is most likely that censorship will develop as to the suitability of the staff; the teaching methods and the acceptable subjects for research and publication.

'Islamists have long argued for an Islamisation of all Western academic studies by the introduction of basic Islamic concepts into all branches of knowledge.

'The aim is to expand Islamic domination into all spheres. The whole system of Western academic education must be recast and re-moulded on Islamic lines as it is tainted by Christian and pagan influences.

'The strengthening of Islamic student societies furthers this aim of Islamisation. Islamic student societies tend to follow radical Islamist and Wahhabi ideology. They usually take strongly anti-Western and pro-Islamist stands on most issues, including anti-Semitic views that regard all Jews as enemies of Islam. Many Muslim students are radicalised during their student years by these societies.

'Implementing these recommendations, as the government has promised to do, will inevitably narrow the scope of university Islamic studies and make them more intolerant and radical. Academic freedom of expression will be limited.

'Once fully Islamised, there would be little scope for free questioning, doubt and argument, the keys to real advances in knowledge. Muhammad and the Qur’an will be out of bounds as far as questioning their authority and historical development is concerned. {Note: when visiting Australia, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali echoed this warning, by Bishop Sookhdeo, against permitting such Muslim censorship in our academic institutions}.

'This would be an alarming departure from established academic principles of disinterested inquiry.

'British institutions will come to resemble the sorry state of affairs in Islamic universities in the Muslim world. These are described by Shabbir Akhtar, a well known British Muslim academic and author, who taught for three years at the International Islamic University of Malaysia.

'As a result of his experiences there, he is now opposed to Islam as a political ideology.

'The attitude of the Malaysian university authorities was that the West is a wicked enemy of Islam, and true Muslims have nothing to learn from the Western academic scholarship as God has already revealed the whole truth in Islam.

'Akhtar experienced how in Islamic universities, students and faculty alike are obsessed with the defence of Islam against Western Christian and secular liberal paradigms. They had no sense of history and unquestioningly accepted all Islamic theological dogma and claims." END OF ARTICLE.

UK jihadwatchers: copies of this article might be made, and sent (with a suitable covering letter) to every non-Muslim faculty member, and the head of every non-Muslim student organisation, of Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities.

You might like to append a list - the ever-lengthening list - of writers, scholars, artists and thinkers who have been murdered (Theo Van Gogh) or are currently receiving death threats from Muslims, for 'offending' Islam: e.g. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Robert Redeker [include a copy of the article that earned him the unremitting hatred of Muslims], Robert Spencer, Geert Wilders, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Magdi Cristiano Allam, Kurt Westergaard, and Salah Uddin Choudhury the Bangladeshi journalist. And include the Hadith that describes the murder of the elderly Jewish poet, and the murder of Asma Bint Marwan.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 8, 2008 2:31 AM

Prince Alwaleed said: "It is paramount for both Islam and the West to reach mutual ground for pro-active dialogue, respect, acceptance and tolerance."

As long as they put Allah over Reason and Conscience there is no common ground.

Posted by: FreeSpeech at May 8, 2008 3:40 AM

Money talks.

You know what walks. Its a disaster...

And keep in mind: they're doing it with our money...!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at May 8, 2008 3:54 AM

Cambridge and Edinburgh. A step up from all those Saudi-funded and Saidi-directed "Centers" at Durham, at Exeter, at godknowswhere. They're aiming a bit higher now.

And so, at Cambridge, it surely must be Tim-Winter time. That's the name this English "revert" to Islam goes under when he writes reviews, as an apologist for Islam, in the TLS. But his real name, his Muslim name, is Abdul Hakim Murad. He runs the Theology program at Wolfson College (named after someone - a business magnate rather than Harry Austryn Wolfson, who knew his Kalam from his Ibn Khaldun), and he's all over the place at Cambridge. Slightly off, of course, as are all Western converts to Islam -- think Solomon al-Kosovi.

