Kuwait has been a similarly generous donor to British academia, with the British Society for Middle East Studies’ main annual book prize being named after and funded for many years by a member of the ruling family.[402] Since 2010 the prize has been administered by Cambridge University, with the ruling family member remaining as one of the five judges. More substantially, since 2007 the government-backed Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences has been funding a substantial $15 million, ten year research programme at the LSE on ‘development, governance, and globalisation in the Gulf states’ and has funded an endowed professorship — the Kuwait Professorship of Economics and Political Sciences. Despite KFAS stating that the incumbent professor should ‘… take a first hand interest in key issues affecting the economic development of resource rich economies, particularly the Gulf States as well bringing recognition of Kuwait to prestigious academic and policy-making circles around the world’, it appears that neither of the two postholders since 2007 have actually focused on the Gulf states.[403] In May 2011 the prime minister of Kuwait — a key member of the ruling family — began sponsoring Durham University, funding an eponymously named $3.5 million research programme along with a similarly eponymous endowed professorship — the His Highness Sheikh Nasser bin Muhammad Al-Sabah Chair in International Relations, Regional Politics, and Security.[404] Only months later, as discussed later in this book, Nasser was ousted as prime minister following popular protests and allegations of corruption, but the university has opted to retain the gift.
There are now many examples of substantial donations from other Gulf monarchies in British universities — again mostly from government-backed entities or influential ruling family members. Qatar’s ruler has paid Oxford University about $3.5 million to endow a new professorship named after himself — the His Highness Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Chair in Contemporary Islamic Studies[405] while Oman’s ruler has paid for two endowed professorships at Cambridge University, which again seem to be safely distanced from any discussion of Gulf politics — the His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Professor of Modern Arabic Studies and the His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Chair for Abrahamic Faiths and Common Values.[406] Not to be outdone, in 2008 Saudi Arabia’s influential Al-Waleed bin Talal Al-Saud paid for a $13 million Centre for Islamic Studies, also at Cambridge,[407] and provided comparable funding for setting up the Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University. Most symbolic perhaps, is the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies, which is a ‘recognised independent centre of the University of Oxford’. Founded in 1985, it has a substantial new building nearing completion and many endowed fellowships. Although some of its funding has come from British and US entities and other parts of the Islamic world, the bulk of the funding is believed to originate in the Gulf monarchies. Saudi Arabia alone is believed to have already donated about $30 million to the centre.[408]
Although not a university as such, Britain’s Sandhurst Academy — the elite training school for Britain’s military and the alma mater for several current Gulf ruling family members — has also been receiving substantial donations. In 2009, for example, the UAE was reported to have financed the building of a new hall of residence at the academy to house a hundred cadets.[409] Tellingly, the following day it was announced by Britain’s ambassador to the UAE that the Queen’s Household Cavalry would perform at Abu Dhabi’s International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition later that year — the first overseas display ever performed by the squadron. He also went on to state that ‘The fact is that there is no relationship the United Kingdom has with countries in the Middle East that is more important to us than that with United Arab Emirates’ while a senior British military personality stated that ‘I think that anything we can do to cement the relations between Abu Dhabi and the UK is a good thing’.[410]
Similar, although often smaller donations, have been made to universities in other parts of Western Europe and the Commonwealth. At the Australian National University, for example, there exists the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Senior Lectureship at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, funded by Dubai’s deputy ruler. In Canada, at McMaster University, there exists the Sharjah Chair in Global Islam, funded by Sharjah’s ruler. And in France, at Sciences-Po, a five year KFAS-funded Kuwait Programme has been running since 2007—much like the KFAS-LSE programme. Such funding has found its way into US universities, too, but the US has historically been a more troublesome recipient given the relative influence of its Israel lobby, which has on occasion sought to block such gifts. In 2000, for example, the Harvard University staff and student body signed a petition to reject an offer of an endowed professorship in Islamic studies from Abu Dhabi’s ruler on the grounds that a think-tank linked to the ruling family — the Zayed Centre for Co-ordination and Follow-Up — was allegedly promoting anti-Semitism and that there were well-documented human rights abuses in the UAE. The original plan for the professorship, which would have been named after the ruler, was to have the usual broad focus, thus allowing the incumbent to circumvent discussion of the Gulf monarchies.[411] Similarly in 2007 the University of Connecticut pulled out of a relationship with Dubai for much the same reasons.[412] Nevertheless significant donations have still been made over the years, with funds from Saudi Arabia having been channelled to the University of Arkansas (which received $27 million for its Middle East Studies Center), and with Cornell University, Rutgers University, Princeton University, and a number of others also receiving donations. The University of Southern California’s Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture, for example, is named after the former Saudi king, Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud, while Georgetown University’s renowned Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding was renamed the Prince Al-Waleed Bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding following a $20 million gift from Al-Waleed in 2005. This prompted a congressman in 2008 to question whether the centre had ever been critical of the Saudi government.[413]
Most recently, in 2011 the College of William and Mary, one of the oldest higher education institutions in the US, accepted a gift from Oman’s ruler to establish an endowed professorship — the Sultan Qaboos bin Said Academic Chair of Middle East Studies. Meanwhile Harvard University now appears to have accepted a $1 million donation from the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, despite its earlier rejection of Abu Dhabi ruling family funds. The gift, made out to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, has helped set up a graduate training scheme at Harvard for Abu Dhabi’s top public officials, while also helping to ‘advance the mission of the School’s Middle East Initiative, a nexus for convening policymakers and scholars on the region’. Upon signing the agreement, the Abu Dhabi crown prince’s court stated that ‘this… echoes President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s steadfast belief that the progress of nations is built on education, and Crown Prince His Highness General Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan’s unwavering commitment to education and the constant development of the future ranks of leaders’.[414]
411
103. According to a Harvard Divinity School press release from 15 September 2000 the appointee was to focus on ‘broad teachings on the history, tenets, and practice of the Islamic faith and their implications for local and global societies’ and provide ‘leadership and direction for the wider, interdisciplinary program of Islamic Studies’.
412
104. The University of Connecticut had planned to open a branch campus in Dubai, but pulled out on the grounds of alleged anti-Semitism.