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U.S. religious media is reporting that the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) has awarded one million to the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. According to the report:

A theological college known widely for its research and resources has been awarded a one million dollar gift from an Islamic think tank to help endow a professorship in Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations.

Announced Tuesday, the gift to Hartford Seminary will allow the Connecticut school to “continue – and expand – our leadership education programs for chaplains and imams,” reported Hartford President Dr. Heidi Hadsell.

”Hartford Seminary is truly honored to be the recipient of this generous gift, which shows the commitment of IIIT to both education and service to the American Muslim community,” she added after announcing the gift from the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Va.

Presently, Hartford Seminary’s Islamic Chaplaincy Program is the only accredited chaplaincy program for Muslims in the United States. The program, which started ten years ago, educates chaplains for service in the military, colleges, prisons and hospitals.

According to the non-denominational school, many of the religious needs of Muslims are being addressed through the aforementioned institutions.

In Monday’s announcement, IIIT Vice President Dr. Jamal Barzinji said the Islamic think tank was impressed with Hartford Seminary’s dedication to educating and preparing chaplains and imams for leadership in their professions.

“An endowed chair will help expand and enhance these programs,” he added. “Establishing endowed chairs in American academia is in line with IIIT’s goal of promoting scholarship in the study of Islam in America.”

According to Hartford, the first holder of the endowed chair will be Dr. Timur Yuskaev, assistant professor of Contemporary Islam and director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program.

In his remarks, Yuskaev said his particular emphasis will be on “contributing to Hartford’s impressive record of working with Muslim congregations and organizations, in the local area and beyond.”

Hartford, in cooperation with IIIT and its Fairfax Institute in Herndon, Va., has begun a pilot Graduate Certificate in Imam Education that will prepare Muslim religious leaders for service in mosques and community agencies throughout the Greater Washington, D.C. area.

Hartford Seminary’s Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations is the country’s oldest center for such study.”

An earlier post discussed the beginning of an imam training program conducted by the Fairfax Institute, a part of IIIT, in cooperation with the Hartford Seminary. This program along with the grant discussed above represent growing links between IIIT and the Hartford Seminary where former Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) president Ingrid Mattson is the director of the Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, Director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program, and Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations. In 2008, IIIT attempted to endow a chair at Temple University on behalf of Dr. Ayoub but the offer was suspended pending a federal investigation into the role of IIIT in the financing of a Florida think-tank that served as a front for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Last December, IIIT announced the formation of its Council of Scholars which included Ms. Mattson as well as Dr. Ayoub and in February, IIIT held a joint open house with the Duncan Black Macdonald Center.

According to a recent Hudson Institute report, IIIIT was founded in the U.S. in 1980 by U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Jamal Barzinji and Hisham Altalib who wished to promote the “Islamization of Knowledge” and who were also early leaders of ISNA. IIIT was associated with the now defunct SAAR Foundation, a network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in March 2002 in connection with the financing of terrorism and both organizations had been under investigation at that time by the U.S. Justice Department until at least mid 2007. The organization appeared to have withdrawn from public view following the 2002 raids but seems to be enjoying a renaissance of late. IIIT has a network of affiliates located in Europe, Africa, the MIddle East, and Asia. Although little is known about the activities of these IIIT affiliates, recent posts have discussed plans by IIIT to construct colleges in Bosnia and Lebanon.

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The Union of Good is reporting that a Kuwait Muslim Brotherhood charity is distributing one million dollars to the orphans of sponsored families in Gaza. According to the report:

Gaza Humanitarian Voice – 2011-08-29 The Kuwaiti Palestinian Charity for Social Care, has started to distribute one million dollars to the orphans of sponsored families in Gaza, with finance from the Kuwaiti “World Mercy” charity.

The charity explained that sponsorship amounts were delivered to thousands of orphans, needy families, persons with special needs, and sponsored students to their benefit before the Eid-ul-Fitr ( expected tomorrow or the day after).

The executive director of the charity, Kamal Musleh said “the charity has exerted significant efforts to provide these due amounts of money for about 7000 orphans, needy families, and students to enable them buying their needs before the Eid (feast marking end of Ramadan).

He reaffirmed that these due amounts of money are considered the biggest of its kind , noting that these vulnerable categories are in dire need for such support with the advent occasion of the Eid-ul-Fitr to draw a smile and happiness on their faces.”

