National Observer, Australia, No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010)
Arab and Islamic funding of Islamic studies:
a question of Western security
by Anthony Glees
National Observer
Australia's independent current affairs online journal
No. 81 (Dec. 2009 - Feb. 2010).
Readers of National Observer will
recall Dr Mervyn Bendle's disclosure of Saudi funding of Islamic
study centres in Australian universities.[1] In the following article, one
of Britain's leading authorities on security and intelligence
issues, Professor Anthony Glees, describes a similar
pattern of overseas Islamic funding of Middle Eastern studies at
Britain's major universities, notably Oxford, Cambridge and
Edinburgh — funding which is wholly unregulated by the British
government.
Wherever Islamists go on the attack, all are driven by the
same malign and violent hatred of the West and its current
foreign security interests. We still do not know much about Major
Nidal Malik Hassan, accused of the killing of thirteen people at
Fort Hood on November 5, but what we do know is that he was in
regular contact with a radical cleric in Yemen, Anwal al-Awlaki,
who was previously Hassan's imam in Virginia. Al-Awlaki was
assessed by US intelligence to be a dangerous Islamist
radicaliser and, according to a report published in London on 11
November 2009, his extremist views (for example, "The ballot has
failed us but the bullet has not") are widely disseminated,
particularly in the UK. Indeed, one of the British government
advisors on Islamist extremism, Azad Ali, has publicly praised
Awlaki ("I really do love him for the sake of Allah").[2]
While US government sources have been very quick to insist
there was no "plot" against America at Fort Hood, the shootings
were, it seems, most certainly part of the wider plot against
Western policy in the Middle East and North Africa. Whether
Hassan acted alone or with others, he was, if responsible, locked
into a much broader conspiracy of terrorist activity linking
Islamists in New York, London, Denver, Madrid, Mumbai, Peshawar,
Kabul, Bali and in many other sites where extremist attacks have
taken place.
The process of radicalisation
What is of concern is not merely that particular extremist
worldview, but that it is one which all Islamist terrorists
acquire. Much has been written since 9/11 about the process of
radicalisation (some of it inferred from the absence of evidence
rather than its presence). There are those who argue it happens
via the internet, or even spontaneously.
In fact, there is increasing evidence to suggest that when
Muslims turn to Islamism, it is the direct result of physical
exposure to extreme ideology, frequently taking place in the
penumbra of radical mosques and associated Islamic studies
centres, be they in Western countries or in Pakistan or
Afghanistan. Exposure to extreme and politicised interpretations
of the peaceful faith of Islam is always the necessary
precondition of terror.
Islamism is a specific system of political ideas which is
found wherever Islamic ideas are studied and traded by extremist
and radical preachers. Major Hassan, if found guilty, would be
but one example. According to UK police reports, 22-year-old
Nicky Reilly, a British Muslim convert, who in May 2008 attempted
to detonate a series of nail bombs in a popular Exeter
restaurant, had been recruited and groomed by extremists on the
fringes of a new Islamic studies centre in Plymouth.[3] Countless other
terrorists have begun their careers after contact at mosques,
studies centres or madrassas with radical preachers like
al-Awlaki, Abu Qatada, Omar Bakri Muhammad or Abu Hamza.
Through brainwashing, Muslims are made ready for
weapons-training elsewhere, if required, in the UK or Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Extremist preachers are not usually arms and
explosive instructors. They incite and make their recruits ready
for action. Weapons-training is provided by others. Yet extremist
reachers are a key link in the process (although Luqman Ameen
Abdullah, shot dead by federal agents near Detroit on 28 October
2009, was described officially as an "imam whose primary mission
[was] to establish an Islamic state within the US")[4].
Sometimes, of course, alert security services will detect
potential terrorists, although frequently they fail to act
pre-emptively (as in the case of Major Hassan and several UK
bombers). Sometimes terrorists are spotted by watchful mainstream
imams. The conviction in July 2009 of the Islamist Isa (Andrew)
Ibrahim in Bristol, for example, was based on intelligence about
his plans provided by his imam.[5] It served to reinforce the point that Islamism is
not Islam but its antithesis, even if it clings to the coat-tails
of this great religion. Too often, however, terrorists are
identified only after they have acted.
