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Ramadan Prayer Day 23 – Education: “U.S. Universities and the Muslim Brotherhood”

In the aftermath of 9/11, at the request of the White House, Swiss authorities raided the villa of Youssef Nada, the director of Al-Taqwa Bank and an admitted Muslim Brotherhood International Leader. In the raid they recovered a document, known as “The Project.” According to testimony given by Nada to Swiss authorities, “Islamic researchers” associated with the Muslim Brotherhood prepared the document with recommended tactics and techniques to “establish an Islamic government on earth.”

You can see many of these tactics in the document unfolding today. Two of these have a direct impact on our educational institutions.  The Project recommended, “Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be converted and put into service of Islam.” Another advises Brotherhood Members to cultivate an Islamist intellectual community that includes, “publishing ‘academic’ studies, to legitimize Islamist positions,”

One of the best ways to accomplish these goals is through donations to western universities around the world. Muslims have poured millions of dollars into our universities. This money has influenced Middle Eastern study departments, academic chairs and even curriculum taught. According to Brigitte Gabriel, founder of ACT for America, prominent U.S. universities receiving Islamic money include Georgetown (28.1 million), Harvard (22.5 million), University of Arkansas (20 million), Cornell (11 million), Berkley (5 million), MIT (5 million), Texas A&M (1.5 million) and others such as Rutgers, Columbia, Princeton, UC-Santa Barbara, John Hopkins, Rice, American, USC, UCLA, Duke, Syracuse, Howard University plus many others.

In addition, six U.S. universities have established a permanent relationship to the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS). The universities are Texas A&M University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Georgetown University of Foreign Service, Virginia Commonwealth University of the Arts, Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University all located in Qatar. Typically American universities having a presence in other countries is not unusual, however the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies has some other interesting connections.

The website for the QFIS lists among other specialized centers, the Al-Qaradawi Center for Islamic Moderation and Renewal. In addition the newest QFIS research center is to be headed by Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan’s grandfather was Hasan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ramadan was banned from the United States under the Bush administration for his ties to terrorism, but the Obama administration lifted the ban in 2010. Al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, lived in Qatar prior to his return to Egypt after the fall of President Mubarak. While in Qatar, he amassed great wealth as the shariah advisor to the Bank of Al-Taqwa.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report says, “The formation of the center represents a highly significant coming together of Qaradawi and Ramadan, the two most important leaders of the Global Muslim Brotherhood.”

The universities receiving money and partnering with the Muslim Brotherhood is further evidence of how deeply the educational sphere of influence has been infiltrated by those with an Islamist agenda. Most importantly, these institutions are training our future leaders in government and media.

PRAY FOR EDUCATION:

  • Ask God to reveal the “deep and hidden things” (Dan. 2:22) that is in many of our universities and bring it to the light.
  • Pray that parents, alumni, and students around our nation will see the truth behind the Islamist agenda in their schools and demand administrations turn down any money that is given to teach propaganda rather than facts.
  • Pray that God will raise up parents, alumni and students in each university that has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood to demand investigations into the influence of any monies given.
  • Pray that God will strengthen Christian universities around the nation – teaching the truth to young men and women of God and the necessary skills to lead others on a righteous path.
bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan Day 19 – Education: “Interreligious University – Compromising Education”

On September 6, 2011 the newly formed Claremont Lincoln University officially opened. “Claremont, a Methodist institution dating back to 1885 has partnered with the Islamic Center of Southern California, the Academy for Jewish Religion and the International School for Jain Studies” [Jain is an Indian religion] to create the world’s first interreligious university. This is the first multi-religious program of its kind offering a curriculum that allows religious leaders to cross-enroll in programs that train Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders. Other Christian institutions such as Hartford Seminary train imams, but this is the first to include Jewish and Jain studies. The university hopes to eventually add Hinduism and Buddhism studies to the project.

The university will train rabbis, imam and pastors from many denominations. According to one report, “the Claremont Lincoln University will be a space where future religious leaders and scholars can learn from each other and collaboratively seek solutions to major global issues that no one single religion can solve alone.” Claremont claims they are not watering down Christianity but are taking “Christ’s commands to be peacemakers and to love our neighbor as ourselves seriously.”

In order to understand the basis for this university, it is helpful to look at the founders. Rev. Jerry Campbell, Rabbi Mel Gottlieb and Imam Jihad Turk are the co-founders of this new model of education. These three men met regularly each month for a year picking a theme, preparing and then spending a couple of hours with each other discussing what their various texts said.

Perhaps most revealing about the future direction of the university is an account about one of these meetings from an article written by Rabbi Gottlieb:

For this session, Imam Turk chose a text from the Quran that is often interpreted as meaning that those who don’t believe in Islam cannot obtain salvation. He pointed out, however, that capitalizing the word Islam in this case is a fundamentalist translation. It implies that those who believe the religion of Islam are superior. Other texts in the Quran (such as 2:62) contradict that assumption.

