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.
“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.
A caller to the Laura Ingraham show had a good idea. How about if we offer to trade them. We'll put their Islamic centers in our schools, if they allow Christian centers in theirs. Of course, that won't happen because Christianity is barred by law in Saudi Arabia and many other Islamic countries.
And, as LGF points out, this is the same guy who tried to give a bunch of money to Rudy Giuliani after 9/11, but the donation was turned down after the prince offered a theory that it was U.S. policies in the Middle East that caused the 9/11 attacks.
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