And at Edinburgh it's Carol Hillenbrand time. Edinburgh, where Montgomery Watt used to provide, as an Anglican clergyman most worried about the perils of atheism, stout defenses of Islam and rose-tinted views of Andalucia (see his "Muslim Spain" and compare it with Fletcher, or better still, with Levi-Provencal), the great tradition is being carried on by Carol Hillenbrand, unlike Tim Winter not a convert and an apologist but merely an apologist, one recognized for her achievements by the Saudis, for they named her a winner of the King Faisal -- or is King Fahd? Or King Abdullah? -- Award for Services Rendered to Islam.

Quite something. Just watch. Just see if the names Carol Hillenbrand and Tim Winter don't reappear in connection with this sweetly disinterested donation of oily dough.

Posted by: Hugh at May 8, 2008 7:52 AM

Even The Guardian had Carole Hillenbrand's number:

Brit scholar honoured for Islamophile Crusades study

Luke Layfield
Monday January 17, 2005
guardian.co.uk

A British scholar who produced an "unashamedly one-sided" account of the Crusades from the Muslim perspective has been honoured with a prestigious award worth $200,000 (£107,000) by an academic foundation in Saudi Arabia.
Professor Carole Hillenbrand of Edinburgh University was chosen for the King Faisal prize for Islamic studies for her pioneering research. The judges said she had clarified several misconceptions shrouding the subject and made it possible for history to be viewed from a more balanced perspective.

She said that the award marked the biggest moment in her career. "I feel that this is a very big gesture and a great boost to people working in the west to produce a better understanding of the middle-east," she said.

Prof Hillenbrand added: "Ninety per cent of all accounts of the Crusades have been totally ignorant of the other side of their history. I tried to find some insight into the Muslims fighting at the time, looking at themes of social context, jihad, armaments and the like."

The Saudi king will present Prof Hillenbrand with the award in March at a special ceremony to be held in the capital, Riyadh. Winners receive the $200,000, a certificate outlining the work which they have been recognised for and a 22-carat gold medallion.

The money will give her greater freedom to travel in the middle east for her research, enabling her to set up more links with colleagues abroad.

The prize is awarded by the King Faisal foundation, a philanthropic organisation which was set up in 1976 to commemorate Saudi Arabia's third monarch. It was introduced to recognise scholars and scientists who have made significant advances to benefit humanity and is awarded in the fields of service to Islam, Islamic studies, Arabic literature, science and medicine.

Although prizes are regularly awarded outside of the middle east, it is rare for the Islamic studies prize to be awarded to a non-Muslim. The award is highly respected in the international academic community and its recipients have often also been Nobel Prize winners.

Professor Vicki Bruce, the Head of Edinburgh University's college of humanities and social science, said: "We are delighted that Professor Carole Hillenbrand has been awarded the prestigious King Faisal international prize for Islamic studies. It is an honour for Professor Hillenbrand, the university and for Islamic and middle eastern studies."

Posted by: Hugh at May 8, 2008 7:54 AM

Another one for my collection.

'Tim Winter', alias Abdul Hakim Murad, was yet another of those 138 'scholars' who signed off on the 'letter from the Muslims to the Christians' in October 2007. Every time I find information about one of those 'scholars' I add it to the dossier. Hugh - what are his TLS articles like? And is he on record, anywhere, as expressing open hatred of Israel? (I ask because, out of that list of 138, I have nailed down quite a few Jew-haters, already).

Project for anyone here who is a journalist, or has journalistic contacts.

Go through that list of 138, identify those, in western countries, whose names suggest that they are converts to Islam, from a 'western' background, and then...investigate that background. See what you can find out. Look at their official cv, wherever presented - and see what checks out, and what doesn't. Read EVERYTHING they've published. Hey, read their graduate thesis, if they did one. Pull their academic records. Find out who they hung out with.

If they were born in the West, and educated in the west, there should be a checkable paper trail; and, once they get involved with Islam (see if you can discover the precise date of their conversion, where, when, and in company with whom), the money trail. If they're currently teaching - what texts are they setting?

Here are the eleven candidates.

'Tim Winter', of course, 'Abdul Hakim Murad', who in October 2007, signing off on that Letter, was identified thus:
'Shaykh Dr. Abdal Hakim Murad Winter: Shaykh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Divinity School, University of Cambridge;
Director of the Muslim Academic Trust, UK.

