Saudi Prince Donates $40M to Universities (or Islamic Studies at Harvard and Georgetown)

A Saudi prince believed to be the wealthiest businessman in the Muslim world has donated $40 million for Harvard and Georgetown to expand their Islamic studies programs, the schools announced Monday.

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, who gave $20 million to each university, is a nephew of the late King Fahd and worth upward of $20 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which ranked him fifth on its 2005 list of the world's billionaires.

Harvard and Georgetown officials said they will use the gifts to add faculty and scholarships and expand their Islamic studies curricula.

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"Bridging the understanding between East and West is important for peace and tolerance," Prince Alwaleed said in a statement issued by both schools.

Harvard, which is naming its newly created program after Alwaleed, already has more than two dozen faculty researching or teaching in the field of Islamic studies.

"This program will enable us to recruit additional faculty of the highest caliber, adding to our strong team of professors who are focusing on this important area of scholarship," Harvard President Lawrence Summers said in a statement.

Georgetown will use the gift, the second-largest in its history, to expand its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The center, which was founded in 1993, also will be renamed after Alwaleed.

"At this time of world conflict, Georgetown is committed to build upon our role as a Catholic, Jesuit institution in fostering greater understanding among religions around the world," said the university's president, John DeGioia.

Harvard plans to use its gift to launch the Islamic Heritage Project, which will digitally preserve Islamic texts and make them available on the Internet.

Georgetown plans to endow three new faculty chairs and expand its center's library.

(probably this guy gave to pakistani charities as well.)

South Asia
Dec 6, 2005

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GL06Df01.html

US on the scent of terror money in Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Beyond the tragedy of more than 70,000 lives being lost in the October 8 earthquake that devastated large sections of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the disaster alerted US intelligence to the fact that the financial conduits that feed militancy and terror remain very much intact.

At very short notice, millions of dollars poured into the coffers of the jihadi group Jamaatut Dawa (formerly Lashkar-i-Taiba), allowing it to immediately take over relief operations in Kashmir while the Pakistan government dallied.

As a direct consequence of this realization, the US Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA) once again prevailed on Islamabad to launch an offensive against al-Qaeda-linked foreign elements sheltering in the country, notably in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan.

One Pakistan move involves Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz of the famous Lal Masjid Islamabad. They issued a controversial religious edict during one of the previous operations in South Waziristan calling on people not to pray at the funerals of Pakistan Army personnel killed in action in the area. The two religious leaders have had their movements restricted.

On the US side, they appear to have scored a hit with the elimination of al-Qaeda number three, Hamza Rabia, in North Waziristan, apparently through missiles fired from a CIA drone. However, the body has not been found and al-Qaeda has denied that he is dead.

During the latest crackdown, the activities of the Jamaatut Dawa are also under the spotlight.

A high-level Washington-based source told Asia Times Online:
"Like prayers, zakat [compulsory charity - 2.5% of an individuals's annual reserves/savings in Sunni Islam and 5% among Shi'ites] and pilgrimage, jihad is also an integral part of the Muslim faith, that is why there is a trend that those Muslim philanthropists who build mosques, seminaries and donate money to Islamic relief operators also send money to those they view as mujahideen. That is the reason decision-makers in Washington are convinced that those who contribute money to Islamic groups in Kashmir are also involved in supporting the resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The current operations in Pakistan are being supervised and controlled by US intelligence. The role of the Pakistani forces is to do the supporting "donkey work".

A case study
Dr Dawood Qasmi, a graduate of the Dow Medical College in the port city of Karachi, works at the National Institute of Child Health in the same city. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is in hot pursuit of him.

His father, brother and two nephews were arrested, and the women of his family were threatened with arrest if Dawood did not give himself up. However, a hue and cry raised in the media forced government agencies to release the men and lay off the women.

Dawood is a former commander of the banned Laskhar-i-Taiba in Sindh province. His role was to recruit civilians to join the Kashmiri movement. He was closely associated with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Kashmir cell. The ISI provided him with ample funds to recruit youths, beside giving him expensive vehicles and armed guards. Laskhar-i-Taiba was one of the most active militant groups in Kashmir.

But post-September 11, 2001, events changed Dawood's life (Asia Times Online wrote a detailed account of his life Confessions of a failed jiha

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