What money can buy you

The JC has a special report by Martin Bright that reveals that:

'The country’s most prestigious university for the study of the Middle East provided one-to-one English tuition to Mutassim Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan dictator, who acts as his national security adviser. It also hosts the controversial Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the editorial board for its Journal of Islamic Studies.

The information from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies is contained in an answer to a Freedom of Information request from Harlow MP Robert Halfon, and Student Rights, an organisation that tackles extremism on campus.

The college confirmed that Mr Gaddafi received private tuition at SOAS for a four-week period in 2006, for which the college received £5,500. The SOAS response also confirms that a distance-learning deal was struck with Al-Fateh University in Libya, just months before the Arab Spring uprisings, in which SOAS received £148,000 for course materials and teaching.

A report from Student Rights, based on the disclosures, shows that SOAS also received donations of £755,000 from the Saudi royal family over the past four years. That money was used to fund the college’s Islamic Studies Centre, and a Journal of Islamic Studies. The editorial board of the journal includes Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has supported suicide bombings and acts as the spiritual inspiration for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone caused outrage when he invited Sheikh al-Qaradawi to London in 2004. He has since been refused entry and is also banned from the United States and Israel. In February he returned to Egypt where he led Friday prayers on Tahrir Square.'

So how do the university defend their association with a supporter of suicide bombings, the supporter of a terrorist organisation (Hamas) and a man with rather less than tolerant attitudes towards homosexuals? For more about Yusuf al-Qaradawi take a read here and here.

'The university has issued a lengthy response to the Student Rights report. On the issue of Sheikh Al-Qaradawi’s membership of the editorial board of a journal hosted by SOAS, it said: “Professor Yusuf al-Qaradawi and some other editorial advisers from the Middle East only advise on the Arabic section of the Journal, and not on the English section. His academic peers and Muslim scholars in the UK and across the globe consider him to be one of the most outstanding scholars of the Quran in the Arabic and Islamic world. No political or other consideration was involved in asking him to be on the board.”

It added that comments attributed to Yusuf al-Qaradawi in the Student Rights report, endorsing suicide bombings and the killing of pregnant women were “not compatible with SOAS’s values, or our views on hate speech, and would not be allowed on campus”.'

Does that seem adequate to you? Are SOAS really sayoing that so long as Yusuf al-Qaradawi doesn't make his vile comments on their campus then they don't care what he says elsewhere? Does that mean that they would invite a KKK representative to sit on a board at SOAS so long as he didn't speak out against blacks on campus?

I won't comment on the part of the article about Saudi money because it's all too predictable as Saudi money seems to buy support, or at least lack of opposition from SOAS. Value for £200,000+ a year and some gold cufflinks.

Once again there is the matter of who is a 'moderate' in Islam:

'The lion’s share of the funding went to the Islamic Studies Centre at SOAS, which is headed by Professor Mohammed Abdel Haleem, who also edits the Journal of Islamic Studies. Professor Haleem is widely regarded as a moderate and received an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2008.

However, he is also a trustee of the Saudi-funded King Fahad Academy in East London, which was discovered to have used textbooks describing Christians as “pigs” and Jews as “apes”.

Fellow trustees include the Saudi ambassador, Prince Mohammed al-Saud, and several other members of the Saudi diplomatic mission. In 2007, the school’s principal, Dr Sumaya Alyusuf admitted on the BBC’s Newsnight programme that the textbooks were used, but said the passages concerned had been misinterprested. At the time, Jewish MP Louise Ellman said the school was part of a concerted initiative by the Saudi government to instill extremism in the UK Muslim population.'

I am not sure how those passages could be 'misinterpreted', perhaps someone could explain to this 'ape'!

The article concludes thus:

'The revelations will be deeply embarrassing to SOAS, which has worked hard to allay its image as a centre of Islamist activism.

SOAS fiercely denied that the Saudi donations compromised academic freedom or bought influence. Its spokesman insisted: “SOAS goes to great lengths to ensure that academic and editorial decisions are made with integrity. We do not permit donors or funders to influence academic work (research content or teaching) or the selection of academic staff, scholarships or any other students.”'

I like that wording 'SOAS, which has worked hard to allay its image as a centre of Islamist activism.'. Not 'SOAS, which has worked hard to not be a centre of Islamist activism' just allaying the image not the fact. As for the rest, judge for yourselves.