Prof. Dr. Alan Godlas - Co-Chair, Islamic Studies, University of Georgia, USA; Editor-in-chief, Sufi News and Sufism World Report; Director, Sufis Without Borders.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson - Founder and Director, Zaytuna Institute, CA, USA {well - we at jihadwatch know all about *him* - not a nice person, no, not at all, at all - google 'jihadwatch' 'Hamza Yusuf Hanson' and see what pops up}.

Shaykh Kabir Helminski [the surname suggests non-Islamic parentage] - Shaykh of the Mevlevi Tariqah; Co-Director of the Book Foundation, USA

H.E. Amb. Dr. Murad Hofmann; Author and Muslim Intellectual, Germany {he was once seen on TV in Bahrain, preaching thus: .
 ' the west has totally abandoned God, and if allowed to live they will forbid Allah' etc etc”].

Shaykh Dr. Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Shaykh in the Shadhili Order, USA {and translator of 'Reliance of the Traveller' into English}.

Dr. Joseph Lumbard - Assistant Professor, Brandeis University, USA

Prof. Dr. Ingrid Mattson - Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations and Director, Islamic Chaplaincy Program, Hartford Seminary; President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), USA

Dr. Jean-Louis Michon - Author; Muslim Scholar; Architect; Former UNESCO expert, Switzerland

Imam Yahya Sergio Yahe Pallavicini - Vice President of CO.RE.IS., Italy, Chairman of ISESCO (Council for Education and
Culture in the West), Advisor for Islamic Affairs of the Italian Minister of Interior.

Prof. Dr. Suleiman Abdallah Schleifer - Professor Emeritus, The American University in Cairo

An interesting assortment of specimens.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 8, 2008 9:02 AM

Gosh, thanks to Robert I am beginning to understand Islam very well indeed.

And it didn't need millions of Saudi money to achieve this.

Posted by: carpediadem at May 8, 2008 9:58 AM

A New Zealand Labour MP stated several weeks ago that his government was in the process of setting aside funding in collaboration with Saudi interests for the establishment of Islamic Studies programs at two, perhaps three, of NZs leading universities.

Posted by: MBR at May 8, 2008 4:58 PM

The British people have no pride at all. They should push that money down the Saudi's throat, till he chokes his Islam prayer.

Posted by: Kybeline at May 8, 2008 5:24 PM

The first thing they'll do with this money is buy matches for the bonfire upon which they will toss the works of Theodor Nöldeke, Leone Caetani, Alphonse Mingana, Arthur Jeffery, David Samuel Margoliouth, Abraham Geiger, William St. Clair Tisdall, Charles Cutler Torrey, Andrew Rippin, et al.

Posted by: SaracensAtTheGates at May 8, 2008 5:46 PM

"Cambridge and Edinburgh universities will share a £16m endowment from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Abdulaziz al-Saud, a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family "

just curious, how much did he send to help the storm victims in Myanmar?...

Posted by: pulsar182 at May 8, 2008 5:56 PM

I just finished the book 'Princess', which is a true account of the life of a Saudi princess. In it she says something like "We the Saudis essentially laid down our arms (after the Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud recaptured Riyadh) and now acheive our political victories with our wealth".
(That's not an exact quote, but that's what she said in essence).
So, if we are to believe what she's saying, (there's no reason not to),Western Universities are surrendering to Islamic conquest without even knowing it.

Posted by: firecrackerjane at May 8, 2008 9:47 PM

MBR - are you a Kiwi?

If so, perhaps you could follow the advice given in my 2.31 am posting above: write letters to the NZ universities concerned, enclosing Bp Patrick Sookhdeo's very important warning about the necessity of preventing Muslims from monopolising and censoring Islamic Studies in universities in non-Muslim countries.

As I suggested, stress Islam's well-attested war on free speech and freedom of inquiry, the ugly truth that sharia punishes 'apostasy' and 'blasphemy' by death; and append a list of scholars, authors, journalists, cartoonists, etc., who are in hiding and have suffered death threats due to 'offense' given to Islam or Muslims.