Not surprisingly, there is general agreement that the best
policy is to try to prevent the transfer of this lethal ideology.
If it is acknowledged — which it should be — that Islamic studies
centres can promote political extremism, it then becomes
imperative to regulate and evaluate what goes on inside them or
in their immediate vicinity and, if necessary, contain their
number so that they can be properly monitored.
Proliferation of Islamic studies centres
It is therefore a matter of the gravest concern that Western
democracies, instead of doing any of this, are actually doing the
reverse. They are not only failing to monitor properly the
activities of radical imams (the Fort Hood example is but the
latest of many such intelligence failures), but allowing the
Islamic studies centres to mushroom, totally out of control. They
are making radicalisation and ideological transfer easier, not
harder, and increasing the security risk rather than containing
it.
In Britain, it is actually official government policy to
expand the teaching of Islamic studies so that every single
Muslim student in the UK will be able to take this subject. There
are currently some 635 students undertaking Islamic studies in
British universities. If the government succeeds in its stated
objective, this number would increase by a further 89,365 (the
Federation of Student Islamic Societies estimates that there are
about 90,000 Muslim students in Britain).[6]
The government is following a line put to it by the Joint
Terrorism Analysis Centre at the headquarters of MI5, Britain's
state security service. It is that far from being "religious
zealots", most Islamists "do not practise their faith regularly,
many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as
religious novices". MI5 actually believes that there is evidence
that a well-established religious identity actually protects a
believer against violent extremism.[7]
Leaving aside the scholarship on which such assertions rely
(if it exists, which is doubtful), or the likely fact that they
are simply the expression of entirely self-serving arguments
advanced by those favouring the expansion of Islamic studies, the
point is not whether more Islamic studies can or cannot protect
Muslims from Islamism.
Rather, it is a more simple, security-led point. More Islamic
studies centres will add to the number of sites where Muslim
students are taken and thereby increase exponentially the ability
of Islamists to operate, as they do, on the fringes of such
centres. These will be harder to police. Meanwhile, young
Muslims, inspired by radical preachers, will be more susceptible
to the influence of extremists, moving from them to trainers and
to terror. Common sense suggests that Islamists may have pursued
the wrong interpretations of Islam, but to argue that they will
be deterred by what are considered the right interpretations is
to fall into the trap of thinking that Islamism is a religious
activity. It is not. It is a political one.
In what Nicky Reilly thought (wrongly) would be his suicide
note, he wrote, "I am doing what God wants from his mujahideen",
and he castigated the West for its drunkenness and sexual
immorality as well as for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Everywhere," he declared, "Muslims are suffering at the hands of
Britain, Israel and America. We are sick of taking all the
brutality from you."[8]
The 7/7 London bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, said much the
same thing in his own suicide message in 2005. "Your
democratically-elected governments continually perpetuate
atrocities against my people all over the world," he insisted,
making it plain that, in his mind, "your democracy" was
the target, because it was responsible for the "atrocities
against my people".[9] Even though Khan told his baby daughter he would
strike "for the sake of Islam",[10] his terrorism was about politics, not
religion.
Appointment of Tariq Ramadan to Oxford
Yet the government is plainly pressing on regardless. The
announcement in July 2009 that the well-known charismatic
Salafist preacher and intellectual, Tariq Ramadan, had been
appointed to a new Islamic studies chair at Oxford University
assed virtually unnoticed. So, too, did the fact that it was the
product of a massive UK£2.39m (AUD$4.3m) donation to Oxford's
Oriental Institute by the Emir of Qatar, His Royal Highness Hamad
Bin Khalifa Al-Thani (the new chair will bear his full
name).[11]
Rumours circulating in Oxford University two years ago that the
donation was given on condition that Ramadan got the chair were
strenuously denied by the university.