In fact, said Imam Turk, the correct scholarly translation of this text is to spell islam with a lower case “i,” using the word’s literal meaning: submission/yielding (to God). Since Christians, Jews and other spiritual people, as well as Muslims, yield to the Divine, they are all included in the word islam.

So according to at least one of the founders he believes all spiritual people are included in Islam. In addition, Imam Turk left out the Qur’anic verses preceding sura 2:62 that basically says if Arab pagans, Jews and Christians are in doubt concerning the Qur’an they should fear the fire of hell which is prepared for disbelievers (sura 2:22-24).

There is One, Jesus Christ, who is Truth. The scriptures warn that we are not to compromise the truth. The Word of God in II Tim. 3:7 tells us there will be those who are “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

PRAYER FOR EDUCATION:

  • Pray for a move of God’s Holy Spirit among the students at this and other universities around our nation. Pray that the God of Truth will reveal Himself to every student and professor who have ever confessed the name of Jesus Christ as Savior in such a way that there is no room or desire for compromise.
  • Pray that Muslim, Jewish and Jain students at this historically Christian University will have an encounter with the God of John Wesley and the fire of His Spirit that will fundamentally change the atmosphere of the academic world.
bestcurrentnews Ramadan Prayer

Ramadan Prayer Day 6 – Education: “May Truth Prevail”

President Thomas Jefferson considered the founding of the University of Virginia as one of his greatest achievements. Referring to the university in a letter dated, December 27, 1820, he stated, “This institution will be based on the illimitable (limitless) freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

Today’s universities are increasingly distancing themselves from the vision of Thomas Jefferson. This is especially true when you examine certain groups such as the Muslim Student Association (MSA) that are present on many campuses. Jefferson’s desire for the human mind to be free allows students to follow truth, but when this western mindset of freedom to pursue truth meets Islam there is a clash of mindsets. The religion of Islam presents itself as absolute truth and unlike Christianity does not allow its followers to question its teachings. Both the Qur’an and the hadith warn Muslims not to question Islamic teachings. The Qur’an says “A people asked such [questions] before you; then they became thereby disbelievers” (sura 5:102). In the classic manual of Islamic Sacred Law, “The Reliance of the Traveller” it says that to deny any verse of the Qur’an, or anything which by scholarly consensus belongs to it, is apostasy from Islam, which is punishable by death.

Perhaps even more tragic is the refusal of western universities to insist their students employ reason to combat error when it comes to Islamic issues. Rather than insisting students examine issues and form opinions by considering differing viewpoints and engaging in respectful dialogue, universities far too often attempt to be politically correct and tolerant in their treatment of the Islamic religion and Muslim views on political and social issues. How can our institutions of higher learning follow truth when they are unwilling to allow reason to even be voiced much less considered?

A recent example occurred when speaker and author, David Horowitz was invited to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to discuss the increasingly dangerous position of Israel in the Middle East. The Daily Tarheel, the campus newspaper, reported nearly all the students in attendance for the lecture walked out about 20 minutes into Mr. Horowitz’s speech. However, another report says the majority of the students stayed for the entire lecture.

The Carolina Review, UNC’s conservative journal reported, a spokesperson for the Muslim Student Association (MSA) that participated in the walkout said, “…Mr. Horowitz hurts the ‘culture of tolerance’ that UNC has worked to build over the years, because UNC has made such great progress in making ‘a point of respecting diversity and minority voices on this campus.’”

The campus newspaper printed three articles, an editorial cartoon and one letter to the editor regarding the event that were all critical of Mr. Horowitz’s views. In addition to one-sided reporting of the incident, The Daily Tarheel refused to print a letter to the editor from David Horowitz addressing the walkout, which included the following observation:

The closed-minded students – mainly but not exclusively members of MSA – who came not to listen to what I had to say but with the intention of walking out on cue exemplified an attitude that is all too common on campuses today. The intent of these “protests” is to defame a speaker whose views they oppose but cannot answer intellectually.

Rather than respecting Mr. Horowitz’s opinion and engage in the question and answer session that followed his speech, this group of students left. This is not the first time a group of Muslim students have left such a gathering. In February of 2010, eleven students that were part of the Muslim Student Union at the University of California Irvine disrupted and walked out of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech. Because their actions were disruptive and stopped the Ambassador from being able to continue to speak, 11 students were arrested and the Muslim Student Union was suspended for an academic quarter. The school obtained e-mails that showed the group, “planned, orchestrated and coordinated” the protest.

Far too often those who disagree with the Islamic viewpoint on issues are the victims of insults and personal attacks in an effort to silence them. There can be no dialogue, education nor reason in such environments, only delusion.

PRAYER FOR EDUCATION:

• Pray those that are the victims of these attacks will continue to be invited to campuses across the country and will continue to speak truth.

• Pray that Muslims attending universities will begin to examine the teachings and political stands of their religion.

• Pray that God’s TRUTH will resound across college campuses throughout our land.

• Pray that Thomas Jefferson’s words will become reality – that our universities and colleges will not be afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.