And cite the Hadiths that relate the assassination of poets who had dared to criticise Mohammed.

You might like to offer them a thought experiment: since they are happily setting up Muslim-controlled 'Islamic Studies Centres' with Muslim money, would they ALSO agree that all teaching and study of Chinese language, literature, history and thought, within NZ universities, should be directly financed by the Chinese Communist Party, with the Party having right of veto over content and over what was or was not permitted to be said about, for example, Chairman Mao, and the invasion and occupation of Tibet?

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 8, 2008 10:43 PM

dumbledoresarmy - yes, I'll come back to you on this thread with more NZ details shortly.

Really like your analogy with the CCP. Trying to get friends and others up to speed on this crucial inherent political aspect of Islam can be very trying - especially Christians, some some reason.

I've tried short papers like Arthur Jeffery's 1942 "The Political Importance of Islam" but it also needs such analogies, thought experiments, and more, for them to see that treating Islam as just another religion is a sure path to oblivion.

Posted by: MBR at May 9, 2008 12:29 AM

Apologies for an error in the post of 4:58pm. Consulting my notes more closely, the MP did not make mention of Saudi funding. He spoke solely of NZ government funding.

Below are links that give some background of the NZ Islamic situation:

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/students/index.cfm?P=11588

http://www.nzasia.org.nz/journal/volume8_2.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4451505a6530.html

Posted by: MBR at May 9, 2008 5:57 AM

MBR

even if the NZ government is going to fund all the 'Islamic Study' itself (presumably by analogy with government funded study of other cultural/political groups - let's just think about the study of Russian during the Cold War) I think Sookhdeo's article is still worth passing around.

Whether Muslim entities are putting the money up or not, what matters is that the core Western civ. principle of free and unrestricted inquiry, freedom of speech, freedom to question, must apply to 'Islamic Studies' in NZ, as to everything else. That is: non-Muslim scholars should be hired as well as Muslim scholars, and they should be free to examine whatever aspect of Islam they choose to examine, and to draw, and to publish, and to teach, without fear, whatever conclusions the data suggest to them. An 'Islamic Studies' centre should not be staffed solely by Muslims even if they are on the NZ govt payroll rather than a Saudi payroll.

If it is in a NZ university it should not be a mosque or a madrasa; it should be applying the methods of the Western university, to Islamic texts and history, rather than proselytizing for Islam.

Thanks for the links. I had a quick read through the linked articles. Very slippery stuff. Soft soap.

However, just from having read the Quran, and Mr Spencer's "The Truth About Muhammad" one can read through what the Muslim spin-doctor says and take it apart - 'false'; 'lie' ; 'half-truth' - statement by statement.

Have you checked out Bill Warner's 'Centre for the Study of Political Islam"? He produces some interesting stuff, because he keeps on hammering away at the main thing that really matters for us Infidels - what classical Islam tells Muslims to think about, and do to, Infidels; and then what Muslims, following those instructions, have, historically, done, wherever and whenever they have managed to gain ascendancy, whether by invasion or by infiltration.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 9, 2008 6:58 AM

dumbledoresarmy, my Aussie mate - yes, I have been reading Bill Warner with great interest. He cuts to the core without wasting words. And have been following Patrick Sookhdeo for some time. He visits NZ quite frequently and we keep in touch.

Agree fully of course with your views on the dangers of Islamic Studies. The universities have been sitting there, tragically ripe for the plucking, although that metaphor suggests more passivity than is actually the case. Anyone who has followed the steady decline of this once great western institution, whether from the inside or through reading Roger Kimble, Kors and Silverglate, Patai and Koertge, Allan Bloom, Gross and Levitt, 'Illiberal Education' the author of which shall not be named, even your own Keith Windschuttle, should be left with a sense of immense loss. These authors among others have all, from their various perspectives, chronicled this massive sell out.

In that context, the Saudi inducements and sweeteners to scholarly suicide could represent the final days of the closing down sale.

Posted by: MBR at May 9, 2008 5:05 PM