Ramadan's job will be to "ensure that the work of the Faculty
will in future have a direct impact on contemporary debates and
developments".[12] When, a few weeks later, the Erasmus University of
Rotterdam announced Ramadan had been dismissed as professor of
"citizenship and identity" (and the City of Rotterdam explained
they had sacked him as "integration advisor"), once again few, if
any, registered this fact. No eyebrows were raised at the reason
for his dismissal (the extreme content of his weekly broadcasts
on Press TV, which is funded by the Islamic Republic of
Iran)[13] or that
the links between the Emir of Qatar and Iran are famously close
(and the cause of much anxiety amongst the other Gulf
States).
On 21 October 2009, Tehran announced the execution of five
individuals, including a mother said to be suffering from
post-natal depression. Iran has at least 134 juveniles on death
row and its current treatment of political dissidents (of whom
many are awaiting execution) is the cause of widespread
international condemnation (although very little coming from
President Obama's White House). An Iranian-American student who
took part in a protest to support free elections was sentenced to
fifteen years' imprisonment.
Whether someone like Tariq Ramadan, who is regularly engaged
by Tehran in its propaganda efforts in the West, is a suitable
person to educate young British Muslims is surely something that
should cause Oxford University to pause for thought. The argument
is not that Ramadan promotes violence, for he has repeatedly said
he opposes it in all its forms. In his case, it is his closeness
to Iran and its vision of an Islamic state that gives rise to
anxiety.
Arab and Islamic bankrolling of academia
The British public have not got their teeth into any of this,
not least because it is so hard for the full facts to be put to
them. What happens in our most prestigious universities appears
arcane, even incomprehensible, to the layman. Moreover, Britain's
stringent libel laws (which allow not only individuals but also
institutions to sue) ensure that those within our great
universities who are deeply anxious about these developments keep
their counsel and will only ever speak "off the record". One
might expect certain think tanks to support investigations, but
they too are terrified of lawsuits. The "old boy" network and the
favours that our older universities can bestow on those they
regard as their supporters also combine to discourage too close a
scrutiny of the evidence.
But there was also another reason that Ramadan's appointment
(and the cash which underwrote it) failed to make waves. This was
because, by that time, there was nothing especially novel about
the Arab and Islamic bankrolling of British academia. In March
2008, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia, had donated £8m to build an Islamic studies centre (to
bear his name) at Cambridge University.[14] Prince Alwaleed has made a number
of substantial donations to Western universities, including
US$20m each to Harvard and Georgetown universities. Professor
Yasir Suleiman, director of the Centre for Middle Eastern and
Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge, said: "The aim of
the centre will be to foster a deeper understanding between Islam
and the West through the twin paths of high-quality research and
an energetic outreach programme."[15]
The new centre in Cambridge did not merely replace an existing
one, but promised that its first research would "focus on Islam
in the United Kingdom and Europe and Islam in the media". What is
equally disturbing is the fact that, in accepting Prince
Alwaleed's money, Cambridge University agreed he could nominate
three members of the centre's management committee (one more than
the university itself). The centre is required to submit written
reports twice a year to the Prince. The Prince will obviously
play a major role in his centre's work. This is certainly a
curious way to run an academic centre in the 21st century.
A few weeks later, on 8 May 2008, the Prince gave the same
amount to Edinburgh University to fund the "centre for the study
of Islam in the contemporary world".[16]
Professor Carole Hillenbrand, head of Edinburgh's department
of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, gushed: "This is the
biggest thing to hit Islamic studies in the UK ever. It is the
biggest donation to the humanities that the University of Edinburgh
has ever received."
She added: "There is ignorance and phobia about
Islam. Our major aim is to improve public knowledge of
Islam."[17] In
2005 Professor Carole Hillenbrand was awarded the King Faisal
prize in Islamic studies, and in 2006 her husband, Professor
Robert Hillenbrand, was awarded the Iran "World Prize" for the
"book of the year".
The phrases used by all these professors ("direct impact on
contemporary debates and developments", "an energetic outreach
programme" and "our major aim is to improve public knowledge of
Islam") show that this funding is not primarily academic, and
questions may be asked as to whether it is appropriate for an
institution of higher education to undertake propaganda work of
this kind.
