As for the related topic of this blog today, please refer to my previous postings（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20080425）（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20140911）（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20140918）（http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily/20080425）. (Lily)
Middle East Forum（http://www.meforum.org/blog/2015/09/campus-watch-briefs）
Campus Watch Briefs
18 September 2015
Howlers of the Month
Campus Watch's new "Howler of the Month" is by Anthony T. Kronman, a Sterling Professor at Yale Law School and future co-director of the Abdallah S. Kamel Center of Islamic Law and Civilization, which will be funded by $10 million from a Saudi businessman:
You mention Islamic law in the United States and it's a subject that sets off fireworks. . . . [T]here has been strands within this complex world of belief that have been more fundamentalist . . . There have been other traditions which have been more open-ended and flexible and creative in adapting to modern realities and I can understand why an American on the street has no familiarity with the complexity of this world without really thinking about things too much with one particular strand, which has grabbed headlines to the shock and dismay of many very intelligent and knowledgeable Muslims. (Yale Launches Islamic Law Center With $10 Million Gift From Saudi Businessman, The Connecticut Law Tribune, September 15, 2015.)
Will Yale's $10 Million Saudi Grant Whitewash Islamic Law?
Saudi businessman Abdallah S. Kamel has donated $10 million to Yale University Law School to establish a center for the "Study of Islamic Law and Civilization." In doing so, Yale joins Harvard, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, and other American universities in accepting Saudi largesse that, experience tells us, often results in Middle East studies centers and academics producing apologias for Islamism.
In this case, the focus is on Sharia (Islamic) law, which, as noted by the Independent Journal Review, is "antithetical to the classical and modern liberal traditions of Western Civilization." The fact that Yale Law School Dean Robert C. Post described Sharia, a pre-modern, barbaric legal code that proponents are seeking to expand into the West, as having "a long and proud tradition, which encompasses great intellectual achievements" does not bode well.
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