A 2008 report from the same source identifies Kamal Musleh as the Director of the Kuwaiti-based Arrahma Alalameya, or International Mercy, in Gaza which it says is one of the organizations of the Kuwaiti Social Reform Society, in turn, a part of the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood. The 2008 report went on to say that a project called the Kuwait Center for Orphans had been established to provide “complete educational, health, cultural, and entertainment services to the orphans of Gaza.” A NEFA foundation report identifies the Social Reform Society as a part of the Union of Good which it describes as follows:

…a coalition of Islamic charities that provides financial support to both the Hamas “social” infrastructure, as well as its terrorist activities. It is headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, and most of the trustees and member organizations are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. The Union of Good was banned by Israel in 2002 and was recently designated a terrorist entity by the United States, although neither Youssef Qaradawi nor any of the Trustees were similarly designated. Despite the fact that action has been taken against some of its member organizations in Europe, many of its other European member organizations continue to operate. Further, the Union of Good itself does not appear to be under investigation in Europe.

As documented in the NEFA report, “orphan sponsorship” is closely associated with Hamas fundraising.

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Salah Sultan, a prominent member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), has amplified his demands for violent actions against Israeli by Egyptians, this time issuing a fatwa (religious ruling) calling for the killing of the Israeli ambassador on Alzajeera TV. According to a MEMRI translation:

Following are excerpts from a statement by Egyptian cleric Dr. Sallah Sultan, founder of the American Center for Islamic Research, Columbus Ohio, which aired on Al-Jazeera Network on August 26, 2011:

Sallah Sultan: As someone who has studied Islamic law, specializing in Islamic jurisprudence, I am calling to kill the [Israeli] ambassador, not just expel him. Our sons were killed in our country, on our land, and our sons are being killed in Gaza by an occupying enemy. Brothers and sisters, the genuine rulings of Islamic law can no longer be silenced. I am prepared to confront any Islamic scholar who says otherwise.

[…]

When General Issam Al-Tarsawi headed the anti-narcotics unit, he said that heroin and other drugs were first brought to Egypt in the suitcases of Zionist diplomats, which are not subjected to search. That’s right. Before the [Camp David] Accords, Egypt did not have these drugs, these crimes, or these images.

Show me one good thing that came out of the normalization of relations with the Zionist entity. You may say: We got the Sinai. Did we really?! To this day, we do not have authority over the Sinai.

[…]

Once I said: Any Zionist – tourist or other – who enters Egypt must be killed. We will not kill tourists from any [other] country. We stress that this fatwa is directed only toward those Zionists, who destroyed our country, killed our people, and shed our blood on our land.

A post from last week reported that Sultan had said it is permissible for any Egyptian to kill a Zionist met on Egyptian territory. An earlier post reported that Dr. Sultan is one of the featured speakers at a planned camp of new European converts to Islam sponsored by A Dutch organization with ties to the Global Muslim Brotherhood. In April 2010, Dr. Sultan accused Jews of using Christian blood for Matzoh (substitute for bread used during the Jewish holiday of Passover) in an example of what is called “blood libel”, the accusations that Jews use human blood in religious rituals. (Historically these are accusations that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted and date back to the 1st Century.)

Dr. Salah Sultan (aka Solah Sultan, Sallah Sultan) had left the U.S. following negative press reports in the U.S. media which led the authorities there to suspend his application for American citizenship and, as discussed in a previous post, relocated to Bahrain in 2007. Dr Sultan’s online resume indicates that he is or was a member of several important U.S. and European Muslim Brotherhood organizations including the European Council for Fatwa and Research, the Fiqh Council of North America, and the Islamic American University, closely associated with the Muslim American Society (MAS).This resume also expresses Dr. Soltan’s vision “To live happily. To die as a martyr.” Another previous post discussed some of Dr. Sultan statements including an appearance on Saudi TV where Dr. Sultan asserted that the US planned the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for terrorizing the world and praising Osama bin Laden confidante Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani. A recent MEMRI TV report identified previously virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American comments made by Dr. Sultan on Egyptian TV in late December. Another post discussed a seminar featuring Dr. Sultan sponsored by the European Assembly for Imams and Spiritual Guides, closely associated with the Federation of Islamic Organizations In Europe (FIOE).

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