Over the past ten years, some £237m has been handed over or
pledged. Of this at least an astonishing £172m (some 70 per cent)
has been given to establish Islamic studies centres in the UK's
state-funded universities. None of this money is regulated by the
government in any way whatsoever.
Some 62 per cent (approximately £157m) of the approximately
£260m of Arab and Islamic money that has come into British higher
education over the past decade has gone into Islamic studies
teaching. The British government has so far pledged only £1m. Or,
to put it another way, Arab and Islamic funders have put perhaps
157 times more cash into Islamic studies in British universities
than has the government.
Nor is this the only source of overseas money donated for this
sort of enterprise. Recent reports suggest that the Iranian
government is also busy in the UK, attempting to fund centres to
push its own particular form of Islamic studies. Early in 2009,
it was reported that Iranian "officials" were in Britain, talking
to universities about funding Islamic studies to "set up and
train experts on Islam to assist in the introduction of Islam and
its realities". Currently, the US authorities are attempting to
seize some $650m of Iranian government funding channelled through
the Alavi Foundation whose aim is to promote Islamic studies.
There is, alas, no indication that Britain will follow suit and
every likelihood that it will not.
The lion's share of the funding (perhaps some £169.8m) comes
from Saudi Arabia. Oxford University has been the chief
beneficiary of Arab and Islamic generosity, pocketing about 74
per cent of the total donated or promised (£175.2m out of
£237.5m), or 52 per cent of the total received to date (£49.9m
out of £94.89m). The Saudi businessman and arms dealer, Wafic
Said, has funded the business school which proudly bears his name
(£20m already donated, a further £15m pledged). But this is no
run-of-the-mill business school, as its "Saudi Advanced
Management Programme" makes clear. The Saudis have also given at
least £20m to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (a
"recognised independent centre of the University" famous for its
Muslim-only "leadership programmes"), which occupies a prime
multi-million-pound site, sold by Magdalen College. It comes
replete with an exotic mosque and minarets dominating the
surrounding area.
Saudi educational values
Using the Oxford Islamic Studies Centre as a platform in
February 2005, Prince Saud Al-Faisal delivered a bald statement
of Wahabist principles. The Saudis, he insisted, were entitled to
have a very special position in Islamic matters as their country
"was thrust towards assuming a position of influence and
authority to maintain the moral tradition and the purity of
Islam". Islam, he insisted, had recognised the concept of human
rights some six hundred years before Magna Carta. Saudi Arabia
was "instrumental in the formulation of the Cairo Declaration on
Human Rights", which "codified the Islamic view of human rights".
There could be no acceptance of Western ideas of human rights, he
added, because this would lead to "political domination by the
West and the transformation of a highly devout and traditional
society into a self-indulgent one". In any case, he concluded,
the "credibility of the West" had been "demeaned by its disregard
and neglect of the greatest human-rights crisis in the modern
history of our region — the plight of the Palestinian people",
and he attacked bitterly what he called the "double standard,
practised for decades by the West".[18]
Not surprisingly, the themes of this speech are chilling and
uncompromising — the Wahabis' inalienable right to Islamic
dominance, their unconditional demand for "pure Islam", the idea
that "Islamic" human rights are better than Western ones (as if
their universality should not apply in Muslim lands), the
insistence that the West has ignored the plight of the
Palestinian people, that the West is riddled with hypocrisy and
double standards.
But it is by no means clear that Saudi educational standards
are always as wholesome as one might hope, as was recently
illustrated after court action in 2007 involving the King Fahd
Academy in Acton, London. Dr Sumaya Alyusuf, the school's
principal, admitted that the school, which is owned, funded and
run by the government of Saudi Arabia, used textbooks that
described Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs". She said:
"Yes, I do recognise these books of course. We have these books
in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by
our teachers. It depends on the objectives that the teacher wants
to achieve."[19]
Of course, some Saudi money has no political or religious
purpose whatsoever: Mohammed Al Jaber who has given generously to
London University is correctly seen as a fine and humane
philanthropist.
