Foreign partnerships, ties and influences on Western campuses include collaborations and funding, and extend even to hiring practices. Western institutions of higher learning are not doing their homework, and will continue to be neglectful as long as such collaborations remain profitable.
In the case of Middlesex University, its the partnership with the north London Islamic college became too jarring to ignore, and were severed. Now for the bigger question: why are these dangerous foreign influences, linked to Iran and other Islamic entities which have proclaimed war with the West, even allowed to operate in Western countries? There is due process, but that process hasn’t even started in most Western countries.
“Middlesex Uni terminates partnership with Islamic college over Iran links,” by Daniel Ben-David, Jewish Chronicle, March 5, 2023:
Middlesex University has terminated its relationship with the Islamic College (ICL) in north London over its ties to the Iranian regime, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Following an investigation by the JC in December, it was revealed that the ICL, located in Willesden near several thriving shuls including Brondesbury United just seven minutes away, has links to the Iranian regime and has employed staff who have glorified Hezbollah and compared Israel to the Nazis.
The ICL, whose degrees are validated by Middlesex and has received hundreds of thousands of pounds in taxpayers’ cash, “poses a threat to the security of the Jewish community” according to an expert on Iranian influence abroad.
Several pro-regime websites claim the college is the British affiliate of Al-Mustafa International University, which is controlled by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and was sanctioned by the United States under anti-terror laws in December 2020.
The US government has said that Al-Mustafa is “a recruiting platform for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force” – the spearhead of Iran-sponsored terror in the Middle East and beyond. There is no evidence that the ICL itself is involved in terrorism.
A spokesperson for Middlesex university told The Telegraph on Saturday: “Following a review of our partnership with the Islamic College in London we have mutually agreed to terminate.
“Middlesex University has a statutory duty of care to students currently studying at the college and we are in close contact with the regulatory body, the Office of Students, to ensure a smooth transition. The end date of our partnership will be December 31, 2023.”
The ICL denies having affiliations to Al-Mustafa University. A spokesperson said the college’s aim is to “offer programmes of the highest standards in Islamic studies, promulgate a rational and critical study of religion, enhance community cohesion and promote interfaith dialogue. It is not engaged in the dissemination of any ideology.”
The revelations and subsequent partnership termination could add pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to take a formal line on Iran and comes amid a Cabinet split over whether to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, which has led to deadlock in Whitehall.
In December, following a growing chorus calling for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly confirmed that the group has been sanctioned “in its entirety” by the UK government.
The JC learned then that a group of Islamic College students visited Iran in 2016. Photos show they were taken to visit the home of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Among the troubling remarks by former and current staff members, one academic at the college claimed that mass-murderer Anders Breivik was an “ultra-Zionist”. And in one video, a former principal of the college, Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour, can be seen urging a crowd to chant their support for now-banned terror group Hezbollah at a London rally in 2013……
Aum says
This is tip of the iceberg.
OLD GUY says
Good old Islamic studies always follows the large contribution to the schools endowment fund from muslim/islamic countries. Most Colleges and Universities also love the Muslim foreign students, as their governments pay all of the students educational expense up-front.