RUTHFULLY YOURS

In 2016, Brandeis University hired an anti-Semitic Islamist formerly linked to al-Qaeda to teach students about Islam.

Brandeis offered Boston-based cleric Suheil Laher a job in its Near Eastern and Judaic Studies department despite his long history of involvement with extremist causes. That history includes his leadership of a now-defunct charity that raised funds for jihadist causes in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan.

This academic year, Laher is teaching two courses at Brandeis: “Introduction to the Qu’ran” and “Muhammad: Life, Teachings, and Legacy.” Given Laher’s past, what strain of Islam is he likely to promote?

Before Brandeis, Laher was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Muslim chaplain for almost twenty years. While at MIT, he also served, from 2000, as head of a Boston-based charity named CARE International (not to be confused with the current charity of the same name). Originally named the “Al Kifah Refugee Center,” the charity was founded by Abdullah Azzam, a founding member of al-Qaeda and a mentor to Osama Bin Laden.

CARE served to support jihad. According to J.M. Berger, a fellow with the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague:

[H]undreds of thousands of dollars passed through CARE for distribution to jihadists and jihad-support organizations overseas.

CARE also arranged public screenings of jihadist videos, and published a newsletter called “Al Hussam” (“The Sword”), which “was stuffed with short, informative news items from various fronts in the global jihad.”

Berger notes:

CARE’s tactics included dinner speeches and events at local mosques and universities, among them MIT, Boston College, and Boston University, usually slipping them in under the auspices of the local Muslim Students Association.

As the MIT Muslim chaplain, Laher would have overseen MIT’s Muslim Students’ Association and have been able to promote CARE’s jihadist causes among the Muslim students under his leadership.

While at MIT, Laher did not hide his Islamist views. His personal website at the time featured attacks on Jews, Christians, and kuffar (non-believers):

The kuffar, including the Jews and Christians, can never become our intimate friends, confidantes or close allies.

Laher’s personal website featured al-Qaeda leader Abdullah Azzam’s infamous call to jihad. It also linked to an al-Qaeda fundraising website. It urged Muslims to reject the “evils” of the West.

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