Vigilance needed to protect academic objectivity
Should we then conclude that Arab and Islamic money has been
influencing the academic output of British universities in
general and Oxford University (as the largest single beneficiary
of this money) in particular? Oxford University, obviously
enough, insists that it has not. Those looking at the outreach
projects of its Middle East Centre (at St Antony's College) may
be less sure. There is certainly very little in them that might
deter an Arab or Islamic funder and a great deal to encourage
them. Not surprisingly, under the circumstances, the Middle East
Centre has been given £1m by the Saudis, and has also just
received from an unnamed Islamic donor many millions to build an
entirely new and futuristic "softbridge" building.
No one suggests, of course, that the academics there have had
their minds changed by the lure of funding: they write and say
what they would write and say in any event. But where their views
are hostile to American and British foreign policy or to Israel,
as they frequently are, the funding that their institutions
receive gives those views far greater traction and prominence
than they would otherwise have. That, after all, is why the new
Middle East centre building has been donated to Oxford. Nor would
there be anything very wrong about this: few would dispute that
Israel's past and present policies merit careful scrutiny, even
harsh criticism. However, the chief distinction between political
debate and academic debate is the latter's emphasis on
objectivity and on fair-minded balance. Here, the university's
Middle East Centre seems wanting.
The centre's Professor Avi Shlaim, who writes "revisionist"
tracts on Israel, has ublicly said that he no longer believes in
the concept of balance when examining the complex situation
there. He wrote: "Israel's policies towards the Palestinians
surely cannot be described as balanced by any stretch of the
imagination. The Biblical injunction of 'an eye for an eye' is
grisly enough, but Israel goes even farther by its habitual
practice of exacting an eye for an eyelash! As Israel's policy
towards the Palestinians becomes more heavy-handed and violent,
the very notion of balance needs to be re-examined."[20] He has also said
"the political deadlock that persisted [in the Middle East]" was
largely because of "Israeli intransigence".[21] Where there is no need for
balance, no debate is needed. But without debate there is no
university. It is not implausible to believe that many Arab and
Islamic funders have little time for the finer but very necessary
aspects of Western education.
Certainly, the web output of Oxford's Middle East Centre seems
unbalanced when the Israel-Palestine conflict is under
discussion. Bizarrely, for several years the salary of the Israel
studies professor at the centre has had to be funded externally
by a Jewish benefactor. Meanwhile, an event entitled "Israeli
Apartheid Week" (which accuses the Israelis of racism) has been
held more than once in the college which is home to the centre,
and has featured speeches by some of its professors, including
Karma Nabulsi who, before becoming an Oxford politics don, was
from 1977-1990 the official representative for the Palestine
Liberation Organisation in Britain.
How free societies should respond
Since British universities are plainly smirking all the way to
the bank, and the government seems highly content to let others
fund our state campuses, why indeed should anyone worry at this
apparent generosity that knows no bounds?
There are two answers. The first is intellectual; the second
has to do with the security of our liberal political democracy.
It is hard to believe that Arab and Islamic donors are keen to
promote the free and unfettered enquiry which is the basis of all
Western higher education, as they do not do so in their own
universities. Where Saudi- or Iranian-funded centres are
concerned, it seems reasonable to suppose that their job is to
advance their benefactors' view of Islam, both in terms of the
unbending and uncompromising Saudi Wahabist view and Iran's
different (because Shi'ite) politically-driven, if somewhat less
extreme, programme.
Over and above this, it is surely good sense for a free
society, in seeking to fight the seemingly unstoppable growth in
Islamist terrorism, to do nothing to expedite it and everything
to slow it down. That means not just that Arab and Islamic
funding should be regulated by law, but that the expansion of
Islamic studies centres, which could cause young Muslims to tip
over the edge and descend into violence, should be halted at
once.
Wahabist hardline believers in the essential purity of Islam
grant no favours to those who wish to debate them, because
Wahabis believe there is nothing to debate. In respect of Islam,
Wahabis and many other Muslims who take an extreme view may even
refuse to accept that non-Muslims should be entitled to teach the
religion. Indeed, the Saudis do not relish debate about anything
much as their extensive use of Britain's libel lawyers
indicates.
The British government distinguishes between "extremism" and
"violent extremism", arguing that only the latter should become a
cause for concern. But extreme views, even where they are
non-violent and intended to promote non-violence, can easily be
bent to support violence by evil recruiters or be misunderstood
by gullible young people.
What is the public advantage to Britain, to any Western state,
in accepting without scrutiny large amounts of Arab and Islamic
funding which will increase the threat of terrorism and Islamist
subversion rather than diminish it?
The vast majority of Muslims reject Islamism. But a small
minority will embrace it. The answer to this problem is not to
increase exposure to Islam by building ever more Islamic centres
but, as with all religious activity, to confine the study of
Islam — and other Middle Eastern issues — in a balanced way,
within the bounds set by Western ideas of pluralism and rational,
even sceptical, debate. The last thing that Britain needs today
is to increase the possible risk of violent extremism.
Foreign donations to British political parties are illegal on
the grounds that they might give donors undue influence on
British public life. Yet Arab and Islamic gifts of money to
universities are not merely perfectly legal but also wholly
unregulated by government, even though universities educate the
political class from which the next generation of law-makers,
diplomats and lawyers will emerge. Over and above this, in
seeking to fight the seemingly unstoppable growth in Islamist
terrorism, we must now regulate the Arab and Islamic funding of
Islamic studies to be certain there is nothing untoward taking
place at their fringes. All existing Islamic studies centres
should be subjected to the most careful scrutiny, particularly
when those who teach in them seem ill-equipped to defend Western
democratic values on account of those for whom they willingly
work.
This is not an attempt to stifle dissenting viewpoints, still
less to crush the proper study of Islam. But the time has come to
make life much harder for extremist reachers, not because
extremism always leads to terrorism or violence. It does not. Yet
every terrorist has been an extremist and a radical.
Where extremist preachers have radicalised Muslims, their
activities should be terminated or they should be allowed to
transfer to Islamic states. The Fort Hood killings are but
another example of what we have already learned to our cost:
Islamist preachers can be serious security threats. We should do
nothing to assist them in their murderous activities.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Mervyn F.
Bendle, "Secret Saudi funding of radical Islamic groups in
Australia", National Observer (Melbourne), No. 72, Autumn
2007, pp.7–18.
URL: www.nationalobserver.net/pdf/2007_secret_saudi_funding_of_radical_islamic_groups_in_australia.pdf
Mervyn F. Bendle, "How to be a useful idiot: Saudi funding in
Australia — Part II", National Observer (Melbourne), No.
77, Winter 2008, pp.8–24.
URL: www.nationalobserver.net/pdf/2008_saudi_funding_in_australia_part_ii.pdf
[7] UK state
security service MI5, Whitehall briefing, 12 June 2008
[11] Oxford
University Gazette, No. 4857, Vol. 139, 16 October
2008.
[17] Loc
cit. Professor Carole Hillenbrand, her husband Professor Robert
Hillenbrand and Professor Yasir Suleiman, (previously at
Edinburgh where he held the Iraq chair of Islamic studies and now
professor of modern Arabic studies at Cambridge and director of
the new Islamic studies centre there) all declined to be
interviewed for the record for this study. URL:
www.imes.ed.ac.uk/EISAWI/newsletters/eisawi2005-2006.pdf
THE AUTHOR
Anthony Glees, MA, MPhil, DPhil
(Oxford), is professor of politics at the University of
Buckingham, UK, and directs its Buckingham Centre for Security
and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS) for postgraduate students. He
has a specialist concern with security and intelligence issues
and has written and lectured on aspects of the history of British
intelligence, on Islamism, on terrorism and counter-terrorism,
and on subversion in Western democracies, both today and in the
past. Among the books he has written are The Secrets of the
Service: British Intelligence and Communist Subversion,
1939-51 (Jonathan Cape, 1987) and The Stasi Files: East
Germany's Secret Operations Against Britain (Simon &
Schuster, 2003). He has co-authored, with Chris Pope, a study,
When Students Turn to Terror: Terrorist and Extremist Activity
on British Campuses (Social Affairs Unit, 2005).